Few farms can truly call themselves paddock to plate, but at Matthew Evans and Sadie Chrestman’s Fat Pig Farm, visitors are treated to the whole hog, so to speak.

The working farm, restaurant and cookery school south of Hobart rears livestock, produces milk (their dairy licence is in the works) and grows an organic market garden, which is used to produce stunning meals in their kitchen two days a week.

“Farming is all about selling stuff that looks good and grows quickly,” says Evans. “For us, it’s growing food with lots of flavour. We’re very lucky to take it from the garden – the paddock outside your window – and straight into the kitchen to serve.

“It’s like home cooking on a grand scale.”

Inspired by the seasons, the market garden is run without any machinery, with food served as close to possible after harvest. Evans is quick to admit that the term “seasonality” gets a lot of lip service from many chefs. But when you rely so heavily on each season’s bounty, it gains importance.

“When we cook, we don’t just represent a place; we represent a moment in time in that place. So when you come to eat our food, you taste southern Tassie for that week of that year, which will be different to two days ago.

“It’s the complete opposite of how most people cook, which is, ‘What do I feel like cooking today?’ We say, ‘What has the garden given us and how do we cook it?’”

World-class seafood, meat and dairy products have made Tasmania renowned as a foodie paradise, with providores, producers and farmers in all corners.

Evans attributes this to a forgiving climate, a superior topsoil and isolation.

“It’s hard to ship our products interstate, so we have to come up with ways to use it locally. It’s a small state where people can own lots of land but then they have to make that land pay,” he says. “You can’t do broad acre farming where we are. If you’re great at growing saffron or wasabi, then you can make a living from that, because your market is close-by, the farms are small enough and the land is fertile.”

Tasmania is also famous for its swathe of regional food events that shine the light on local produce, but one has truly put the state on the global food map.

“Dark Mofo has upped the ante,” Evans says. “The energy of the festival, the mood you get with the lighting, the design, music and the food… you just look at the fire pits and the way they do stuff. I’m sure there’d be someone in Sydney who’d say, ‘You can’t be cooking over that much open fire and have that many street theatre acts going at the same time,’ because of health and safety.”

Celebrating the arts and all things winter while continually pushing the festival envelope, Dark Mofo’s culinary centrepiece is the Winter Feast. The annual, fiery midwinter banquet draws tens of thousands of visitors from across the world, with many making it an annual pilgrimage.

“Every season has its magic, but winter for us in Tassie means cold nights where we get to drink whisky by the open fire. For us, winter holds that specialness because the long nights make us focus more on entertainment and great food with family and friends.”

At this year’s Winter Feast, Evans will be collaborating with other Tassie chefs, as well as some Thai chefs from Sydney’s Chat Thai for the first time.

“They’ve got their own farm in Thailand and one in Byron Bay, so they’re very ethically focused. We’re going to be doing a massaman curry using beef cattle off our farm and Jerusalem artichoke or butter swedes rather than potatoes, which we have growing in the garden. We’re also doing a Chiang Mai sausage, served in a cabbage cup, because we want to take it from Thailand and into Tasmania in winter.”

Dark Mofo is happening June 8-21, darkmofo.net.au

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