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! 

Ten year Plan - How it is going!

With Hindsight!

Word Count 833 

A friends wedding nearly six years ago  prompted me to start considering where I was heading.  It may have been the beginning of the "mid-life" crisis or a realisation that we were heading for major changes in my career path at the time.  At the time I did not realise quite how much of the crowd I was!

An interesting career that had experienced a lot change up to that point http://www.linkedin.com/in/philipspalding66, was about to become more interesting.  I sat down in the pre-wedding gathering in Weymouth (it had only just been announced as an Olympic venue) and contemplated the 10 year plan.  I made a statement that I would not be teaching full time in the classroom by the age of 50 (Eddie Izzard's new 40!).  I had an early night on the final night went back to the B & B.  Early next morning I boarded the ferry from Weymouth to Jersey.

In Jersey I stayed at my usual hotel in St Helier, the Mountview, and contemplated my statement.  I had a few pints in the more traditional pubs in the West End of St Helier.  A very good one with sporting prints from "antique" times was the venue to watch the Test Match and listen to the sage at the bar who also turned out to be the chairman of the Jersey Cricket Federation.  Picked the right pub!  But then you only have to look at the outside of the pub sometimes and know it is not going to be just q quick half to test the beer and atmosphere.

A few days of visiting my distant cousins in the north of the island (http://www.durrell.org/).  The orangutans seemed well, the funky gibbons were being funky.  They share an enclosure to simulate the Sumatran and Borneo rain forest habitat.  By the end of the break as I flew back into Stansted I had a bit of a plan.  Not quite a cunning plan but one that had light at the end of the tunnel which did not seem to be generated by a Eurostar! 

Another year on from this the following August and certain career paths appeared to be getting narrower (now we see the result good or bad?  http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/suffolk_cabinet_member_under_fire_after_suffolk_slumps_in_league_tables_1_1472060 ).  I was sitting in the bar in Pefki, Rhodes with a good friend shooting the wind as we  prepared for the Wedding.  A Rhodian escape started to be planned.  The mad engineer friend of mine combined with the agri-IT-scientist-teacher came up with a cunning plan.   A sustainable living/ well being plan, but in essence still a plan.

Two days alter back at work and the plan was shelved for another year until I went to Crete.  Fabulous island, cradle of European civilisation (forget mainland Greece)!  Schools Organisational Review (SOR) was just stating to come in and Haverhill along with Lowestoft was in the firing line.  A little bit of relaxation in Hersonissos led to realisation that work-life balance was really not balanced favourably on the cliff edge.  A couple of good nights spent in the company of a very attractive and relaxed Irish girl from Dublin and we started planning again!

The plan was expressed graphically in the Logo above. Sometimes you do not always need to write things down since the written word can always be misinterpreted by "experts".  Visit to a local print shop, and day later had the plan on a disc, five polo shirt (I went there and got the Polo Shirt, T-shirts were not good enough quality).  Scratch Rhodes, Crete would appear to be part of the plan! 

So back to work and another year of battling career change I finally hit the buffers.  An article in the Harvard business review started me thinking.  A position I had occupied through major career traumas such Ofsted, special measures, six (not really sure if some were actually allowed to be) head teachers and school federation was that of a Middle Manager.  The Harvard Review produced some insights (http://2pointfiveageofman.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/death-of-middle-manager.html).      I had started to blog by this time.  The following March, I made a clean break and walked away from the pressure of achieving continual goals against the trickle down management culture of similar to First World War Generals.  Whistle goes and then over top! (Blackadder Goes Fourth clip here  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IglUmgYGxLM).  

Two years on from the break with the treadmill and the BlackAdder goes Fourth clip seems apt in the context of the East Anglia Daily Times article  http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/suffolk_cabinet_member_under_fire_after_suffolk_slumps_in_league_tables_1_1472060.  

Still have weathered all this, the ten year plan is half way through!.  I have achieved the stated aim of not needing to be in the classroom full time or managing change (for change sake?).   Last time I jumped out of a plane I definitely had a parachute, this time I have to construct it on the way down!  Necessity does become the midwife of creativity and invention!  Here is to more blogging and on ward and upward up with up hill skiing!

Καλημέρα σας και είναι εδώ για τα επόμενα πέντε χρόνια! Ή θα έπρεπε να είναι ένα νέο σχέδιο δέκα χρόνια!

The Saturday Garden Shed

Another type of shed a green polyhouse

Started Saturday 6th March 2011

Sweet Pea and Petunia Salad ......... booked for later in Summer


Time for a little progress check on the potatoes that I have had sitting in my airing cupboard for the last few weeks.  The chitting process is going well they have shoots that are 2 to 3 cm long.  The last of the frosts should hopefully be gone by the third week of March.  The potato bags will then be used for the potato crops rather than planting and ridging up.  The surplus seed potatoes I have already offered to a few people including one new neighbour who has just moved to the area who I met through a chat in our local pub.  Long may the pub remain a feature of British society.

First lot of Sweet Peas have germinated and are now finding their way to the production of the first leaves.  The next sowing of Sweet peas a dwarf mixture and a tall mixture for this weekend.  A set of Petunias using recycled plug plant trays will also be a task.  The excess again passed to other people or  I am possibly thinking of an honesty box system to raise a little money.  Now that would really be micro-entrepreneurship.

I have this little disagreement with my mother each year over plug plants.  She is definite about buying plug plants each year, but is never quite up to potting them all and taking them to the next level.  The consequence is that a lot of the 250 or more plants are lost.  Being a sustainably minded gardener I find this to be an awful waste.  I may have finally persuaded her this year with following argument. The growers of the plug plants are happy as they are able to free up the space to produce more than one product in that growing area a year. They also do not have the risk or expense of taking the plants to a larger size.  Plug plants are fine if you have the space and time and want 250 of the same plant..

The coming weeks will see a lot of different plants that will be needing to be sown as the vegetable growing calendar opens up.  I will update my planting schedule at another time since I find myself a little time poor for blogging. Tomorrow is the foodie bit. I attended the Taste of Anglia event at Chilford Hall so will include comments on some of my purchases from this worthwhile excursion.

Monday Week 4 Chinese Lunar Year

Started Monday 28th February 2011 0629 GMT
Words 490
S.I.= 98 %

Week 4 of the Career Change Journey

A good week ahead is planned.  The stone has been rolled up to the top of the hill.  This is the week where the potential of my new start-up business begins to start to roll.

The business plan for each individual area is now going to be formally written.  I have talked about the pressures that have been placed on middle managers in a previous blog.  My own solution to this has been to go back to the fundamental idea of having a product or a service to sell.  I have hopefully? No. I have  used my diverse skills to formulate a economic activity diversification scheme that fits my own particular circumstances.

The underlying principle to be able to achieve this is wellbeing.  This is something that was not a prime concern for the people who I was working for in  previous career incarnations of teacher and and agriculture research.  The curse of the ME culture of the eighties, nineties and noughties promoting the emergence of the yuppie is hopefully over.  Or more importantly will not be a major influence on my activities.  It has to be remembered that a 20 year old yuppie in early 80 became the thirty something in the 90s and the 40 year old redundancy candidate in the noughties. Having trailed along 6 years behind these characters I experienced most of the downturns    just when their 3 year career plans required a change.

My hope is that now reality of monolith building created by the spending from central government has been recognised we may have a healthier future.  Transparency is talked about all the time.  The interweb does make available the same information if not more than what central planning operates on.  By having a fuller picture of the financial constraints most eventualities can be planned for rather reacted against. More refreshing to see the word consultation now actually being used  in the correct way by government.  Would like to have the phrase U-turn banned from journalism and parliament.  It is a sign of adaptability to dynamic processes and the fact a plans when written are not correct when they are implemented as information and situations change.  It is not a virtue to be intransigent about turning (vague reference to somebody who used to wield a handbag).

PS Really good idea launched today a scrappage scheme (reported on BBC Breakfast News London region edition) where old unwanted cars are collected auctioned off and the proceeds donated to charity, may only operate in London but it is a start possibly leading to a new recycling activities of second hand parts.   I have an old Mark 1 MR2 buying new parts is often difficult for older cars which do not really do a lot of miles so a second hand part with life left in would be more carbon footprint friendly.