SLOW Food Australia’s national members’ journal – cod – was first published in October 2009. It is named for one of the world’s great slow feeders, the murray cod – Maccullochella peelii – known to the Ngarrindjeri people of the lower Murray-Darling river country as pondi.

Australia’s first people believe a giant pondi formed the Murray river, Australia’s largest riverine system, and all its fish. The cod is in many ways a metaphor for much that Slow Food in Australia aspires to achieve: a once-abundant and now far from common fish that is a source of food and cultural inspiration.

As Bunjilaka Melbourne Museum described it in a 2007 exhibition, the cod ‘is much more than the biggest fish in the river; it is a symbol of the river itself’. cod expounds those elements of food in our everyday lives to sustain, challenge and inspire us.

• Spring / October 2009 / PDF / editorial: carlo petrini – the worth of knowledge / pondi – a fantastical fish tradition / oceans of food? project slow wave / slow fish challenge / fish bites / celebrate terra madre day / victoria bushfires, queensland floods / convivia fund relief / six-point-two-million mouths and counting / congratulations, kitchen garden advocate / to market, to market / searching for australian ark nominations / what is good, clean and fair? / red tags on slowfoodaustralia.com / slow wrap – convivia events / directory / fin flick