Andrew and the homemade fig tool

On my way to the studio this morning I noticed a man holding a stick to the crown of a tree, gently twisting it. Andrew was harvesting gorgeous, bloated and ripe green figs.

His stick was a home made and well used length of timber with a securely tied fig sized plastic cup at one end. You place the cup under the fig and twist until it comes loose.

fig tool in action

I wasn’t convinced that these would be unlike the milky and unripe nuggets I usually come across, but I persevered in asking for a taste. The Cypriot way is to snap off the top and break it in half before inhaling it. They were sweet and heavenly and completely distracted me from Andrews detailed description of their annual harvesting ritual. He could see that the fig had transformed my day. He knew that I understood his passion for the edible jewel he’d given me and gave me another for the journey.

drained kefir

They bubble away in a corner, after a couple of days they produce a liquid that can be used to ferment ginger juice into ginger beer. Or lemon juice into lemonade. Hurrah! well – the first lot went pink and tasted a little sour – the second lot was so spicy it made me sneeze… Hopefully this time I will get it right. The bacteria and yeast combo are quite addictive – I check them every morning and evening and remain mesmerized by their monotonous reproduction.

As they are apparently quite hard to kill  – we’ll see about that:)

Here are some pictures. So far I’ve had a few tips – don’t use metal they go a little grey and seem to loose some vitality. Apparently don’t use tap water because it has chlorine in it – hasn’t been a problem for me yet…

You can wash your skin with the water liquid or drink it straight – it tastes like TCP water. Soon I hope to get on to milk kefir – they take a while to learn how to digest the milk but will then turn it into a refreshing sour milk drink. mmm.

Bacteria bobbing away

Ginger Beer

1. That there are similarities between the architecture of churches and Tesco. Here are two photos by Robert Edwards that give a hint of it.

Tescos by Robert Edwards

Church By Robert Edwards

2. My experience one Sunday morning at 11am when the doors were opened to let in the crowds of people desperate to shop. About 100 people queuing up. Looks like there is a Sunday – church day theme to this…

At 11am on a sunday the hoards are let in

3. That one side of Tesco sells Cigarettes, sweets and lottery tickets and that the other side sells the drugs to get better. Please excuse the under cover style photography.

Tobacco counter

Healing counter

4. That they now have a diet website and compare their diet food to their normal food in terms of nutritional value. I picked up this sandwich quite by accident.  Very confusing, does this mean I should buy their diet food to have a healthy diet?

diet.com

5. An extract from We worhship at St Tesco by Pam Ayres (see the full version here)

Buzzing bees

My first and most entertaining encounter with bees took place last week. We were kitted out in our space suits ready to check on Deborah’s hives at The Quadrangle in Kent. The suits were made of white cotton twill – hardly the thickest of fabrics but the white was supposed to keep the bees calmer . (Blue is supposed to agitate them like red does a bull).

You use smoke to make the bees believe there has been a forest fire so they all go back in to the Hive to eat honey – which makes them a little sleepy. I suppose this is something to do with keeping up energy reserves for a long journey to start a new hive. If my house were about to be burned down and there was a possibility I was going to die – I might also treat my self to a last meal.

Smoking the bees in space suits

We found the queen bee – she has a little dot of tip-ex painted on her back. I thought she would have been a giant slug like baby producer – but she was an elegant shade of chestnut with a long abdomen busily walking around tending to her brood.

Bee keeping tools

There are a number of tools that are used on the hives. Firstly (from the right hand side in the picture) a red Hive tool to open the hives, remove old comb and prize apart areas drenched in propolis. A feather to move unwanted bees, the vane of a feather doesn ‘t agitate them as much as a finger or stick. The yellow pronged instrument is to check on growing male larvae to see if they have varroa mite attached to them (as you can see here) male larvae seem to be worst of as they grow in larger cells. The metal section is used to fix the bee hives – any wholes or cracks appearing in them that could let other beasties in. I can’t remember what this one is for… I think its just to help open the hives. The Tip-ex is to mark the queen bee, and the last circular object is a queen bee excluder. It is a very small space for the queen and prevents her from laying in the comb but the workers can continue to make honey – you can get bigger ones that cut off the queen from entire ‘Supers’ (the boxes that sit on top of each other with the comb inside) to she has more space to walk around.

Lastly here is a picture of Ed – with a piece of ‘wild’ honey comb. Fantastic!

Ed and self organised honey comb

The kitchen table

It was hardly surprising that the humble table was mentioned in the introduction to a day of talks about food. I had got up at 6am to travel to Oxford, the title of the talks was instantly captivating, ‘Thought for Food: the Ethics of Eating’.

Alison from Housing Justice gave a talk giving a blunt reminder of the simple things that can leave people without a home and without food. She had asked a few of the people she had worked with on the streets what they would most like to eat – the majority responding with not only the meal but also the context. A ‘sit-down roast dinner’. As I am currently looking for a house I can only say I concur! Sitting with people and having a cup of tea or a meal and a conversation is grounding and stimulating.

Only 2 days before I had dined at the Dinner Exchange. The table consisted of 3 pieces of plywood raised on books and covered in curtains and about 35 people. The distance you are from the person opposite can dictate who you end up speaking to. Either, if the table is small enough, you have a choice of 3 people, one on the right, one on the left and one in front. Other wise, when the table is wide the conversation slips into intimate 1 on 1 lengthy discussion.

The Historian, Alexander Murray, spoke about feasting and fasting and again the use of the table. Apparently farm houses would have served potatoes straight on to the wood for everyone to share, this reminded me of eating Ethiopian ‘Injera’ breads from the same plate as those you are eating with.

Thanks wikipedia

I think I eat more that way but it also makes me very mindful of how much the other have to eat – eating communally.

I hadn’t realized that this was a meeting for a discussion particularly around the church and food ethics. This discussion naturally began to talk of breaking bread and the Eucharist. I couldn’t help think what it really symbolises to eat bread now – with so little nutrients, full of air (if I were to sit on it I could reduce it to 20% of its original size) and genetically modified grain. The food we are eating can be shaped by human curiosity and scientific experimentation by man – what are we ingesting? Is that still Christ? I am not Catholic nor Christian so I can’t really begin to have this discussion.

We were all agreed that the true value of food is far wider than filling your stomach– it has a way of reminding you what ‘material’ means. Nourishment, a meal, conversation, sharing and satisfaction. It’s a material that brings us to the present, remaining edible for a short time, it literally becomes part of us. Sister Margaret Atkins summed it up quite beautifully at the end. ‘It binds us to our friends through hospitality’.  If tables are going to be what helps catalyse more of this I should like to start making tables for an eternity.

]]> http://www.the-trough.net/?feed=rss2&p=448 1 http://www.the-trough.net/?p=443 http://www.the-trough.net/?p=443#comments Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:39:45 +0000 Gallus bankiva http://www.the-trough.net/?p=443

It’s quite incredible the visual symbols we use to tell ourselves what something means on-line, how we connect it with the physical world. This wonderful, almost nostalgic, collection of images placed together by — Ro London . He collected them to ‘compare, contrast, and study used by other graphic artists‘. Just shows what shopping means to us – mainly a supermarket shopping trolley by the looks of things. Go see his site! http://www.intersmash.com/300images/

The book is about the same hight as my mobile phone

What a title! This book from 1852, is filled with some joyful and simple recipies from how to cook rice to baked cod’s head and toast water.  It takes many aspects of a healthy diet into consideration, including cost and the social value of making something a little more special that normal.

It has instructions on how to make a back pudding with details you’d expect to find around Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, ‘When the pig is killed, the blood should be caught in a pan, a little salt must be stirred in with it while yet warm, to prevent its coagulation.’ The copy here was re-issued but google seem to have an even later copy if you want to take a look.

Home Preservation by Her Majesty's Stationers

Along the lines of public cookery knowledge, for Christmas I also got a copy of the ‘Home preserving of fruit and vegetables’ produced by the Minisitry of Agriculture and fisheries and food’ first on our shelves back in 1929.

What a book -  it has some great diagrams to explain tools and preparation. My aunt gave it to me, who is an expert preserve, chutney and jelly maker thanks to this book. There is every sort of preservation technique used before freezers existed, tinning, drying, salting and storage recomendations. There is even a special chapter on preserving with chemicals, which will be great fun i’m sure when I hit it. The most commonly used pages are spattered with vinegar, sauce and i’m guessing the apple chutney. I am trying to find out what happened to HMSO, Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, it seems it was quite useful. It’s been replaced by a hard to decifer office of public sector information…

I have been thinking of a contemporary examples of these ‘educational’ books. Who would use priced ingredients from the market and make wholesome meals that fit our life styles and avaliable technology? Delia sprang to mind using what is mainly avaliable, mainly processed foods, to ‘Cheat’ at cooking. I watched it once – the recipies seemed quite expensive and time consuming, Better to start from scratch I would think. There is of course that food revolutionary, Jamie Oliver, causing havock in school kitchens across the country and desperately trying to get people to cook and eat properly. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be books – we have computer games telling us what we should (or could) eat.

searching for something to eat

It's even got the seasons!

Farmville scares me. People virtually growing nothing but nice graphics on screen. This sparked a short discussion with Phil, around this project of a similar nature called  ‘le verdure del mio orto’ roughly translating as food from my garden. You create a virtual garden and grow what ever you want – the difference being you receive a box of your harvest every week. An interesting approach to Community Supported Agriculture.  The Site has recipes for the vegetables too.

I wonder what else we need to virtualise before consuming it – so we feel like we’ve put in a little effort. I’ve got stagnant screen shots of second life in my mind… mmm.

Keep finding lots of Community Agriculture stuff this week. here is Food Connect in Brisbane. They have a pools of 80 farmers producing for the scheme and deliver the Veg boxes through ‘City Cousins’ who provide centres for collections three times a week. It’s like a box scheme but there are more chances to meet the growers and locals who are involved in the scheme. not bad!

happy first birthday p-hop

This is as food/knit as I could make it p/hop, bring on the spaghetti… enjoy the day!

This was about 30 seconds after it was cut

Found this mushroom the other weekend and would love to know what it is. It smelt mushroomy and stained red when you bruised or cut it. It was in a well rotted collapsed tree but i can’t remember what it was… I’m, not sure it was possible to tell. do you know? or know someone that might? thanks.

The whole mushroom