Indigenous Cultural Adventures among creative food concepts at night market

When Orange Wine Festival Night market returns this Friday, a team of chefs from Indigenous Cultural Adventures will serve up a selection of home grown meats not often seen on market menus.

In addition to their crowd pleasing kangaroo sliders, the crew will offer slow cooked kangaroo tail, crocodile skewers and emu marinated in macadamia nut pesto.

Business founder Gerald Power said their little slider taste testers have been hooking people since their first stall at Barangaroo in Sydney two years ago.

“’That is kangaroo?’ they ask – they’re astonished,” he said.

Mr Power said he tries to keep the dishes as native as possible, using bush tomato, native lemon, wattle seeds and native peppers when he can get hold of them.

Home grown grapes will also get their time to shine with 27 stalls offering wines from the region.

Beer lovers will also be looked after with The Beekeepers Inn Brewery and Badlands Brewery providing the hops, yeast and grain goods.

Small Acres Cyder will be there too alongside 20 food stalls run by restaurants, cafes and caters around Orange.

Event organiser Jane Arnott said in the past the night market has attracted between 5-6000 people depending on the weather.

“It’s a very relaxed atmosphere, with the beginning of daylight savings it’s a beautiful evening to enjoy great wine and food in Robertson Park,” she said.

As well as food and wine, there will be live music and children’s activities run by Bissys Cafe.

Young ones can take part in colouring competitions, cup cake decoration, plaster moulding and face painting.

Mrs Arnott said the market will once again have a heavy focus on recycling and eliminating as much single use plastic as possible.

An ongoing market tactic to reduce waste and keep Orange parks pretty.

“When the sun goes down through those trees the park is a gorgeous spot for people to catch up on picnic rugs or at one of the long tables,” Mrs Arnott said.

Orange Wine Festival Night Market is on at Robertson Park from 5.30-8.30pm, entry is a gold coin donation.