Taste of A Nation Festivals

Taste of the Nation is an exciting national food and wine fundraising event to be held each year around October, in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. It is a festival run by Community Aid Abroad to raise funds for the poorest people around the world. The unique tenet of this event is that all food and wine is donated by the participants, ensuring all money raised on the day goes to Community Aid Abroad.

In each city, the event will feature over 35 food and wine stalls, with top restaurants producing their gourmet dishes, and wineries and food producers donating specialty products. People will have the chance to sample some great food and wine whilst supporting Community Aid Abroad’s development programs.

Sydney's Kings Cross

Last year’s Taste of the Nation at Sydney’s Kings Cross was a huge success, attracting more than 5000 people and selling out two hours ahead of schedule. It featured over 40 stalls and raised $40,000 for Community Aid Abroad. 1998 is the first year the festival will be a national event, and it is already attracting a lot of excitement and interest within the food industry and from the public.

Banquet in your own home!
Fancy a top chef cooking a sensational banquet in your home? The services of leading chefs in each city will be auctioned, with the highest bidder winning dinner for eight people in their own home, complete with waiters. Last year’s Sydney auction was a great success, with international chef Matt Moran being ‘sold’ for $1000.

Live Bands
The festival, which is free to enter, will feature live bands playing music from all around the world, cooking demonstrations, food sampling and food and chef auctions. People will also get a chance to meet top chefs at the event.

Green Events
All of the Taste of the Nation events are "green," focusing on reduce, re-use and recycle. Forks and knives to be used at the event will be made of biodegradable corn starch and the plates will consist of uncoated recycled paper, allowing them to be composted along with the food scraps. Wine glasses sold on the day are re-useable, and all bottles and paper products will be recycled.

Where the money goes...
The funds raised from Taste of the Nation will support various projects, such as the ‘Abraha-W’Atsibeha’ agricultural program in Ethiopia, which provides tools, cattle and farming training to families to enable them to become self-sufficient.

The shopping list

$10 will enable a farmer to hire a pair of oxen to plough the family’s plot.

$15 buys a family a pick, shovel and rake.

$25 will pay for two days salary for a horticultural or agricultural trainer.

$50 provides food for work on a soil conservation program for one person for 40 days.

In Guatemala, Coordinadora Nacional Indigena y Campesina (CONIC) offers training in agricultural production for women, and provides corn grinders so that the job of grinding corn for tortillas, which previously took three hours daily, takes the women only 5 minutes.

The hunger relief program in Zimbabwe, also supported by Community Aid Abroad, feeds approximately five and a half thousand children each day.