Suffolk Foodie Bit! All organic?

When is organic ..... organic?

Traditional Suffolk Clay Pot for traditional food.  When we think of traditional food we think of the pre-green revolution era of organic food.  A big question has been raised by a US study of the health and wealth of organic food.

So the question is what is organic?  Is it healthy or a good marketing handle?  An open set of questions that will need an objective set of answers.  

The Green Revolution is the post 1940 spread of technology that increased yield at far higher rate than previously.  As with most industrial shifts it had been slowly happening before somebody put a name to it 1968 (first recorded use).  However, this is a modern  view of the world of agriculture where fossil fuel intensive  high inputs of chemicals coupled to accelerated breeding with efficient harvesting technology produce high yields.  This coupled with modern transport networks results in the movement of vast amounts of carbon, water, phosphates and nitrogen about the planet.  In order to replace the nitrogen first world fertiliser production is then exported back to areas where traditionally either "natural" fertilisers such as locally produced manure was used or more exotically guano ( and superphosphates by  Fisons as well as pesticides).  In the Stour Valley a similar trade in food and manure operated more locally with London (http://2pointfiveageofman.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/suffolk-food-and-festive-fare.html). 

We had pre-1940 produced food in quantities that did vary seasonally (something we talk about in this country).  We had methods of preserving, freezing, pickling, drying, salting etc. .  Did we have the 30 to 40% of food that is thrown away in households then?  Did we have the food rejected because it did not conform to a supermarket specification (curly cucumbers for instance)?  Are we using rose tinted spectacles on a a very complex problem and believing what we are told rather than exercising our common sense?  A misshapen carrot  can equally be as good as a straight carrot, it might not produce great battens but is still useful in a soup or stew!

So a recipe using misshapen carrots for country cooking.

A Farmhouse Vegetable Soup that can serve 4 people. Basic, everyday vegetables make up this chunky, everyday standby soup.

Ingredients

1 lb (454g) carrots, prepared and coarsely chopped

1 lb (454g) onions, peeled and coarsely chopped

2 sticks of celery, prepared and chopped

1 leek, prepared and sliced

2 oz (50 g) butter

2 lb (900 g)  potatoes, peeled and coarsely chopped

1 pint (approx 500 ml) lamb stock

Bouquet garni

Salt and pepper

Method 

Step 1: Melt the butter in a large saucepan

Step 2:  Add the chopped vegetables  ( reserve the potatoes for adding at later step)

and cook for 10 minutes, covered, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are soft.

Step 3: Put the potatoes, stock, bouquet garni and salt and pepper into the pan and add

enough water to cover the vegetables. Bring to the boil and simmer for 45 minutes.

Step 4: Remove the bouquet garni and serve. The potatoes thicken the soup and may

disappear into the liquid.

        

Serve with bread of your choice.

In more straightened times this may have been a meal with a cheese known as "Suffolk Bang".  Suffolk Bang was a cheese of close texture and very hard.  The cheese was produced by continuous skimming of the milk in order to leave no cream.  A poem by Robert Bloomfield  "A farmers boy" written in the year1800, describes not only this cheese but also the relationship between the area of the Stour Valley and London (reproduced in Clive Paine' collection A Suffolk Bedside Book  ISBN1-904349-06-04).

And finally a little observation on the efficacy Fisons products.

A lorry and a tractor collided opposite Bugg's Stores in Loddon High Street. As a result the tractor crashed into the shop window, completely wrecking at least half the frontage. The tractor was owned by Fisons, the pest control experts.

As soon as the shop front had been boarded up, the following notice was chalked up in bold letters:

THEY TRIED!

BUT FISONS PEST CONTROL

COULDN'T KILL BUGG'S

BUSINESS AS USUAL

(Reproduced  from the Book  of East Anglian  Humour ISBN 0-948134-59-3) 

  

The Sunday Garden Shed!

When is an allotment not an allotment?

The debate of what constitutes an allotment hit the news this week.  An allotment holder was taken to task for growing fruit trees on his patch (Telegraph 16th August).  The allotment holder was told that three-quarters of the allotment should be put to "productive crops".  A very loose term generally but not in this case apparently.

The picture to the left is an allotment society's plot that I was involved in a few years ago.  The trust that owned the allotments was apparently divided over whether to sell the land for housing.  This is a very rural village in West Suffolk. Arguably West Suffolk is one of the least developed areas for housing in the East of England because it is still essentially an Industrial Landscape.  An agricultural industrial landscape and has been so for hundreds of years.  It could be argued that without the Agriculture of Suffolk the sprawling metropolis of London would not have been able to grow.   

The value we put on allotments is very much in the eye of the beholder.  Allotments were originally provided for low paid workers to give access to the means of supplementing your own diet by growing your own.  Today we have food banks that can be used to supplement diets set up on the back of overbuying and production by the supermarkets.  A laudable green solution to disposing of mountains of food that the supermarkets would otherwise bin.  This, however, reflects a little of the aid culture we have developed.  Instead of giving food to developing nations (from whom we buy our supermarket produce all year round) We are now doing it at home with finished and packaged goods.  Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, give a man a fishing rod and he could also eat tomorrow.

In an ideal world it would be argued that everybody grow at least part of their own food.  However, in the time poor and on demand requirement for cheap food this is a rose tinted view.  Or is it? We tend to look at the cost of small parts of the food supply chain.  In supermarkets we buy either on price or perceived quality indicated by the marketing packaging.  The food contains the same major nutrients but may have those nutrients processed more or less depending on perceived added quality.  Everyday value brand or premium brand (often the same product) is a "choice" for the consumer.  Looking closer at the produce we have the major food chemical components of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous (and not forgetting water since  lettuce's water content is 94.5% making a 500g lettuce roughly half a litre of water) being transported at great expense around the world.  Kenya as an example may produce beans of different types all year round but is exporting a major source of nitrogen to northern Europe.  To produce grain it would then have to import nitrogen generated from expensive and potentially insecure oil supplies.  This is without considering the cost of composting waste nitrogen in Europe and the effects of eutrophication. How long before Kenyan economists start to do the maths and decide like Russia did last year that domestic consumption is more important and cost effective than the balancing act of  food export income and food production costs?   

In Haverhill we have the pressure of our green areas and allotments being developed http://www.haverhillecho.co.uk/news/latest-news/education-centre-proposals-are-slammed-1-3798542.  This is reflected in moves a foot nationally to build on green belt land, again!  A food security question needs to be addressed with a concern that globalisation may have made western consumerism vulnerable.  The  vulnerability being  of home consumption in the country of production as  populations becomes more affluent!