Local food

I've just been reading about Joanna's latest local food meal. It does make me think hard about how I could or should define local food for my family. Eating food only grown in the South Island of New Zealand is not difficult. A wide range of vegetables and fruits are grown in the South Island, fishing is common, wine and beer are made as are the grapes and hops grown, sheep, chickens, pigs, dairy and cattle are raised, grains are grown and the only thing I'm not sure about is whether we grow pulses on a commercial scale. I think there are some around Ashburton. Salt is harvested in Marlborough and olives are now as well, although for the premium end of the market rather than the large bottles I use nearly every day. Herbs grow plentifully.



Except, the West Coast of the South Island is quite isolated from everywhere else and snow still stops transport getting through several times every winter. If fuel prices and availability go the way some are predicting, I don't think the South Island will necessarily be local enough. So I've chosen the West Coast only as a possible local challenge. Not impossible but lots harder. I'm assembling an inventory of possibilities now.


As you can see in the map below, the West Coast is a very long and skinny part of New Zealand linked for the most part by only one road. From one end to the other would take 6-7 hours to drive.



Fruit: blueberries are produced commercially. Nothing else, or nothing within coo-ee of our home. I think there are some organic crops near Karamea, maybe feijoas. But it's possible to grow a number of trees for fruit at home, which we are doing.


Vegetables: again, very little grown commercially. There is a commercial tomato producer not far from us and I support them for my sauce making adventures. There is a place near Hokitika which grows mostly things we have at home but also has asparagus which I don't even have in my garden yet. The Hokitika grower is odd and unpredictable and his wife tells me he tells lies, but no one said this locavore thing was going to be sunshine all the way.


Grains: potatoes for carbohydrates. Too wet for grains here really.


Legumes: I'm experimenting and so have others, but no great success yet. No place for locavore vegans I'm afraid.


Meat: I support two excellent local butchers. I understand however that they get their raw unprocessed meat from Canterbury, so local business but not locally grown. There is a place in Karamea which I have spoken to which sometimes has organic lamb, but mostly I need to get in the know with farmers and the home kill butcher if I want local meat. I have a contact south of Ross who sells me organic beef which she has reared herself.


Poultry & eggs: I have the great benefit of being friends with the wonderful Raeleen who passes her unwanted roosters on to us to eat. We occasionally buy eggs from Raeleen and by spring we should have our own chooks.


Fish: Locally caught fish isn't hard to buy here. Our strongest preference is to buy direct from a fishing family who we know from kindy and now school.


Dairy: The coast is teeming with cows, but it isn't possible to buy local milk and cream and cheese. Westland Milk Company specialises in powdered products which go out of the coast on the train. I suspect the market is largely international.

fat and thin arguments: Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

In a book so interesting, the things which don't convince me do seem so particularly unconvincing that it does detract from the very fascinating parts which could well convince me.

Raw meat eating in our modern industrialised society seems risky in the extreme. Fallon does seem to argue that veges should be cooked more and so then to suggest we eat raw meat is rather counter intuitive to me.

She doesn't like pressure cookers because she thinks they cook food too fast. 'Thinks' being the operative word because she doesn't pull out any research to back that one up. I am in empathy with her on the anti-microwave front though.

She talks a lot about fat. Animal fat from traditionally pastured animals is top of her list, and olive oil is okay also. She is also an enthusiast for coconut oil, which I'll be prepared to consider. I do like coconut cream in a curry but coconut products seem to exacerbate Fionn's eczema. Hence why we don't use those "natural" washing powders, which always seem to use coconut products.

I am happy with using butter. It is an appropriate use of local food. We have lots of dairy farms near us. Shame we can't actually buy locally but have to pay for loads of fossil fuel as it is tanked around the country. I'm not obsessed with size, though many much more slender people than me find cause for concern. My weight is stable and doesn't stop me from doing anything (years ago I started gaining weight quite fast when I gave up biking and had access to a car and the rapid weight gain aspect was scary as I could see it could stop me from doing things). I think my family need feeding up when I look at them, not slimming down. She talks about eating fat and losing fat but I'm not much into that line of thinking. Whoever said "eat food. Mostly plants" is right on the money in my view. Obesity is a weird wealthy world problem and I can't get my head around how we spend so much money trying to lose weight while the rest of the world literally, through no fault of their own, starves.

The main problem with butter in my view is that it is rapidly becoming mega expensive. Whereas petrol is clearly going to rise and rise and rise, I'm less worried in the longer term about dairy products as I predict dairy prices will crash when Chinese dairy farms come on stream.

Olive oil I'm happy with also. Yummy stuff in the right place. 'Tis from a long way away though. Post peak oil life may not have so much olive oil in my family's diet, but I'm prepared to keep on using and enjoying it now. After I read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, I swore off margarines and unnamed vegetable oils.

Sally Fallon also talks about grains and digestibility. I am going to have a go at sprouting grains and maybe at making kefir and her fancy titled yoghurt which I forget the name of right now. But I did note her claim that potatoes appear to be the most easily digested carbohydrate. Excellent as I can grow them easily right here in my own backyard.

It's all looking rather like we're back to meat, spuds and veg to me. Or stew, spuds and sauerkraut anyway.

Rooster killing has been delayed until next month. Seven roosters then! We best start eating the freezer, as we'll need the space. I bought a free range bird for the price of a good bottle of wine this week and the stock from it has hardly gelled. Won't be a problem in that respect with Rayleen's local, free range over paddocks roosters. They make truly fantastic stock. I'm thinking I might have a go at cutting the meat of the bones and making stock with raw bones this time. Heads, feet, the lot.

Bought some more shallots to plant this afternoon. I read recently that I should have planted them with their necks sticking out of the ground. I think I planted mine much deeper than that. Time will tell what survives and prospers.

Food diversity: bok choy tonight in with the other ingredients in the lentil shepherd's pie. I have got some in the garden but it isn't ready to eat yet. This bought stuff was huge compared with mine. I made the lentil shepherd's pie out of the leftovers from last night's puy lentil and bacon bone casserole. I am getting better at appropriate serving size. Finally.

Still warm enough for caterpillars

I've found them on my kale this week and on my tamarillo plant tonight. Winter can fool me sometimes. I've got aphids on the basil and coriander on my kitchen windowsill and another kind of aphid on my kale.

The recent NZ Gardener vege growing in the south column recommended I put a light dusting of wood ash on my broad beans, so I did that tonight as well. Some even have flowers on them. A bit early I thought but I don't know much about broad beans except they grow in winter.

Only about six minutes in the garden, but precious and worthwhile.

food diversity

I'm part way through reading Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions. (Tania, various things happened and I upped it on my priority list and ordered within New Zealand, out of our food budget.)

I'm very interested in much of what she has to say, though I'm not at all convinced on the raw offal meat organs front or on serving raw egg to babies.

I strongly suspect full on romanticisation on the part of Weston A Price himself in his visits to 'primitives' aroudn the world. I remember reading Edward Said's work on Orientalism when I was at university and his concepts come to mind when I read the many quotes from Price in Nourishing Traditions.

I am fascinated and quite open to being convinced on the sections about digestibility and how previous culinary traditions soaked grains and soured milk to increase digestibility.

She also talks about the benefits of eating many different vegetables and I'm beginning my latest foodie fad with my own vegetable and fruit challenge.

Today I ate persimmon for the first time and liked it.

In winter we eat broccoli-carrots-kumara-mushrooms-onion-garlic-swiss chard adn this winter also kale, all the time.

I ordered brussels sprouts this week in our vege box. Challenge is to eat and want them again.

I'll come back to the fats issue another time.

One local season, One Fat Lady

I've been reading with interest about the Northern Hemisphere one local summer challenge on Joanna's blog.

Could I do it here in Winter? Not sure, but I'm thinking about it.

Perhaps us Southern Hemisphere gals could have a go at this in our Summer?

I've finished "Spilling the Beans" by Clarissa Dickson Wright of Two Fat Ladies fame. I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend you order it from your library also. If you are only interested in living simply, then she won't be the read for you at the moment, though you'd be missing out. She has serious gumption and survival skills. I loved reading about her endeavours around good food in England and Scotland and now know she is partly responsible for the revival of Borough Market in London, a place I adored. Books for Cooks in Portobello has also benefited from her skills and I remember trekking over there to check that place out a couple of times also. Food heaven. If someone you love has problems with alcohol, then it is a powerful and relevant book also. Her narrative of the process of alcoholism and rehabilitation will stay with me a long time.

She is also an enthusiast of good food growing, as any food enthusiast must be. Her cardoon growing project has made me consider growing it. Kings Seeds have it in their catalogue.

Yellow cherry guava

I had been thinking we had no fruit trees. Primarily because we have no fruit.



But I did an inventory of everything in the garden yesterday and then sketched out my plans for this coming summer and we do indeed have a number of fruit trees/bushes/plants.



blackcurrants - tamarillo - feijoa - raspberries - lemon - strawberries



Next on my list are blueberries. What do you do to raise money for fruit trees? Dealing in illegal drugs seems an extreme measure, as does begging or stealing or defrauding or making counterfeit money. I have noted however, that the NZ Gardener magazine pays out a $50 garden centre voucher for every letter they publish. Which would pay for the two blueberry plants I have chosen at our local garden nursery and for most of a yellow cherry guava.



I've neither touched nor eaten a guava but I'm not letting that put me off. Inspired by the latest NZ Gardener magazine, I looked them up at Incredible Edibles and now I want one. They fruit in winter. After the guava, I will be coveting a plum. A Damson plum tree I think. Then we should be shaping up for year round fruit in the garden. Nah nah na nah nah peak oil.

The chook house building is progressing nicely.

Egg-less chocolate cake and black bean soup

Egg-less chocolate cake
The chocolate cake recipe is an adaptation from one in the New Zealand Food Allergy Cookbook. I added the jam and linseeds because I thought the jam would be yummy and the linseeds, of which we have many in the fridge being used too slowly, might fit in as well.

1 C sugar
250g melted butter
1-3 t of ground cloves/mixed spice/ground cinnamon
3 T cocoa powder
1 C warm water
1 t baking soda
2 C plain flour
1 dessertspoon of jam
1 dessertspoon of ground linseeds

Mix sugar, spices and cocoa. Dissolve baking soda in the water and add to the spice mixture. Sift the flour and add to the wet mixture. Mix the linseeds and jam together and then add to the cake mixture. Mix well and then tip into a greased round cake tin, about 20-22cm. Cook at 180 degrees celsius for about 45 minutes.

We had friends over for dinner last night and served the cake with yoghurt for pudding. I have no idea how long it keeps for as ours got eaten very quickly.

Black Bean Soup
This comes from Nigella Lawson's How to Eat. I love this book, both her writing and her lovely hedonistic joy in food. Serves eight, makes great leftovers.
450 g dried black turtle beans
2 bay leaves
200ml extra virgin olive oil
2 large red peppers, seeded and chopped
2 shallots, chopped
2 onions, chopped
8 cloves garlic, chopped
1 T ground cumin
2 T ground dried oregano
zest of 1 lime, plus more limes for serving
0.5 T sugar
1 T salt
2 T dry sherry
1 red onion, diced, to serve
coriander, chopped
250 ml sour cream to serve

No need to soak the beans, cover with 2 litres of water, add bay leaves and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for 1.5-2 hours until soft but not squishy, adding more water if necessary to keep well covered. (Could do this bit in the pressure cooker - I did last time but forget for how long)

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan and saute the peppers, shallots and onions until the onions are translucent - about 15 minutes. Add the garlic, cumin, oregano and lime zest and cook for a further 5 minutes. Put in a blender and puree until smooth.

When the beans are almost tender, add the pureed mixture, sugar, salt and sherry. Serve with bowls of sour cream,`limes, red onion and coriander so that people can add as they wish. Tabasco goes down well also.

Things I have found out: we love sour cream with this. We never seem to have coriander at the right time which is a shame as it is lovely. Good without though or with parsley instead. I always put lime zest in, but not always on the table due to cost. All onions is fine if you don't have shallots. I don't always bother with red onions on the table. Next time I'm going to try it without bothering to puree the red pepper mixture. Given that I don't seem to have a kitchen fairy, a meal which involves the pressure cooker, the frypan AND the food processor is a little overkill on the dirty dishes front. This is very filling. You could fit in dessert if it is a special meal, but not a main course as well. Definitely main course soup imo.