A week or two on from enjoying salads made with the thinnings from our salad beds and the results of a task well done are clear to see: luscious growth of mizuna, lettuce, pak choi (I think) and mustards various. So last night we had the polar opposite of that earlier offering, a load of mature greenery, so mature that I decided to cook it.
Actually Ruth steamed it, having followed the noise to find out where the kitchen is. Dressed with salt, olive oil and garlic (the greens, not Ruth, though...) and served as a course in itself warm rather than hot they were excellent, though next time the stems will need to be trimmed.
Yet again this is something that would be hard to duplicate if the supermarket was our only source of veg, or even the market. Yet again I wonder what the health benefits could have been of spending one tenth of the money used for London's Big School Sports Day on buying land for allotments.
Showing posts with label olympics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label olympics. Show all posts
Thursday, 6 June 2013
Friday, 10 May 2013
The Unbuyables
The definition of fraud in this country used to run along the lines of 'gaining pecuniary advantage by deception'. Now it apparently reads 'those who are not rich and powerful gaining pecuniary advantage by deception.' So 'unbuyables' does not refer to British justice.
No, the unbuyables is Sarah Raven's term for the stuff we food gardeners grow that you just don't find in the shops. To which for us now add asparagus chicory, or Catalogna/Catalonia. I read about it in Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book, and fancied trying some as I'd seen it or similar in Mediterranean food shops. I don't for a minute expect asparagus flavour, but those leafy Greek dishes dressed with oil, lemon and garlic enjoyed in some island taverna should be repeatable here. Seeds have now been obtained from Seeds of Italy, and it is hoped the results will be on our plates within a couple of months or so.
There are lots of other things we grow or have grown that you're very unlikely to see outside of Fortnum and Mason's: like asparagus peas (note the recurring use of the enticing word asparagus to propagandize the unusual), which are not really worth the effort; or Par-cel which is - leaf celery, perfect for the stockpot and casseroles. Or Celtuce, a bit like lettuce on a long thick stalk, that stalk the point of the thing, used in Chinese cookery for its crunch; or the incredibly easy to grow hot mustards like Komatsuna, which has the added benefit of self seeding for next year, an easy salad when leaves are young and small, a hot leaf for cooking when older. Too many clauses Martin.
With a bit of imagination and a patch of land then austerity cookery does not need to be restricted to beans and rice. I say again, what a pity we used £13 billion for the big school sports day instead of improving the lives of millions of our citizens with a little piece of land on which to grow stuff. Except this generation of politicians clearly prefers circuses to bread, unless as slang for money. See opening comment on attitudes to fraud.
No, the unbuyables is Sarah Raven's term for the stuff we food gardeners grow that you just don't find in the shops. To which for us now add asparagus chicory, or Catalogna/Catalonia. I read about it in Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book, and fancied trying some as I'd seen it or similar in Mediterranean food shops. I don't for a minute expect asparagus flavour, but those leafy Greek dishes dressed with oil, lemon and garlic enjoyed in some island taverna should be repeatable here. Seeds have now been obtained from Seeds of Italy, and it is hoped the results will be on our plates within a couple of months or so.
There are lots of other things we grow or have grown that you're very unlikely to see outside of Fortnum and Mason's: like asparagus peas (note the recurring use of the enticing word asparagus to propagandize the unusual), which are not really worth the effort; or Par-cel which is - leaf celery, perfect for the stockpot and casseroles. Or Celtuce, a bit like lettuce on a long thick stalk, that stalk the point of the thing, used in Chinese cookery for its crunch; or the incredibly easy to grow hot mustards like Komatsuna, which has the added benefit of self seeding for next year, an easy salad when leaves are young and small, a hot leaf for cooking when older. Too many clauses Martin.
With a bit of imagination and a patch of land then austerity cookery does not need to be restricted to beans and rice. I say again, what a pity we used £13 billion for the big school sports day instead of improving the lives of millions of our citizens with a little piece of land on which to grow stuff. Except this generation of politicians clearly prefers circuses to bread, unless as slang for money. See opening comment on attitudes to fraud.
Sunday, 14 April 2013
I Bake, but not on Tarty TV
Our ridiculous culture of copycats and characterless celebrities has spawned a phenomenon - the rise (he-he) of baking - about which I am ambivalent. It's great that people are being drawn into cooking of any sort; but it is annoying that in the way of these things some media outlets act as if a) baking is new to the world; b) only the photogenic (count me out then) should be doing this; and c) we suddenly need 50 programmes on the topic.
A rainy Sunday and I felt the need to do something physical and creative, so I made some pizza dough and ended up with an onion and cheese tart of sorts - rolled over edges, base cooked on its own for 10 minutes, then filled with onions sliced thinly and previously cooked until very soft in olive oil, plus some grated cheddar. The filled version needed another 15 minutes to finish.
It was meant to be a slice each for lunch with a small salad, and some left for my wife's pack-up tomorrow. We ate it all.
As far as austerity goes it was about 25p of bread flour, 5p of yeast, at the very most 35p of onions (I used red to brighten it up), and £0.75 for the cheese. Even allowing for under-estimates and the cost of heating the oven to maximum something that proved (he-he again) to be fresh, warm, and really tasty cost well under £2.
Actually the surplus dough made a small garlic bread and some breadsticks, so even more of a bargain.
I posted about the madness of us spending £13 billion on the Olympics in the foolish belief that it would change the health of the nation (or at least that was one of the reasons given). Teaching people to cook would have been a far better use of the dosh. Am I turning into Ed Balls, spending in my imagination the same notional money over and over again, as I had posted before about using some (a very small part) of those wasted funds to provide allotments for a million people?
A rainy Sunday and I felt the need to do something physical and creative, so I made some pizza dough and ended up with an onion and cheese tart of sorts - rolled over edges, base cooked on its own for 10 minutes, then filled with onions sliced thinly and previously cooked until very soft in olive oil, plus some grated cheddar. The filled version needed another 15 minutes to finish.
It was meant to be a slice each for lunch with a small salad, and some left for my wife's pack-up tomorrow. We ate it all.
As far as austerity goes it was about 25p of bread flour, 5p of yeast, at the very most 35p of onions (I used red to brighten it up), and £0.75 for the cheese. Even allowing for under-estimates and the cost of heating the oven to maximum something that proved (he-he again) to be fresh, warm, and really tasty cost well under £2.
Actually the surplus dough made a small garlic bread and some breadsticks, so even more of a bargain.
I posted about the madness of us spending £13 billion on the Olympics in the foolish belief that it would change the health of the nation (or at least that was one of the reasons given). Teaching people to cook would have been a far better use of the dosh. Am I turning into Ed Balls, spending in my imagination the same notional money over and over again, as I had posted before about using some (a very small part) of those wasted funds to provide allotments for a million people?
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
Salad for the Family or a Chocolate Bar? Full Stomach or Gold Medal?
Tonight before our main course we had a small salad. This in the main came from a bag that I think cost £1.19 at Booth's. I had already used a handful of the leaves in my wife's packed lunch, with a few different bits and bobs added to that and the evening version to make sure she didn't feel she was getting the same thing twice.
Factor in the half a chicory head, few slices of cucumber, and a grated beetroot (plus a few drops of dressing) this evening and it would still not have set us back anywhere near £2. A chocolate bar each would have cost more by my reckoning, and we're not talking Green and Black's 70% cocoa either.
That bag is in fact a bit lazy, and even in proper austerity terms an extravagance, a lettuce going further.
Of course in about three months we will be back on our own salad ingredients. Growing your own salad provided you have a little patch of ground, or even a sunny windowsill, is ridiculously easy, incredibly economical, and provides you with leaves and roots that put supermarket or even greengrocer stuff in the shade.
I still keep turning over in my mind the relative health benefits of the Olympic Games which cost £13 billion, and say spending a third of that on land to provide allotments. So that's £4.3 billion. Arable land costs £6,500 per acre, being generous. The £4.3 billion would buy 660,000 acres, again erring on the safe side. An acre would give a manageable plot (125m2, half the normal size of an allotment if there is a normal size) to 32 families or individuals (you can tell I'm not a politician, I didn't say 'hard working families). Say you lost a whopping 25 per cent of usable space for access, paths etc. That still leaves more than 15 million allotment plots. Allotments, btw, are more productive than commercially farmed land as there is no need for tracks for machines, you can intercrop more easily, have quick crops like radishes while slower ones like spuds are on the way, etc etc.
Of course farmers may not want to sell all that land, and arable land tends to be away from the centres of population. And it is unlikely that 15 million families would want an allotment suddenly. But I bet you could get a million interested at the drop of a hat. Give them the full-size plot and let them build a summerhouse shed on it so the kids can play and have shelter, and it becomes a British dacha. If my sums are correct, you could give (lease or rent for a small amount is more practical, so people don't sell them on instantly) a million families healthy food and exercise for less than £600 million.
Instead of which we make national heroes of a very few people who can swim backwards fast, jump quite a long way, throw pointed sticks, and not bomb when they dive into swimming pools. We got lots of goldish medals though. Try eating them in a few years' time. Or another comparison: we intend spending £33 billion making it a bit quicker to get between London and Manchester by train (and Birmingham, and Leeds...). We know that our food security will be affected by climate change; is almost certain to be threatened by political events around the globe; by population growth; and by the growing demands (quite reasonably) of developing nations. Have we got our priorities right?
Factor in the half a chicory head, few slices of cucumber, and a grated beetroot (plus a few drops of dressing) this evening and it would still not have set us back anywhere near £2. A chocolate bar each would have cost more by my reckoning, and we're not talking Green and Black's 70% cocoa either.
That bag is in fact a bit lazy, and even in proper austerity terms an extravagance, a lettuce going further.
Of course in about three months we will be back on our own salad ingredients. Growing your own salad provided you have a little patch of ground, or even a sunny windowsill, is ridiculously easy, incredibly economical, and provides you with leaves and roots that put supermarket or even greengrocer stuff in the shade.
I still keep turning over in my mind the relative health benefits of the Olympic Games which cost £13 billion, and say spending a third of that on land to provide allotments. So that's £4.3 billion. Arable land costs £6,500 per acre, being generous. The £4.3 billion would buy 660,000 acres, again erring on the safe side. An acre would give a manageable plot (125m2, half the normal size of an allotment if there is a normal size) to 32 families or individuals (you can tell I'm not a politician, I didn't say 'hard working families). Say you lost a whopping 25 per cent of usable space for access, paths etc. That still leaves more than 15 million allotment plots. Allotments, btw, are more productive than commercially farmed land as there is no need for tracks for machines, you can intercrop more easily, have quick crops like radishes while slower ones like spuds are on the way, etc etc.
Of course farmers may not want to sell all that land, and arable land tends to be away from the centres of population. And it is unlikely that 15 million families would want an allotment suddenly. But I bet you could get a million interested at the drop of a hat. Give them the full-size plot and let them build a summerhouse shed on it so the kids can play and have shelter, and it becomes a British dacha. If my sums are correct, you could give (lease or rent for a small amount is more practical, so people don't sell them on instantly) a million families healthy food and exercise for less than £600 million.
Instead of which we make national heroes of a very few people who can swim backwards fast, jump quite a long way, throw pointed sticks, and not bomb when they dive into swimming pools. We got lots of goldish medals though. Try eating them in a few years' time. Or another comparison: we intend spending £33 billion making it a bit quicker to get between London and Manchester by train (and Birmingham, and Leeds...). We know that our food security will be affected by climate change; is almost certain to be threatened by political events around the globe; by population growth; and by the growing demands (quite reasonably) of developing nations. Have we got our priorities right?
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