 Hello and thank you all for coming to tonight's conversation. I'd like to begin by inviting Uncle Charles Madden to the stage to officially welcome to country. Good evening, folks. My name is Charles Madden, but known around me in the city of Sydney as Chica. Now, that's a nickname that I got many, many years ago, going to Redburn Public School, which is now NCIE, the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence. Folks, I'm from Gadigal land. Aboriginal land? That's the land we're on at the moment. For many, many years, I've lived and worked around the city of Sydney. I've been involved with many different Aboriginal organisations over the years. I've been a director with the Aboriginal Medical Service at Redburn for over 40 years. Also a director with the Redburn Aboriginal Housing Company, Aboriginal Austels, Australia, and the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, where I am still a very active member. Folks, for many, many years, I've lived and worked around the city of Sydney. I'd like to take this opportunity this afternoon to extend a warm and sincere welcome to any of my Aboriginal brothers and sisters, non-Aboriginal brothers and sisters. We have any brothers and sisters here from the Torres Strait or further or far across the seas. Welcome. Welcome to Gadigal land. The Gadigal clan is one of 29 that makes up the Eora Nation. The Eora Nation is bordered by three distinctive landmarks. We have the Orksbury River to the north and the Pinter of the West and the Georges River to the south. Those three rivers form the boundaries of the Eora Nation. Folks, if you've travelled across this great city of ours today, the state or this great country or from afar, welcome. Welcome to Gadigal land. Enjoy your stay. Have a safe and trouble-free trip home. Once again, welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you. Enjoy the evening, folks. Thank you. Thank you, Uncle Chica, for that very warm welcome. Both Kylie and I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people who are traditional custodians of this land. We also pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging of the Eora Nation and extend that respect to other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that are present. My name's Bella Napier and I represent MAD here in Sydney. MAD is a global not-for-profit organisation headquartered in Denmark that brings together the cooking community to inspire change in the way that we eat. MAD was founded by chef René Redzepi of Restaurant Noma in 2011 and is best known for a symposium held under a big red circus tent on Copenhagen's harbour. The symposium brings together chefs, servers, engages them in problem-solving alongside academics, farmers, politicians, students and journalists. But not everyone can get to Copenhagen for a symposium and that's where MAD Mondays is an event series that's accessible to MAD's local audiences, especially restaurant staff, so named because it convenes on the traditional day of rest for restaurants. Tonight is our first MAD Monday in Sydney and we'll be holding one more this year here at Carriageworks on July 16. Noma and MAD were first here for a three-month restaurant pop-up in 2016. A day of talks called MAD Sydney at the Opera House in that same visit and a tour of Australia we supported from our Machito Guevara last year. We're thrilled to be back in Sydney piloting two MAD Mondays here at Carriageworks this year thanks to generous contributions from Carriageworks and from Kylie. Thank you. Hi everyone, my name is Kylie Kwong. I'm of Billy Kwong restaurant in Potts Point, Sydney. When I first encountered Noma and Torreno Redzepi's Scandinavian food what really struck with me was his unique approach to cooking. His commitment to a cuisine grounded in time and place would become a very big part of what inspired me to celebrate my Chinese heritage and native ingredients in a new way in my cooking. Since I saw Rene speak at the Opera House in 2010 I have participated in MAD Sydney, a MAD symposium and MAD Yale a collaboration between MAD and Yale University. Over the last eight years MAD has prompted me to ask many important questions of myself as a chef and restaurateur. What is the role of the chef today? What sort of a chef am I? What sort of a chef do I want to be? How much of what we do is about others? How much of what we do is about ourselves? What is our true motivation? As you know being in the business of hospitality is all about sharing and generosity. Working for social change seems to be an organic extension of this and my staff and I are constantly asking ourselves how we can be most effective in helping to bring about positive social change. Two of the greatest lessons I learnt during my time at MAD Yale were A. That as chefs we have the ability to become the instruments and instruments of our own through which our cultural heritage and biodiversity can be preserved and B. That to truly take care of ourselves and in order to be of the greatest benefit to others we must be connected to and engaged with a community. We are here tonight to discuss Indigenous Australian foodways, the rich cultures, stories, traditions that are embedded in this ancient land. As you may already know this is an area that I am extremely passionate about and I truly hope that you our amazing and caring food community enjoy this conversation and that you leave feeling informed, inspired and ready for further action. Just before we get started I would like to invite Lisa Haveler my great friend and the visionary director of CarriageWorks to share a few words. When the opportunity arose to work with Lisa and her crew to bring MAD to Sydney I was absolutely thrilled. Lisa makes everything happen without her unstinting support and commitment none of this would have been possible. Thank you Lisa and over to you. Thank you Kylie, thank you Bella and thank you Uncle Chicka for your very warm welcome. We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Kylie Kwong and MAD for the Australian premiere of MAD Mondays in Australia. The discussion tonight is focused on Indigenous food ways and there is no better place in Australia to be discussing this than here in Redfern. A central Sydney suburb known to many as the black capital of Australia. The Indigenous significance of Redfern has long been acknowledged as a place of change, resilience and refuge and the birthplace of black activism in this country. This building that we are in tonight has since 1890 been the place that train carriages were made and over 6000 people worked here every day. This was the first place in New South Wales that Indigenous people were paid on an equal basis and this was the place that many new migrants coming into Australia got their first job. It is these histories that we honour and carry forward in everything that we do here at Carriageworks. And tonight the inaugural MAD Monday is critically important part of continuing to make contemporary Indigenous culture visible and central to our lives. Thank you Kylie Thank you Bella. We hope that this is the beginning of our partnership with what is already a very highly regarded international program. Thank you. Caroline is the author of Only a Singular Memoir a candid account of family, secrets, tragedy, forgiveness and food. She's contributed to two non-fiction anthologies My Mother My Father on Losing a Parent and Rebellious Daughters. In 2015 Caroline was awarded the Hazel Rowley Fellowship. She is an inaugural reader in residence at the State Library of New South Wales. Caroline's career highlights include two years working at Time Life Books on the Good Cook series of books with Richard Olney. She is written about food for Gourmet Traveller and other national publications and is a keen home cook. Caroline also writes about books, culture and aspects of contemporary life for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian and other media and she joins us here from her home of the South Coast. Thank you Bella and welcome everybody and thank you for your welcome to country Uncle Chica. Tonight we are going to hear from four people who are committed to change and to opening our eyes to new ways of thinking that helps us to think about how we integrate better knowledge and practice around indigenous food ways and Aboriginal ownership of land and what grows in it and on it. Before we get started we need to acknowledge that this conversation while being the first MAD Monday exists in a continuum a dialogue that many other voices have initiated or contributed to over the years. They include pioneers who really were ahead of their time like Jean-Paul Brunetot at Ribereys and Raymond and Janice Kirsch of Edna's Table both ventures very, very far ahead of their time in Sydney. Many chefs have built on their work including for example Adelaide Younggun Jock Zonfrillo who is part of the Noma family. These days you only have to look at a menu or open a cookbook whether you are eating Shea Peterbitt Gilmore or cooking from Maggie Beer and indigenous ingredients are at last in our awareness and on our plates as never before but everyone approaches this differently with varying degrees of awareness and emphasis and that's what gives the food community its individuality its dynamism and its diversity. I also want to acknowledge the immensely valuable work that award winning Australian food writer John Newton who I hope is here somewhere with us tonight but it's too dark for me to see yes you're waving John John is the author as I'm sure many of you know of the oldest foods on earth which presents us with invaluable information about traditional foods and their usage but also articulates the unique opportunity these foods present to us right now and he has some great ideas about how to move forward and I'm going to be referencing those later maybe you'll join in the conversation at that point I hope so John. Also an important reference is distinguished Tasmanian writer Bruce Pascoe's book Dark Emu in telling us about Aboriginal farming practices and dispelling many of the myths that have endured to this day which have prevented us from knowing just how brilliantly Aboriginal civilization managed this land for thousands of years and as a result enjoyed a rich and varied diet and also by the way Dark Emu is about to become a dance work staged by Bangara and I can't wait to see how that company interprets its agricultural heritage. When Dr. David Scrimger the founding doctor of the Pintupi Homeland Health Service watched the last Pintupi people walk out of the desert in 1984 he said that they were quote the most healthy people I have ever seen they were literally glowing with health not an ounce of superfluous fat they were extremely fit and that's another big reason to embrace Indigenous foods their health potential marries so well with their environmental and flavour credentials they are as John points out in his book our own superfoods right on our doorstep there definitely is a new consciousness out there and cause for cautious optimism Millennials we are told are the generation that are willing to pay more for items that they when they know where they have been sourced or produced and they have a particular concern about the ethics of sourcing and production we see this with coffee we see it with chocolate we see it with clothing to give just a few examples and so while at the moment when you look at the state of the world perhaps we can feel encouraged by the values of a new generation before we hear from our guests tonight about aspects of Indigenous culture and stewardship I just want to add a few words of introduction after Bella's kind words I usually do this kind of thing this kind of event at rightist festivals not food industry gatherings but I am here representing if you like the consumer I'm the early adopter who likes trying new ingredients I'm curious about provenance and I enjoy talking to growers at farmers markets like the fabulous one here on Saturday mornings I want Indigenous foods to be part of my life because this is where I live on what always was and always will be Aboriginal land and on that note I just want to say a special welcome tonight to the five chefs who are with us from the Indigenous Culinary Institute that is a fabulous thing to have you here okay yes let's give them a round of applause I would now like to invite our four speakers to join me on the stage so please make your way to the stage now