Rare Australian-grown Perry pears of English origin have been added to Slow Food’s Ark of Taste. The varieties Gin, Green Horse, Moorcroft, Red Longdon and Yellow Huffcap have been used to produce ‘perry’, a sparkling or still beverage, for more than 500 years, but fireblight disease in Britain severely diminished the pears about 40 years ago. Read how these five varieties, imported from England and Wales and grown in Australia since the Victorian Gold Rush in the 1850s and 1860s, are helping to preserve a fruit at risk of loss to cultivation.

Making a choice to buy only local food yields many benefits – for our farmers and fishers and their families and staff, for farming communities, farm equipment suppliers, and for shoppers and eaters.

As one blog correspondent to Slow Food’s Australian website noted in 2011: ‘Smoking is okay, but raw milk cheese very dangerous????’ Australia’s food standards authority continues to ban the sale of ‘soft’ cheese made from raw milk. Find out about our campaign.

Slow Food promotes the right to choose what makes up the daily diet of all people, including the knowledge and freedom to choose what to grow, and how this food is grown and distributed. Read about the right to choose.