Syrup, hot damper and sapotes: Black sapote icecream and mango wine

We found Sapotes! There were only seven pieces all up in the Mareeba markets, but we were chuffed as we have been on the lookout for them since we saw them in a travel show on the area. The stall holder had two different kinds of Sapotes on their unpretentious little table and we bought both and had to wait four days for them to ripen. These are the Black Sapotes. When you open them they are a bit like persimmon, and mixed with icecream they taste a little like chocolate with a tang of chilli, though after all that searching it is not something we will want for dessert very often, we have since decided.

The marketeers also had white eggplants, which we had to try. These are more subtle than the purple, but still with that lovely eggplant flavour we enjoy so well and can be cooked in so many different ways. In other stalls we found pomolo, pitaya, custard apples the size of soccer balls, and Asian greens so crispy, crunchy and clean it makes you realise how old even the freshest supermarket vegetables that we buy really are. This produce comes straight from the field to the market. Our motorhome was groaning with produce by the time we’d finished shopping and it was easily one of the freshest food markets we have visited anywhere.

We chatted to a young Chinese market gardener and his grandpa who had been growing different oyster mushrooms from scratch. Actually, grandpa had contract growers working for him all over North Queensland so he had likely cornered the mushroom market in the region with orders coming thick, fast and firm. The pair had completely sold out of every type of mushroom when we came upon their stall and were packing, early, to go home, though interrupted all the while by customers who were obviously disappointed that they were too late to buy.

They told us how they grew their mushrooms: they started with a sawdust mix in a plastic bag, then put in the spores and simply allowed the mix to work its magic. This is the remnant of a block of oyster mushrooms that had been the display on their market table. Even their display block had been heavily harvested by keen customers not wanting to miss out on their weekly order.

Mareeba has the best Heritage Museum in any country town in Australia that we have ever visited. And it is run by volunteers in the main. Amazing the work volunteers do in these country towns around here. They have set up ‘rooms’ of displays on the early beginnings of the area, the gold industry in the region, the timber industry, and the wetlands: with endless looping videos one of them has put together of bird calls, birds nesting types, and bird behaviours, beautifully filmed and edited. They have built life size models of early shops using corrugated iron and timber to illustrate the early days: saddlers, butchers, ironmongers, done up with signage of the times. And have collections of machinery and memorabilia all brilliantly labelled and immaculately maintained. A wonderful museum. We went back three times in the time were in the district and still have not seen it all.

We drove out to Mareeba’s wetlands, a man-made wet area of lakes and creeks that has become a bit of a bird watcher’s paradise. Here we found an aviary of very rare Gouldian Finches being bred for release back into the wild. Seventy were released into sensitive habitat areas just last year, so the breeding program is working well.

We also saw several Jabiru, a lovely stork-like bird which is only found in these northern regions. A graceful and very pretty bird.

Then we called in to Australia’s first, and possibly only, mango winery in Mareeba and, though I am a merlot fan, we loved every wine they produced: the dry, the medium, the sweet, the sparkling. We came away with their mango liqueur which we could not resist, along with a delicious limoncello.

And given that the Nastasi family’s roots are steeped in Italian ancestry we have no doubt this is a home grown and authentic recipe. Just using cellar door sales the Golden Pride winery is regularly chomping through every mango it can grow, as well as employing over 150 pickers in season. We were fascinated by their heavily pruned mango trees. Once a year they have a close shave which cuts them low on top, with their sides trimmed like a four sided cube, making it easier to pick the lower fruit. A very expensive process one of the family said, but well worth it.

The weekend we were in Mareeba was, by chance, their Rodeo weekend. The only other Rodeo we have ever visited was the Calgary Stampede, so long ago we could barely remember what it was all about, so off we trotted to spend a sunlight afternoon on the bleachers, watching the bruises and broken bits that result from calf roping and bulldogging, bullock riding and buck jumping.

My nephew does this for fun. Such regular body punishment occurs during these events that I fear for him in his old age. Surely these riders will all be arthritic or crippled by then.

And if that doesn’t get them early then the rodeo fare surely must: deep fried pluto pups the size of tree limbs. Giant potatoes cut in long swirls hreaded onto sticks, dipped in batter and salt and doused in hot cooking fat until they are crisp. Pyramids of empty pop cans along with endless Eskies of heavy beer. Hot pies oozing with artery clogging meat and fat chunks. Topped off with the Rodeo Show Bags overflowing with giant chocolate bars for dessert.

Not a fresh apple within cooee. Let alone a bottle of water. And the little ones begin training for this at eight while riding the farm’s poddy calves. I fear for them, too.