A wide-brimmed hat, knee pads and plenty of tea breaks are essential for Heidi Setchell while picking caper buds, which are destined for plates in some of Australia’s high-end restaurants.
Key points:
- Australian-grown capers cost two to three times more than imports due to labour costs
- Farmers say most of their capers are sold wholesale for use in high-end restaurants
- Chefs say the versatility of capers makes them a sought-after ingredient
For more than a decade she and her husband Dave have been growing capers, alongside jujubes and dates, at their organic farm at Loxton, about 250 kilometres from the South Australian city of Adelaide.
But in recent years the Setchells have had to work harder to keep up with the demand for the produce from luxury restaurateurs.
While the end product looks effortless and appetising on the plate, back on the block it’s a different story.
Hard work to harvest
Harvest season for caper buds is in late spring-early summer, before they bloom into flowers and then caperberries.
Snapping the pea-sized fruits off metre-high shrubs is best done in the morning before the sun and the UV index is high.
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After a few hours of work the two-litre blue ice cream bucket on a lanyard around Ms Setchell’s neck is slowly filling up with the fruits of her intensive labour, which can sell for as much as $130 a kilo.
“On a good day, I can get close to about half a kilo in an hour but it’s usually just about 350 grams in that time,” she said.
“We tend to pick the buds that are around 5 to 8 millimetres diameter.
“If you go for real little baby capers, they’re very popular with chefs as well, but they’re under five millimetres in size and take an extremely long time to pick.”
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Despite demand outstripping supply, Mr Setchell said scaling up was not a feasible option.
“We’ve gone through the motions of costing out paying people to pick caper buds and you’re literally losing money if you go down that path,” he said.
“It’s really just about how many caper buds we can physically pick ourselves … for it to be worthwhile.
“We never have stockpiles, that’s for sure.”
Cooking with capers
So just what is it about capers which make them so sought after?
Alex Prichard, who is the culinary director of Iceberg’s Dining Room and Bar in Sydney, said they worked so well in cooking because they were versatile, unique and helped balance flavours of dishes.
“The beauty of the subtle flavours of capers is they translate to so many different dishes,” he said.
A capers convert himself, Mr Pichard said the difference between imported and fresh Australian capers was stark.
He believes if more consumers had access to Australian capers, they would be popular.
“People have a preconceived idea of what the flavour profile of a caper should be,” he said.
“But when they try these [Australian capers] at our restaurant they say, ‘Wow that is not what I am used to’.”
Catering to chefs
It’s this curiosity and demand that led a Naracoorte couple to transition from garlic to capers, but they never expected six years later they’d be knocking back requests from top chefs.
Liz Crowley along with her husband Rob have been supplying capers to high-end restaurants, mostly in Sydney and Melbourne, but also sell a limited number to home cooks.
“We can’t keep up, unfortunately, we are having to knock back quite a few chefs,” she said.
“I really like to be able to sell to the public … I keep a small amount available, but we just don’t have enough to sell a lot of it.”
While demand continues to challenge the couple, the sustainability of the plant and limited water input makes it a good option for future farming conditions.
Brutal reality of harvesting
For almost three decades Adelaide horticulturist Brian Noone has operated a wholesale caper plant nursery.
In 2002 he travelled to Italy, Spain and Morocco on a Churchill scholarship to study the ancient food, which he said demonstrated the brutal reality of harvesting the niche ingredient.
“The women and children who are picking them get their hands torn to pieces,” Mr Noone said.
“More than 50 per cent is still picked from the wild, so people have to walk a kilometre to pick a kilogram.”
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Australian-grown capers can sell for about $50 for 250 grams, while a kilogram of imported capers can be two to three times less.
Mr Noone said high labour costs in Australia made it hard to compete with imports, but technology could provide a future solution.
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