Taste Great Southern: Katanning celebrates festival with Kaat-Nyiny Yorga Yarning lunch at Premier Hill Hotel

A prominent member of Katanning’s Aboriginal community has shared her childhood story, with a serving of food on the side. Jeert Mia Aboriginal Corporation chief executive and chairwoman Wendy Hayward shared her story with close to 50 diners at the Old Power Station function room at the Premier Mill Hotel on May 8. She was the guest of honour at Taste Great Southern’s Kaat-Nyiny Yorga Yarning event. Her story was linked with dishes created by WA chef Herb Faust using ingredients linked to her childhood in Badgebup. Master of Ceremonies Karl Millard asked Ms Hayward what it was like growing up around Katanning in the 1960s and 1970s. She said Katanning at the time was a “pretty busy town” which even had a David Jones outlet. “We had lots of clothing shops and fashion was really nice in the 60s and 70s,” she said. “We weren’t rich so mainly on show days, we would get new ones.” In terms of food, Ms Hayward remembers going to some of the local restaurants as well as receiving a little jar of milk at school. “We had a factory so we would get fresh milk every morning at school, which was really good, and looking back it was very important for development,” she said. “We had a Coke factory and I think Fanta was also here.” She said her original childhood home did not have running water or electricity, but her family always had music in the house. “When we had artists coming to the Town Hall, we were there,” Ms Hayward said. “We were at Nyabing seeing Slim Dusty and we used to see Sherbert, AC/DC and Skyhooks, so we always used to have money for those events, I tell you.” Mr Faust used her story and some of her favourite childhood foods as inspiration for the dishes at the event. “I was reading through Wendy’s story and it was very inspiring. I kind of just wanted to have a little bit of a take on some of the things she might have had early on,” Mr Faust said. Speaking about the entree named Wendy’s Tasting Plate, Ms Hayward expressed her joy at what Mr Faust had created. “It was a bit of art on a plate. It was very delicious,” she said. “I just said ‘this is my story’ and gave him my story and he turned it into that and that’s just wonderful.” The dish consisted of a Kangaroo tail roll, aquafarm yabbie toast, halls suzette and mushroom fritter. The roll came from Ms Hayward’s story of helping her father hunt kangaroo as a child. The yabbie dish was derived from a story of Ms Hayward’s nan catching gilgies, while the mushroom was a reference to the the mushrooms she used to collect near creeks and roads. The main meal included duck — which Ms Hayward used to catch with her father — quandongs grown by Ms Hayward, heirloom squash, and beer damper served with macadamia milk and Geraldton wax oil. The dessert of chocolate textures, honey caramel, Davidson plum sauce and Illawarra plum was a nod to the small bars of chocolate Ms Hayward occasionally had as a child. Mr Faust said it was important to showcase native foods in the dishes. “It is becoming more popular, mainstream and more readily available through different suppliers,” he said. “We’ve had native foods in the past, generally a lot of it was frozen but now there is plenty available so hopefully (it) showed what you can do with some of the native ingredients.” Speaking after the event, Ms Hayward said she was “very happy” with how it turned out. “I was really thrilled about people coming and saying, ‘we’re listening to your story’ but I was also really thrilled with the entrée with my name attached,” she said. The event also offered Ms Hayward, who is an artist, a chance to showcase some of her paintings. Taste Great Southern wrapped up on Sunday, May 15.