DINKUM DINING
Anyone for uti pie?
Story Sally Hammond
Photos Gordon Hammond
Many
travellers drive through the small settlement of Copley, a few kilometres
north of Leigh Creek in South Australia's northern Flinders Ranges, without
a second thought.
It's on the popular route north from Adelaide towards Marree, Lake Eyre, Oodnadatta and Birdsville - not where you would expect to discover an appetising, quintessentially Australian delicacy.
But Bob and Sue Tulloch's Copley Bakery and Quandong Cafe, which they opened in 1983, is a concept that would sit just as comfortably in a much larger town or even a suburban setting - if the key ingredient of their creations was procurable.
Quandongs are an indigenous fruit. Known as native or wild peaches, they appear all over the outback, their shiny scarlet fruit once a welcome sight to hungry Aboriginals and settlers. When cooked, the flesh resembles something between a plum and an apricot, and the tart-sweet flavour works especially well in pies and other desserts.
The Copley bakery cafe serves the best quandong pies you will ever
taste. Called uti (local lingo for quandong) pies made with fruit collected
by the local Andyamathanha people, they would be a certain hit in Sydney
or Melbourne. 
Full story: Issue 17, June/July 2001
