Food and Wine

Ever thought about eating your way around Tasmania? The tastes of Tasmania are as varied as they are fine – and often the providores are both grower and producer. For the visitor this is the opportunity to feast on ‘home grown’ foods: pick up freshly harvested vegetables at a village market, savour the sweet, sharp crunch of apples from a roadside stall, or visit a local’s fish punt for superb, fresh seafood.

From smoked salmon to chilli honey, the various regions of Tassie offer their own surprises. The state’s distinct seasons nurture changing delights: summertime in the Huon Valley brings the opportunity to pick your own berries – eat your fill as well! In the autumn you’ll never taste snappier apples.

Year-round at Hobart’s Salamanca Market every Saturday, select from the Hmong (Vietnamese) community’s beautifully-presented fresh vegetables.

Taste fresh Tasmanian Atlantic salmon, blue-eye cod (‘trevalla’) and ocean trout. Check the blackboards for the latest catch at Constitution Dock fish punts, barely a fisherman’s cast from the market. Local delicacies include wonderful shellfish: crayfish, oysters, mussels, scallops and abalone. Other specialties are fresh or pickled octopus and the unique taste of wakame seaweed.

Rollicking green pastures produce some of the nation’s finest dairy products, especially marvellous cheeses – blues and bries, cheddars and camemberts. Many cheese-makers offer farm-gate or factory tastings and direct sales. Creamy milk means that mouth-watering, homemade natural ice-cream is rather fine, too.