Nornie Bero

Hi Nornie. Given that we are at Stomping Ground and you are planning an event with them for Good Beer Week, let's start there. You seem to know them all here. How do you know them to work in with them?

When I opened Big Esso, I didn't go to any other beer company. I came and I sat with Cassie and I said, I don't have a beer plan, but I want you to be my main beer supplier. I wanted to work with Stomping Ground, because they do amazing things in the community. They work with small growers to make different beers out there. They are in the gay community. They're in the indigenous community and they build things and do these one-off things with great people. I wanted to work with like a women-led team like the guys from Blackheart and Sparrows as well. I walked in here and set up a meeting with them and I said, I don't have a beer plan. Our relationship has grown from there and we've made a beer together and now we're doing this amazing event as well that tells a story about where I grew up, but also where I'm from, which are two different islands. The story is told through the meal.

I was reading about that and I feel like I'm all about stories at the moment. Everywhere I turn, it's all about storytelling. I was actually looking up Mer Island before I came, but you are from two islands?

Yes. I'm from Mer and Moa Islands.

Are they neighbouring?

No, they're very far apart actually. Mer is the first island away from Great Barrier Reef at the edge of that, and Moa is closer to the tip of Cape York and in a cluster. There are over 25 inhabited islands and it's in a cluster with Badu and Moa and you can see it from Prince of Wales Island and Friday Island.

Do people go between the islands? Is that what happens? Do they share food and stories?

Yes. Well the majority of the clusters of islands have different dialects as well. We speak different languages. I speak Meriam Mir and then is Karalag and different languages as you go around, but we all speak creole.

And food-wise, on the islands, do you grow food, what is there?

Absolutely. It's tropical. We grew up with all the tropical natives, everything from sorbies to wongai to sea almonds, wild passionfruit, yams, taros. I actually grew up on the islands. I came down to mainland Australia for high school, but I'm born and bred up there. I grew up eating vast amounts of things from clams to everything that comes out of the ocean. We just grew up with traditional food. My dad was really cool. He taught me how to make a lot of traditional food and my aunts did as well. We just eat whatever the land gives us and the ocean gives us. Thats how you grew up. At a young age I used to pickle a lot. I used to skip confirmation classes when my dad sent me and I would like be pickling fresh tamarinds off the tree and mangoes. And I would be shaking up the jars.

Was that with salt?

All kinds of things. Soy sauce, sugars. Then I would go out on the reef in the morning, get fresh octopus, bring it home, and then pickle it so that I would eat the days before and I'd put them in like jars and stuff.

That's amazing. It's such a curiosity, isn't it? Almost like science to see what would happen.

Well, yeah, kids like us, we grow up with a vast palate. We eat everything from oysters off the rocks to periwinkles, the palate is just massive for us. It's great for me too because now as an adult, I look at everything and taste everything and try everything. You see these kids growing up in the Torres are eating turtle cooked in blood or dugong or they're eating liver.

They don't waste anything and they're eating fresh fruit off the trees. They go out and they just drag nets and they're only 10.

Right. So it's not even that it's seasonality, as we talk about. They're just doing it because it's there at that time and they're out there. I love that.

We live off whatever is there, and we only take what we need, you know. Seasons come and seasons go, but we enjoy it for the season when it comes. And then when the season is done, well the next one comes along. We already grew up in this sort of seasonality and we grew up having your own food in the backyard or digging it up or going out and catching it yourself and you just don't know any different.

That's right. So in bringing that to what you do here in Naarm, is it easy to translate?

Well, it is because I think it's about the consumer. I just want to teach the consumer to have stuff in the seasons. We always talk about seasonality, but it's a bit boring sometimes. Because people say, seasonality, oh so, pumpkin. You can eat pumpkin every day of the week, but lets do something different. It's our fault as consumers that we want to have a tomato all year round, instead of having it at its best. Or mangoes just at Christmas time. Christmas comes and I think, great, cherries and mangoes, that's when I want to be eating them. I don't want a mango in June. You know, just don't give it to me. Lets enjoy it when it comes. What I try and do as part of my business, I guess, is work with the Native Seasons as well as the regular seasons and I tweak as much as I want. If the season is short and it's a native season and it's only going to be there for three weeks, well then you only get it for three weeks and then I will tweak it, I'll change the menu to suit that. We've enjoyed it. Thanks. It's gone now. Come back next year and enjoy it again.

Was it easy to adapt to the what can be found here on Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung Land?

Yes. I go out to the markets. I'm a big visual person and the way that I create is that I don't create months ahead. I create on the day because I want to see what is out there on the day. We could do up a new menu that we're going to execute just on that day. Not one I've been thinking about it for a while because I constantly go to the markets. I constantly see what's out there and I want to follow what's out there and I want to make that available now. It works for me. I like that because then I always am in touch with what's out there and I see everything with my eyes, and Im constantly saying, Oh my God, that's delicious. Or, Ooh, that looks really good, let's do that. It's about being a part of that market scene too as well and understanding it. And I want my chefs to understand too that they don't just look it up on the internet and ask what's in season now? I want them to actually go out and see what's there because there's so much amazing stuff out there. Its about thinking outside the box all the time. I grew up with yams and all the different types of seafood and I want to make it sustainable too as well, especially in the seafood in industry. I introduced things like shell life, so periwinkles, pippies and all those are things that can sustain themselves as well. And I make our menu sustainable; I use kingfish, but I get it from a farm that is in open water in South Australia and it's going to be a little bit pricier, but I don't want to overfish. I want to be a part of the change of how we think of seasonality. I think of it as a broad perspective, I guess.

Absolutely. And I was thinking as you're speaking, a lot of those ingredients and the native ingredients are really good for us as well. I know we are not supposed to use the word superfood anymore, but they are super foods, aren't they?

Yes, but they are also a part of the land. They're meant to be here, and we are meant to use them. Again, it's up to us to ask for it because it is at market, someone will always have something that is native there. It's just that we don't ask for it. The more we ask for it, the more it'll be in the market. And this stuff grows like wildfire here because it's meant to be here.

Rather than the hooved animals.

Exactly. I'm a big believer that you should grow what is good for your state as well. If bush tomatoes can't grow here, they can't grow here. Lets not force that. Each state has an amazing fruit or spice and we should be planting what is best for the soil that we live on.

I was amazed even just on the Mornington Peninsula, how many edible plants and bush tucker there was. We did a guided tour with Uncle Lionel, and he took us all around and he was just picking things off here and there and everywhere and talking about the bulbs that you can pull up that were almost like a potato.

Well the bulbs actually were all over Merri Creek and they used to be in the Yarra. You know how they call that the mud city now? It is because they dug all that stuff up and those bulbs used to filter the water and keep it fresh, but they decided to pull all of these natives out and those were the filters. You could eat them, but they also filtered the water. When you're in the city and you see the Yarra, underneath it is clean, but the top layer is dirty.

They say cause it's an upside down river. But I've never really understood that, but what you are say makes a lot of sense.

There used to be a waterfall there, where the hotels are, and the waterfall was basically ripped out when the city was put in and they took out all the filters, which was these bulbs and I guess the wildlife too because there used to be eels and everything in there.

I think it was also a really important meeting place and maybe a point where they could cross over, my understanding was that they were quite big rocks.

We are to blame and you see Merri Creek and patches of it is really good because they're trying to rejuvenate that. But patches of it again, they've taken out the ecosystem of these natural plants and everything that helps us create clean water. We are to blame, but the thing is, I think then, that we should be the ones making the change. And that's why I create and make people think outside the box when they're eating. I put things like pigs blood, traditional wild boar that's cooked in its own blood. I put it on the menu and it sells. I want people to try different things because I'm not about just the pretty stuff. I want them to eat all of it.

That's interesting and I don't want to liken it to French food really, but I do remember, when I lived in the South France a long time ago and the people were super into seasonality in those little villages and they lived off the land. For Christmas we had a civet de sanglier, wild boar that had been macerating in its own blood for three days. I think it must be a modern society thing where we are just doing thewhole, Ooh that's awful. And we don't use everything and throw so much away.

People are picky or people think because they're paying for food they can get what they want. And that's a fair thing, you know, but it's also our fault. The consumer dictates what is out there. Look at supermarkets, the consumer dictates what we put in supermarkets because that's what people are going to buy. We are used to having the same thing over and over and over and over. But its expanding even in supermarkets now, which is so cool. Supermarkets then are also supporting farmers who are growing that stuff just for them. That's really cool too.

I like the optimism.

I think you have to be. I've been to these farms, I've seen it. I'm a Coles ambassador, so I've been to the farms where they actually grow the things. I understand big supermarkets say they monopolize things, but you have to look at the broader picture because farmers need to be supported in every way. I buy directly from farmers for my company. I barely use the middle guys. I need to do it if I'm desperate, but I want to give the farmers a hundred percent of the money. So I go directly to them to buy. I pay all the shipping costs because at the end of the day, it's going to cost me less than going through a wholesaler.

Did you always think you would be a business woman as well as a chef? How do you go from obviously loving cooking on the islands and then coming to Melbourne and now you run a huge business?

To be honest, I never knew I was going to be in this position. I still think of myself as a poor kid that grew up in one bedroom with my dad out the back of Thursday Island. I still think that way a lot of the time, even though I have a very big company now. I have 80 employees in my company. I never thought I would be in this position, but I'm a numbers girl and I wanted to get into this industry because I grew up chefifng in the nineties, that's when women weren't welcomed. I guess I grew up with a single father as well. My dad would say, you're going to have to fight every which way that you go. Stick to it. Make it through. So I think I overachieve and do a lot more and I have FOMO and I sleep very little because I want to achieve as much as I can. I think half of it is because of me and half of it is because my dad never got to achieve what he wanted because we were so poor and he was sick so early. I always had to work to have a roof over my head from when I was young. So I just had to make it happen. But the thing is that you grew up in your own environment, which then teaches you to be who you are as a human and an adult afterwards. I'm very grateful that I grew up the way that I did because it actually now shows in my business. When I opened it, it was just basically a story of me growing up. Every time we do a menu, there's always a little bit of my childhood in it, of me going out picking periwinkles myself and all of those things. I named my first tea after my gran who helped raise me when I was a teenager and she used to like wearing hibiscus flowers in her hair. She was very colourful. I made the base of my first tea hibiscus and then, and put all the native flavours into it to make the tea. Its called Aba's tea. For me it's always the story. It's always the story of me growing up and from different products that I've put on the shelf of my career or what's happened to me or people that I've worked with and had relationships with and then it comes out in everything I do and how I build a venue. It all represents who I am and how I grew up.

How will the storytelling work at the Good Beer Week Event?

Oh my god, it's so cool. The Gelam story is so cool. It's basically a bit of a childhood story that we grow up with, a Myths and legends story. It's a creation story and a myths and legends story. The best thing about this story is that it can be told through the food. It's about sharing and the food and what they hunt for and eat during it too as well and where they end up. We are creating the menu because of the story.

So you're working in with the crew here?

Yes. I'm going to be working with Stomping Ground and their kitchen team here too as well to curate that menu, to get it so that it will then flow with the story as it's being told.

Will you keep it fairly loose? You were saying before you don't like to plan too far in advanceor for something like this, would you have to tie it down a bit?

No. This story just has like two elements that need to be there when it comes to food and then the rest will then tie in. This story is about me growing up as well. I grew up on Moa and I believe the story and I've seen the evidence of the story, but then I also am from Mer where Gelam landed and we know the story of there and, and we believe in the rocks and stuff that are there. It is basically my whole childhood. One language I speak and one language I grew up in. It is the creation story, but it represents me beautifully as well.

Are there matching beers?

Yes. We are going to match the beers with it. And we might launch another beer together on the night that we're making with native ingredients.

That's exciting. What should people expect when they come? Will it be you telling the story?

Yes. I will be telling the story the whole way through. The whole idea of this story is for you to feel like you are there. You are that child, you are that mother, and you are in the position of things because how we do the food is integrated into the story. You have to be a part of it, the story. Its about everybody being part of the story as well. At some stage as the story gets told, you will be a participant and you won't even realize it.

What a great idea. I was reading about it and now that you explained it, I just think we need more of that kind of thing. I think stories and food bring people together and I think this is a great way of bringing both those elements together.

For me, these are nursery rhymes or childhood things that represent my culture as well. When I started I didn't realize I was going to make such a big impact of being a Torres Strait Islander. People who look like me as well, no matter where you're from, I've got Samoan kids who work for me and I represent all of them. They look at me and they go, I can do it too. I have 12 different nationalities that work for me. I know every single staff member that works for me. I make sure that I know them and have conversations with them no matter what position they're in because once upon a time I was there, and for me it's just that I love culture. I love the idea that we are all different and for me, I'm just putting culture on the map now.

Thank you. And all the best for the 23rd. It sounds amazing.

Thank you. I hope you can come.

Creation story feast with Nornie Bero, founder and head chef of Mabu Mabu