Food In The Belly, Food For The Soul

I write about food a lot. Food is something I devote much of my time to, as well as a significant part of our income. Food excites me, challenges me and inspires me (and sometimes defeats me). Much of our weekends are taken up with the growth, preparation, cooking and celebration of food (and by that I mean eating).

Every society has a food culture of some sort. Countries are known for their cuisine; the particular ingredients and cooking methods they employ, the rhythms and routines around meal preparation, the colour and bustle of marketplaces around the world. Early trade was centred around foods, and what was commonplace for some cultures was exotic and sought after to others. Nomadic communities based their movement around the availability of particular seasonal foods.

I believe that, by and large, Western society has lost its food culture. And we miss it, by god, do we miss it. We spend millions annually on the business of food; fine dining restaurants, specialty food stores, cooking schools, food festivals. I believe that, as we have evolved, this disconnection from food and its production that we have created has left our society feeling somewhat... hollow. We make up for it by spending more millions traveling to other cultures to experience their food culture... and when we try to recreate it with our Western tastes, we adulterate and compromise the essence of the food. Food culture is, and should be, entrenched in the soils it was raised up from.

Anyway, I was determined to write a lighter post than the last two, so I wanted to share with you some of ways we try to recreate a connection with the earth and its edible gifts in our space. These are photos from this weekend, a lovely, productive two days of pottering around the house and garden, feeding our bellies and feeding our souls.

Breakfast: fruit and honey damper with the last of my apricot sauce

Our harvest on Saturday

More bottled tomatoes - a pantry staple

Our little garden gnome, Eden

The bed we planted this weekend - tomatoes and rhubarb

Orange and date chutney simmering away - a sweet, spicy smell

Finished product - three more jars for the pantry

The beginnings of beer bottling

A clean, mucked out chook pen - and our reward!

Spicy Plum Sauce

This sauce is a gorgeous, flavoursome alternative to tomato sauce and a great way of using up excess plums. This is another recipe from Thane Prince's Jams and Chutneys: Preserving the Harvest. The pages of my copy of this book are becoming quite dog-eared and have spatters all over them.

Spicy Plum Ketchup

 (I doubled this recipe)

2kg plums

175g chopped dates

115g raisins

1 large onion, chopped

4 plump garlic cloves, chopped

5cm piece of fresh ginger (about 60g) grated

1 T freshly ground coriander seeds

1t freshly ground allspice berries

good pinch of cayenne pepper

1 litre malt or wine vinegar

1T ground turmeric

1/2 nutmeg, grated

300g light muscovado (brown) sugar

60g salt, or to taste

Halve and stone the plums, and chop if large. Put in a large preserving pan with the dates, raisins, onion, garlic and ginger. Add the coriander, allspice, cayenne and 500ml of vinegar.

Bring the mixture to the boil, then simmer for 30-40 minutes until fruit is very soft.

Allow the mixture to cool, then rub through a mouli or a sieve.

Return the puree to the cleaned pan. Add the remaining vinegar, turmeric, nutmeg, sugar and salt. Bring the mixture to the boil. Simmer for 30-45 minutes until reduced to a thick, pouring consistency, stirring frequently.

Pour into hot, sterilised jars, cover with vinegar-proof seals, store in a dark, cool place for at least a month before use.

With doubling the recipe, it made me about two litres. This is going to be a welcome addition to our winter larder.

Bottlin' It Up!

Peeled tomatoes, waiting for preserving

As summer comes to a close, I am enjoying bottling some of these glorious summer fruits before they disappear off the shelves for another winter.

Last weekend, Nath and I sorted the bottles we had been given or collected over the past couple of months. We ended up with four boxes of Fowlers Vacola preserving bottles and one box of Fowlers Vacola ginger beer bottles, as well as an assortment of reusable jars for bottling jams.

Jars, lids, rings and clips... all collected secondhand, most free

Ginger beer bottles, wrapped in paper from 1977

We dropped in at the fruit and veg market yesterday and picked up some bulk lots of fruit (apricots, plums, lemons and tomatoes) to bottle over the weekend. I had run out of apricot jam, and also wanted to preserve some whole peeled tomatoes and make spicy plum sauce and lemon butter.

Sealed jars in the preserving bath

These 'tinned tomatoes' cost me $1.50 - total

During the last week I had begun some peach schnapps and cherry liqueur, which will be ready as we come into the cooler months.

Summer fruits steeping in alcohol

Beautiful apricot jam

I am loving preserving and bottling. There is a lot to learn (and a lot that can go wrong!) but our trials seem to result in more successes than errors, and it is such a flavoursome way of eating seasonal food all year round - not to mention the money we are saving and the additives we are avoiding!

Some Thoughts On Stockpiling

With all of the weather-related events that have unfolded across the country since the New Year, there is much discussion occurring in Blogland around 'preparedness'. Gavin from 'The Greening of Gavin' has put together a four week challenge around this topic that is informative, both in its rationale for preparedness and its tips for becoming 'prepared'. You can read it here.

Preparedness is the act of ensuring that in an event that would limit our access to goods and services outside our home, we are able to provide for ourselves and our families, stay safe and see that our basic needs are met. A family that is prepared has the survival skills they need to exist without reliance on outside sources. They also have a stockpile of food, water and first aid supplies, among other things, to see them through an extended period of self-reliability. Julie from Towards Sustainability has a great article on stockpiling - you can read it here.

There are many reasons people decide to engage in preparing for such a time. Some are concerned about natural disasters, such as storms, floods and fires. Others are concerned about long term climatic changes and the unknown conditions that they will bring. Still others worry about events that have a more 'man-made' origin - a period of unemployment, war, or a peak oil event. (If you are not sure what this is, google 'peak oil'... and be prepared to read through some intense debate, polarised views and sobering opinions)

While the nation watches with great concern as Cyclone Yasi approaches the Queensland coast, residents in the path of this enormous system are engaging in their own last-minute preparations. The Queensland floods a few weeks ago reminded us that the days after these ravaging events can be just as dangerous as the events themselves. Whole regions left with no power or fresh water see rapid spread of disease, dehydration and hunger. Today, Queenslanders are being urged to seek shelter, but not before gathering enough food, water and first aid supplies to see them through the aftermath.

It has started me thinking. I'm not about to dig myself a shelter in my backyard, but having been through a cyclone some years ago that took us by surprise (only us... we hadn't been watching television that week!) and having no supplies in the days following when shops remained closed and power remained shut off, I know how inconvenient, at best, being unprepared can be. I have done some reading on Peak Oil, as well, and to me it seems logical that as we use oil and petroleum based resources faster than we can find (and fund, thankyou world governments) alternative power sources, we will reach a point where our consumption dwarfs our supply. This will have significant, if not catastrophic, impact on the way we live our lives.

I have the skills to be prepared. It is really an extension of the way we already live. I can stockpile, I have multitudes of bottles and jars, and it would not be a strain to put aside one or two jars from every batch of preserving I do. I can store water, tinned foods, first aid supplies, long life milk. I can buy bulk lots of dry goods to securely stockpile. I can box up blankets, old clothes, candles, batteries, personal hygiene necessities, chook feed, personal documentation, windup radio and the like.

This may seem extreme, and maybe it will never be necessary for me to have gone to all of this effort. But what if it is? Will it kill me (or you) to think along the worst case scenario lines... if only to ensure that if ever the need arised I (or you) would have the means to ensure our families' safety and wellbeing in difficult times?

Hell, in this, I'm willing to be made a fool of.

I wish the residents of the parts of Queensland bracing for Cyclone Yasi all the very best. The whole of Australia has our eyes, and our hearts, on you.