So Many Vegetables

The end of July and the allotment is in top gear, so keeping my log of costs/benefits is getting tricky. One of the big successes this year has been our artichoke bed. There is a lot of plant for not much nutrition, but they are so easy once established (just water in drought, and lob a bit of manure round the bases early in the year) and the flavour of artichokes so sublime that I'd not be without them.

After nine years with a plot (for the benefit of MI5 and the CIA, that refers to my allotment not some scheme to bring Western Civilisation to its knees - Bush and Blair managed that quite well between them) it still amazes me how much can be grown on such a relatively small space. You live and learn - having suffered (?) gluts with various crops we now grow a range where possible within each, or plant in dribs and drabs so that harvests are spread out, but even with three different types of artichoke we seem to be getting all of them at once.

Is there a more beautiful vegetable than the artichoke? It is the flower of a thistle in essence, so no wonder it is a looker. It cannot hurt its glamour quotient that so many others are plug ugly: we also grow Chinese artichokes, that look like larvae, and Jerusalem artichokes, bigger larvae. Top weirdo may well be the Kohl Rabi with its alien protuberances.

Our Sunday harvest was courgettes, artichokes, broad beans, French beans, new spuds (nearing the end), fennel, a load of blackcurrants, last of the strawbs, beetroot, a massively long (grown in drainpipes) parsnip (about 75cm), a few sticks of par-cel and some lettuces. At this time of year we could survive on the produce from that small patch of land - no claret yet of course, but an experimental grape vine is showing the first signs ever of fruiting, which says something about this year's weather.

All those veg are helping our already unexpectedly successful Alternative Eating Programme. I have lost 22lb and have a quite different sideways silhouette. SC has benefitted even more, now a shadow of his still-eating-like-a-prop-but-too-shoulder-damaged-to-play self. The Capo di Tutti Capi had less to lose, but she too shifted that (with some grumbling and the occasional death threat).

The Maldives jaunt thus saw us unafraid to be seen in sexy beach gear. Healthy eating would seem to be a habit, as even with the potentially pig-out buffet breakfast and dinner we only gained a pound or two each. Not so I think the Russians and Chinese in the same facility. I swear one Russian chap attempted to eat his own weight in Danish pastries one day, and our Chinese neighbours in the restaurant seemed unaware that they need not grab everything in reach before it ran out - it never would run out. Twice I saw a full plate of bread rolls arrive at their table, for not one bite to be taken - guess they didn't like bread but wanted their idiotic money's worth. I became more convinced than ever that we need to improve food security in the UK after that trip: the Russians and Chinese are very peasant at heart still, and with hundreds of millions more coming into mindlessly greedy reach of available excess our overseas sources are going to be under pressure.

Nearly Vegetarian II

As stated previously, we are not vegetarians, though meatless days are part of our flexible culinary schedule. But is it vegetarian if we substitute fish for the meat? I'm sure real veggies would say no.

Last night's effort then was meatless but not vegetarian, a fish pie made with pollock (doubtless soon to join the poor mackerel on the at-risk list as every chef seems to be lauding it now) and a mushroomy bechamel. The top was a mash made with spuds and parsnips about 67/33. Weirdly the bechamel smelled exactly like Heinz mushroom soup, which it wasn't, but that reminded me of the 1960s and 1970s thing of using tinned soups in dishes - Batchelors made a big thing of it. Nothing too wrong with that I suppose, but for the same price we got no additives and I am sure far more mushrooms.

When I make mash it tends to be with parsnips added, or a few cloves of garlic, to give the flavour a boost and add a different vegetable without using another pan. One of the few British veg currently in season parsnips are cheap at the moment, though had we ventured to the allotment through the mud and floods we could have had some for free. It feels like the rain hasn't ceased since about June.

And another tangent, prompted by that endless downpour. We are as a nation to spend £33 billion on quicker trains. We spent £13 billion on the big school sports olympics. At what point will some meaningful money be spent on our food security? We will not be able to rely on food from the countries now coming up on the rails economically; and one of them China is busy buying chunks of Africa for its own food safety. Orwell in the 1930s pointed out that we had been incapable of feeding ourselves in WWI when he and Cecil Beaton worked together on their school allotments in the drive to produce a bit more, and the situation has worsened since.