A Scottish-born chef has won an international culinary prize by using ingredients and cooking techniques learned from indigenous Australian people.
Jock Zonfrillo has visited hundreds of remote communities in Australia to understand the origins of ingredients and their cultural significance.
The Scottish-Italian cook, who runs the top-rated Orana restaurant in Adelaide, is this year’s winner of a prize that recognises culinary projects for their social value – in terms of education, research, health or the environment, the Basque Culinary World Prize.
Mr Zonfrillo’s restaurant might have been rated as one of the best in the world, but this unusual gastronomic prize is for his work for the culture and rights of indigenous communities in Australia.
“The First Australians are the true cooks and ‘food inventors’ of these lands and their exclusion from our history, and specifically our food culture, is unacceptable,” he says.
“The connection to the land is something that most non-indigenous Australians cannot get their heads round, it is a very complex and spiritual connection, so there is education on both sides and that is what is so important about this project.”
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