Wickedfood Earth Farm and Country Cooking School is a community upliftment, self-sustainable lifestyle project being developed on a 38-hectare site in the Hartbeesfontein Conservancy, located within the Magalies Meander Tourism area in the Magalies Valley, Gauteng. We have developed a self-sustaining lifestyle showcase subscribing to the ethos of “Responsible use of sustainable resources“.
In recognition of the groundbreaking work that is being done on Wickedfood Earth Farm and Country Cooking School, Slow Food Johannesburg honoured Cilla and Mike with the 2015 Food Heroes Award for “development of rare breeds and education on sustainable food and farming.” More…
Wickedfood Earth has 3 arms:
Country Cooking School and Events Venue
- Charcuterie Workshops – Wickedfood Earth has become synonymous with free-range pork, veld-raised beef and mutton, and top quality charcuterie. We offer hands-on one and two day charcuterie workshops where we share the knowledge we have accumulated over the years. More….
- Forgotten Skills Workshops – A large part of being sustainable is food preservation. In days gone by every farm had a large pantry where excess food was stored for the leaner months. Much of this preservation was in the form of bottled preserves, dried fruits and vegetables, and cured meats. And it didn’t stop there, everyone baked there own bread, made sweet treats and even made their own soaps. From the outset of the Wickedfood Earth project, it was our mission to add value to everything produced on the farm. Extensive research has been done to understand many of these forgotten skills and Wickedfood Earth Farm now boasts an extensive range of preserves and cured meats. At Wickedfood Earth Country Cooking School have planned a series of workshops to reintroduce you to these Forgotten Skills. More….
- Country Lunches and food events. Once a month, on a Sunday for lunch, we open our farm kitchen, offering a delicious banquet around a specific theme. We take our inspiration from Foods-of-the-World and re-interpret the dishes, showcasing local ingredients, sourced mainly from Wickedfood Earth Farm and surrounding small-scale farmers. Meals are a shared event at our long table, seating a maximum of 24 people. More …
- Food Experiences – Spend from half a day to a few days of pure food indulgence on our working organic farm and Country Cooking School, where you’ll learn to cook organic seasonal produce at its finest and get an insight into the farm’s workings. More…
- Corporate events including team building events, corporate functions, product launches, photoshoots, kitchen teas, small weddings and milestone birthdays. Over the last 20 years, Wickedfood Cooking Schools have been tailor-making food-related functions for clients. More …
- Workshops and cooking classes for both individuals and corporate groups, from how to establish your own food gardens, and working in the kitchen with confidence, to how to use different cuts of meat, charcuterie and cooking with seasonal local ingredients. More …
- Our animals, including pigs, indigenous sheep and cattle, are naturally veld-raised in small groups in large camps, which ensures that we can produce happy, healthy, flavourful meat. All of our animals are raised free of antibiotics, growth promotants or animal bi-products. This ensures a healthy, consistent product year-round. – more…
- Vegetable gardens and orchards are planted with a wide variety of heirloom vegetables and herbs, and we have an extensive orchard with over 50 old varieties of fruit and nut trees, and berries, and supply the Cooking School. The Wickedfood Earth Farm food gardens, internationally recognized by Slow Food as an important educational garden. more…
Community upliftment training project
This is where we are giving back to local communities in the form of skills training, from permaculture farming practises, through to cooking and processing. All products produced on the farm, and during training, are available for sale to clients at the Country Cooking School and Wickedfood Earth online market. More…
At Wickedfood Earth we grow and process local, and farm naturally, following the principles of Geonet Farming which is:
- Farming that is geographically specific both as to where produce is sourced from as well as where it is distributed to. The supermarket shelves contain numerous organically labelled products, where the produces have gone to great lengths to ensure that every component within the product is certified organic, a noble concept, but a jam processed in the Western Cape with organically certified sugar transported all the way from South America, and then transported to a warehouse in Gauteng, before being distributed to Durban? Somewhere along the line, something does not make sense.
- Farming in a natural environment, where the forces of nature act in harmony to produce food, away from harmful pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, growth hormones, feedlots and animal cruelty.
Wickedfood Earth is about seasonality and local, and this is where many proponents in the organic infrastructure get it wrong.
Wickedfood Earth does not stop at farming. The entire project subscribes to the principles of sustainability, from alternative building methods using eco-friendly principles, to alternative power and minimal usage of water resources, recycling wherever possible.
The entire project is being documented. We invite serious players within the different segments of sustainability and eco-friendly lifestyle supply chain as well as the general public to participate in this exciting project.
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Specialised Functions, bookings and information – Cilla 076 236-2345 cilla@wickedfood.co.za
Project manager, non booking operational info – Mike Crewe-Brown 060 761-0885 earth@wickedfood.co.za
All activities held at Wickedfood Earth Farm are subject to our standard terms and conditions.