In her book Particular Delights, author Nathalie Hambro writes: 'The sensual nature of a fresh fig is evident from the moment you slice it, and even more so when you sink your teeth into it. They are delicious warm from the sun, and the tiny seeds burst under the pressure of the tongue. When cut they have visual appeal: the purple outer layer, then a thin white line, and finally the glossy, crimson flesh formed by the seeds.'
Patricia Tew creates inspired foods that reflect the daring and innovative approach of Australia’s chefs to the use of an enormous variety of fresh produce. Much of the fruit and wine used by Food Symphony is produced by orchardists and vignerons in the Swan and Chittering valleys, supporting the local food ethos of Slow Food®, of which Patricia is a member. She transforms this produce with a bold and skilful hand: raisins in tea and tokay, rhubarb-raspberry-and-pernod, blueberry-lemon-and-gin, rum-and-sticky-date and chocolate port and vanilla. The label's chillies-in-lime-and-tequila and olives marinated in orange and fennel are distinctly different additions to Australia's food repertoire.
Inspired by the demands of customers who wished to buy Patricia's signature port-soaked figs, Food Symphony was launched in July 2002 and shortly afterwards a second label — chillies in lime and tequila syrup — was created. Other liqueur fruit preparations followed, together with sweet and savoury sauces, and more recently a chocolate port and fig terrine.
Patricia's journey as a cook began at 21 when she travelled to the United Kingdom to visit her parents' home town in North Yorkshire. After an extended working holiday in Germany, London and the Greek Islands and travel in India, she experienced a world of diverse foods and cultures. Returning to Australia, she worked at a Queensland island resort and began a cooking apprenticeship, completed at the Victorian Arts Centre in Melbourne.
For the next twelve years Patricia cooked in a tourist hotel in far North Queensland, at a pearl farm at Kuri Bay, 600 kilometres north of Broome in Western Australia, and minesites in the Pilbara desert. Moving to Perth, she established a café and began cooking for a number of Swan Valley wineries.
Food Symphony began with the fig - a fruit which Patricia finds exotic and previously underrated. Adding to the fig product range is chocolate port and fig terrine and chilli and fig jam while figs are in season.
'My focus is the maintenance of product quality and consistency,' Patricia says. 'My dessert sauces are designed to be of restaurant quality, without resorting to additives such as emulsifiers, preservatives, colours or vegetable gums. I use only reduction methods or arrowroot to thicken some of the sauces. I find the overall quality of the product is more important than eye-catching clever packaging, and I am fortunate to be able to work with wonderful local ingredients, including olives, fruit, juices and fortified wines from the Swan Valley. The liqueur fruits and the chillies are accompanied by recipe cards to inspire my customers with these foods’ many uses.'
Fig quotation from Particular Delights
© Nathalie Hambro [Papermac 1981]