Page 53 - Tropic Magazine Issue 30

TROPIC • FINANCE

Rocky riots

BEEF WEEK
Nu Nu Restaurant’s Nick
Holloway shares stories of the
triennial Beef Australia festival,
an extravagant, colourful
celebration of a booming
industry.
Words: Nick Holloway

Around me there’s a couple thousand
people, clutching their buckles and
tipping their hats, singing along giddily My Nu Nu head chef Brando and I started
to a country anthem I’ve never heard. prepping at sun-up Tuesday morning to
I’m here in Rockhampton as one of ten get a good start on Friday’s festivities.
celebrity chefs to help celebrate Beef21, With lunches and dinners every day,
a triennial showcase of the Australian the restaurant’s main kitchen looked
beef industry – and the largest of its kind like a war zone, littered with obscure
in the Southern Hemisphere. cuts, frantic chefs and the mountains of 2
The week-long festival attracts well over meat required for the guests we would
150,000 participants, including graziers, collectively feed over the course of
producers, industry leaders, techies, the week.
investors, foodies, cowboys, cowgirls
and party-goers.
It’s big business these days, with beef
prices on a tear and Australian beef in
high demand worldwide. The buckles, This year’s focus was on
boots and ten-gallon hats may be ‘tasty cuts’ – parts of
deceptive because behind the firm sesame, puffed tendon and finger lime.
Adrian wowed us with an oyster blade
handshakes, beer bellies and laid back the beast that are often
country conversation are some seriously overlooked, though still and kimchi affair as well as a sausage
made by his in-house butcher showcasing
wealthy people.
With visits this year from the Prime insanely tasty when organ meat and brisket.
Minister, the Premier and a host of prepared correctly Both cracking dishes.
High on my agenda while in Rocky was to
sporting and television personalities,
it’s clear Beef Week is a big deal. revisit my hat game. The fire-blackened
old cowboy hat I’ve donned at BBQs
As an invited celebrity chef I was paired
with Adrian Richardson, a longstanding for years looked pretty dinged up by
foodie favourite, to cook a lunch and With that in mind we set about comparison to other punters.
Between butchery tasks I dragged Brando
dinner on the final day for 200 punters organising our two dishes, the first of
each service. which was a skewer of heart, hanger off to the Akubra stall for a couple of new
steak, liquorice tare, pickled cabbage and felt beauties. We looked like out-of-town
Davidson’s plum. dandies but no one seemed to care,
A painstakingly laborious dish to prepare the more the merrier.
(I trimmed beef hearts for six hours on Beef21 was an exciting,
day one) yet an absolute cracker, cooked informative, memorable and truly
to order over coals. incredible experience.
It’s smoky, meaty intensity, coerced I still don’t know the song’s lyrics –
into lip-smacking deliciousness by the something about trucks, whiskey n’
richness of the kelp and liquorice-root heartbreak – but with my new hat
fortified tare relish, won over even the proudly worn and a beer in hand,
most conservative of diners. I’m singing along with the mob, smiling
Our second outing was a slow braise from ear to ear, dancing, laughing and
of beef shank in coconut water and feeling at home.
mandarin juice, paired with a whip of
sweet potato roasted directly in the coals
and a sour, salty crunch of coconut, MORE: nunu.com.au

Brando (Nu Nu Head Chef), Adam (Beef21 Assistant Chef)
& Nicko (Nu Nu Co-Founder)
53 • tropicnow.com.au