There are few people in this world who like eating, cooking, talking about food, writing about it (with great passion) and generally waxing lyrical than The Monaco Foody. Mrs H says I live to eat. If that's the case then the Monaco Foody invented living! Read his blog HERE. . .you will come away famished.
Yesterday I decided to spend a little time walking over the hills looking for the site of a long gone group of houses called Ellemside. I've got an 18th Century map which shows it, but it's not up to the standards of the Ordnance Survey and so its precise position is up for debate. I thought the farmer had harvested his barley, but he'd only done half of the field and so my searching was somewhat abortive. I'm interested because a few days before the battle of Flodden in 1513, on this weekend 495 years ago, the Scots army mustered at Ellem and King James IV, "stayed in a house at Ellem" - it could perhaps be one of the houses at what was called Ellemside. So there I was metal detector in one hand, my spade in the other heading off down the hill toward the river valley; apart from finding a Victorian brass dog whistle it was all fairly fruitless. As I got closer to the valley I saw that the barley field ended and there was a field of grass; closer still I spotted what looked like mushrooms, on closer inspection I decided they were. Now, having once been on a fungi foray with a mycologist my fears of picking mushrooms to eat have been heightened rather than reduced.
There was nothing else for it - Dave was the answer. I knew he was working on a piece of wood sculpture in his studio at the old sawmill so I headed off to him to get him to come with me for some formal identification. I admit I did this with some trepidation as Dave, 
on at least once occasion, has had his lips turn blue from eating dodgy mushrooms. "They're definitely field mushrooms,” announced Dave as he sliced one off its base and took a bite. I watched for his lips to turn blue - fortunately they didn't. The two off us set about picking two large shop scale weighing pans of the beautiful mushrooms. Dave explained that it was important to cut them from their bases to leave the spores in the ground so that more would come. There was even a 'fairy ring' of little brown mushrooms; Dave cut a couple to check in his mushroom book as to their edibility.
With my 5 lbs of mushrooms I headed home, dropped Dave off to continue his sculpture, and thought about what to do. His idea was mushroom soup; I've never made it but after checking two or three cookery books I found several recipes. I decided to combine the best bits from several and ended up with ten or so servings of delicious mushroom and pancetta soup - it's in the freezer. There's enough mushrooms left for us to have risotto tonight. It will be a meal fit for a Scot’s King.
Last evening the Head Gardener (also known as Mrs H.) brought back these borlotti beans from Polytunnel World. Our cunning plan is to eat what's ready in the garden and work our supper around what we have, rather than what we just dream up and disappear to the supermarket to buy. In the past we've left the belotti beans for longer and then dried them for use in casseroles, but not last night. Mrs. H. remembered a friend mentioning borlotti bean rissotto so she made up a recipe; I could see it involved onion, a small courgette and parmasen cheese and chicken stock, along with the beans. It was absolutely wonderful...actually it was better than that!
This is turning into Mrs. H's blog by proxy. Of course she does most of the interesting things - I just write. Yesterday she came back from polytunnel world and the vegetable garden with our dinner. It tasted as good as it looked....
So the Prime Minister has spoken. Apparently we in Britain must stop wasting food in an effort to help combat rising living costs. According to our brave and in-touch leader "unnecessary" purchases are contributing to price hikes, and he’s urged us to plan meals in advance and store food properly. According to a Cabinet Office study the average UK household throws away £8 of leftovers a week.
Now I’ve no doubt the study is right and we do waste food, although whether it’s precisely £8 I’m not sure. However, what is daft is the PM actually making such statements. If he stopped and thought for a minute it might be that rising sales is actually stopping prices from rising. Clearly it is stupid to throw away food, but unlike our PM, who has his life run for him, in the average household there are all sorts of reasons why food is chucked out. Far better the government tackled the business of producing more at home, lessening the food miles, ensuring our supermarkets didn’t sell cheap fatty chickens, tackled the obesity crisis in schools with more exercise for kids….I could go on….and on. I did use to think that Tone was the Nanny in chief, but Gordon leaves him standing. His utterances on almost everything show he’s been in power too long, he’s lost his way and it’s no good him keep saying, “As I go around the country talking to people.” He doesn’t! He sits in Downing Street and is increasingly beleaguered.
p.s. What Gordon Brown knows about leadership is not worth knowing, he just doesn't have a clue on what it takes to be a leader.
When ever the subject of the environment comes up the talk from politicians is all about grand schemes and big ideas designed to fix things at a stroke. To me what we should be doing is developing ideas that are manageable, practical and beyond all else - workable. The debate about food is high on the agenda at the moment, should there be GM crops, food shortages, the high cost of bringing food from overseas and the control of the supermarkets on our food supply are on the media’s mind.
Could it be that we’re missing something? Should we not be doing things closer to home to alleviate some of the problems? Why doesn’t the Scottish Government put money into the setting up of more farmer’s markets. Financially support on a much wider scale the local food industries. There should be local food networks established that make people more aware of what is available locally. The farmers and producers I’ve talked to are great at what they do but the one thing that probably holds them all back is the marketing and distribution. There needs to be a campaign of awareness for consumers, practical help as to where to buy and the wherewithal to be able to do it.
This is not radical big scale stuff but practical small scale activity that could grow and could help change the eating patterns of the nation. It benefits the local economy, helps save the planet….and the food will probably taste better.
If anyone doubts that supermarkets are bad for the digestion then check the news today. The UK's big four supermarkets and dairies have colluded to keep the price of dairy goods artificially high, the Office of Fair Trade (OFT) has reported. Apparently Asda, Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and processors including Dairy Crest and Arla were involved, which has led to consumers overpaying for milk, cheese and butter by an estimated £270m.
Here in Scotland for a long time locally produced butter was the most expensive in Sainsburys, although recently it has come down. More to the point this is all about squeezing out small local retailers so that we all have to go and buy from the Superstores. If you appreciate good food shop local and buy with the seasons and with low food miles in mind.
Check The River Cottage web site where the guru of all things local, Hugh Fernley Whittingstall is fighting the fight
Not that we're expecting a Vampire attack but we've got a bumper harvest of garlic. Mr's H. collected it yesterday and here it is, this morning, drying out. We had some roasted with chicken last night and it was lovely. I assumed that we were too far north to grow garlic - it was only something those clever French people could do. Then we read about a lady in Perthshire who had started growing in commercially on their farm. It tastes just like the garlic you buy in French markets!
Update from Mrs. H. I've got it all wrong. She had read that you need cold for garlic to go into cloves within the bulb so she was well ahead of me - again!
From very early in World War 2 it was recognized that “farming was as important as arming” if Britain was to stand any chance of winning the war. The toll taken by U-Boats on merchant shipping had soon began to mount, which was behind someone having the bright idea of the ‘Dig For Victory’ campaign. It was a simple notion that encouraged everyone to use any spare piece of land, and especially allotments, to cultivate vegetables. It was the perfect way to supplement what would become an increasingly worrisome diet that shortages would impose on Britain.
As early as October 1939 the slogan began being touted, and the philosophy was seen as a huge opportunity. The BBC was central to the strategy - being the most effective way not just to communicate ideas but also to inspire people in all sorts of creative ways; by the spring of 1940 ‘Digging For Victory’ was everywhere. Activities were launched right across the country and at local events speakers urged people to give over “a few square yards of garden to the cultivation of potatoes which would produce 45 times as much human food as the same square yards of pasture.” This was one of the great triumphs of the war on the Home Front, and by 1943 it was estimated that over a million tons of vegetables were being grown in Britain’s gardens and allotments.
“Today we begin a new Dig for Victory campaign. The successful Dig For Victory campaign this autumn was one of the best answers to Hitler’s attempts to damage our overseas food supplies and interrupt our communications we must try to rope in every single person.”
I've long marvelled at how much supermarkets charge for bottled water and don't get me started on restaurants that often mark up water more than wine. There's news today that The City of New York is trying to persuade people to give up bottled drinks and consume tap water to help protect the environment. According to environmental groups, four out of five plastic water bottles end up on landfill sites and the production process contributes to global warming. Already restaurants in California have begun to serve only tap water and some in New York are looking to follow suit.
Unsurprisingly the Bottled Water Association says it is unfair to single out an industry that is promoting recycling and introducing biodegradable packaging. Here in Britain it hasn't started yet but given how much water rates are, and given all the talk about how much better our water is from the tap it's only a matter of time.
But what about the cost? At the supermarkets they're generally charging about 50p a litre for milk and anything from 40p to a £1 a litre for water. The whole thing s crazy. We’re prepared to pay more for milk than bottled water, when the bottled water is no more pure than what comes out of our taps.
UPDATE
Just back from walking the dogs to find our friend, who is staying with us, washing his very smart car's windscreen with a bottle of Malvern Water. He absolutely assured us it was an old one he'd filled with tap water. I should add he's from London.
Polytunnel World goes from strength to strength. Besides the strawberries, which we've been eating for three weeks now we had our first courgettes yesterday, admittedly baby ones. The corn, French beans, pumpkins, squash, peppers, aubergines, coriander and tomatoes are all coming along fine. The first fruit have appeared on the tomatoes in the pots - the ones we put in early.
The excess of strawberries has meant the strawberry vodka has been started this morning. The strawberries are in a Kilner jar and then covered with vodka, no sugar though as this appears to be incorrect from consulting recipe books various.
Right beside the polytunnel a pheasant has made her nest. It's two eggs short as one of the dogs found the nest, scared off the hen and devoured two before we could get a hold of her. Click on the picture if it's not too clear and you'll see her tail poking out of the grass. Nevertheless I'm going to tell the gamekeeper that they owe us some extra pheasants this year - roll on pheasant pate!
Because of a question on a comment last evening I've been prompted to post about Scotland's best beer. It's from the Black Isle Brewery and it's also organic. Their Porter is delicious with mussels and the Scotch Ale is my other favourite. Having said that I'd recommend any of their beers - if of course you are a beer drinker! Best of all they do mail order.
To me 'low food miles' are important. That's why we grow as many of our vegetables (organically) as we can, buy our meat from our farmer neighbours (who happen to be organic) and read the packaging at the supermarkets so that we, at least, try and avoid buying things that have come a long way. We’re not fanatics though; it's just something that we do our best to achieve. I'd favour low food miles over organic for things we buy at the shops.
In today's Scotsman there is an article about Scottish farmers having to import organic wheat from as far away as the Ukraine to keep up with the demand. Now you would suppose that this is because all animal feed that's fed to organic cattle or poultry has to be organic in the first place. Well it doesn't organic producers are allowed to feed them with a 'small percentage' of non-organic feed. Currently five per cent of feed for sheep and cattle and 15 per cent for poultry can be non-organic, but both figures are to be cut to zero and ten per cent respectively in December.
Why?
According to the Soil Association, who oversee the organic industry in this country, Scotland's organic farmers are in dire need of financial support. Given that green is the new black why have we heard so little about this? Probably because it will not win any party, any seats.
Given that there is such a huge growth in the demand for organic food (sales were up 30% last year) why don’t we concentrate more on home food production? I’ve never got this ‘stewards of the countryside’ malarkey that the government has been pushing. To me we should do everything to encourage our farmers to grow food and not to diversify. Living on an island, one day, we’ll be very glad that we can grow our own.
All this talk about independence and the Salmon telling England that they should be glad of impending Scottish independence as it will save them from being bossed around by MPs from north o' the border raises an important question in my mind. Will we at last be able to buy Scottish butter at a price below that of posh French butter. I have asked the manager in Sainsbury's in Straiton on a number of occasions why Scottish butter is the most expensive in the shop - particularly as it's made just down the road in Lockerbie. The short answer is that it has to travel from Lockerbie 'down sarf' somewhere, from where it is then redistributed back to Scotland, and elsewhere. It's also something to do with Saisbury's 'common pricing policy' or some other daft term. If independence leads to cheaper Scottish butter then bring it on.
