We harvested the last of our red cabbage yesterday - four decent heads which have survived the frost and ice. I was looking for something interesting to do with them (apart from coleslaw!) and came across this recipe from Delia Smith that used up all four heads! It’s nice and sweet and goes well with a baked spud or some chops. It freezes and re-heats well which means it’s a good way to “store” them too.

2 lb (1 kg) red cabbage
1 lb (450 g) cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped small
1 lb (450 g) onions, chopped small
1 clove garlic, chopped very small
1/4 whole nutmeg, freshly grated
1/4 level teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 level teaspoon ground cloves
3 level tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons wine vinegar
1/2 oz (15 g) butter
salt and freshly milled black pepper
Pre-heat the oven

First discard the tough outer leaves of the cabbage, cut it into quarters and remove the hard stalk. Then shred the rest of the cabbage finely, using your sharpest knife (although you can shred it in a food processor, I prefer to do it by hand: it doesn’t come out so uniform).

Next, in a fairly large casserole, arrange a layer of shredded cabbage seasoned with salt and pepper, then a layer of chopped onions and apples with a sprinkling of garlic, spices and sugar.

Continue with these alternate layers until everything is in. Now pour in the wine vinegar, lastly add dots of butter on the top.

Put a tight lid on the casserole and let it cook very slowly in the oven for 2 to 2½ hours, stirring everything around once or twice during the cooking.

Red cabbage, once cooked, will keep warm without coming to any harm, and it will also re-heat very successfully. 

We got two khaki campbell ducks at the poultry fair in myshall back in April and very pleased with them we have been.  Ducks are wonderful creatures - far more personable then our hens and just an absolute joy to watch.  They have blended in well with other animals here on the Home Farm, particularly the hens which was a surprise given how viciously hens usually enforce their pecking order.  They basically follow the hens around for most of the day, taking some time out to paddle in an old belfast sink which is filled with fresh water each day and sits in a shady spot under a tree near the veggie patch.  They are adorable creatures, particularly since they are so vocal - quacking like mad at anyone and anything that comes near them.

The one blot on the horizon with them was that they didn’t seem to be laying eggs - ducks are highly dependable when it comes to laying (particularly breeds like the campbell).  They will lay an egg a day, even in the winter months when your hens might not be.  So from that perspective if you have a bit of space, and perhaps a bit of water (they obviously love having some water around the place to paddle in so it would be cruel to keep them if you can’t provide them with at least somewhere to paddle about in), it’s well worth keeping a couple.  Duck eggs are larger than hen eggs (and therefore have more protein) and while they are a little stronger then regular eggs they are very good indeed to eat and great for baking.

We were told by the rather shady character that we bought them off, that they were “point of lay” which of course they obviously were not because we’ve had em for well over two months now and they haven’t laid at all.  About a month after we got them we started to wonder whether they were in fact not ducks at all, but two drakes.  I saw one of them trying to “get up” on a hen one day which I took to be a very bad sign.  I read all the literature I could find on the issue of “sexing” ducks on the internet, but could not find anything satisfactory.  Some articles I read suggested that male khaki campbells have a different colour head than the females and we thought we could detect a slight change in hue around the neck area in our two - but it was frustratingly subtle and so we weren’t sure.  Then someone else told me that male ducks have a more raspy (or wheezy) quack and that it’s simple to tell the difference between the two - so i listened intently to our two but again it was frustratingly hard to tell.  I mean it sounded raspy enough but when you have nothing to compare it to, maybe it’s not all that raspy - I don’t know. 

Then a few days ago I saw one of the ducks trying to get up on the other one - he was getting on the wrong end and it looked like a bizarre sexual position but nonetheless we took it as a positive sign that perhaps at least one of our ducks was female - either that or we had gay ducks.  Then yesterday I saw the same thing happening, but this time he seemed to have worked out the “right end” - again I took this as a good sign - either way we seemed to be arriving at a moment of reckoning.  Two drakes would be absolutely no use whatsoever to us apart from as the main ingredient in duck a l’orange (khaki campbells are in fact good “eaters").  One of each wouldn’t be too bad - we could actually try and hatch some ducklings ourselves and maybe sell them on…

And then this morning I went out to let them out of their house and there it was on the bed of straw in their house - a big marbly white egg!  I swear to God I was so delighted with myself you would swear I laid it myself!  Duck egg heaven!

I got my hands on an old milk seperator a few weeks ago - an incredible piece of kit that was first invented in the late 1800’s.  My one dates from the 1920’s.  As you can see from the picture you pour the milk in to a big bowl at the top, turn a handle and the milk mysteriously separates in to skim milk and delicious cream - the former comes out the bottom chute while the latter comes out the top one.  Something to do with centrifugal force I believe.  As you can also see from the picture, we were very pleased with ourselves that the thing actually worked - more pleased than is a healthy really.

Anyway, I wanted to try my hand at making butter and to do so you need decent quantities of cream (about a litre is good) - it would be entirely uneconomical to make butter using shop bought cream, so it’s useful if you know a friendly farmer who is happy to give you a few buckets of top quality unpasteurised, unhomogenised milk fresh from the cow.  This is crucial because of course it is almost impossible to get the cream out of homegnised milk - the process of homegnisation takes the fat content in milk and distributes it evenly throughout the liquid by forcing it through tiny holes. 

From 3 gallons of milk we got a litre of yellowy cream and the balance (the really white stuff coming out in to the bucket in the photo) is basically skim milk.  Although this tasted suspiciously like regular modern milk (we have become very used to drinking milk that has almost no fat in it), we fed it to the pigs who were absolutely delighted with themselves - they slurped and burped and sloshed their way through it in no time.  Making butter is a sinch - you pour the cream in to the liquidizer and whisk it until it seperates out again - this time in to butter globules and buttermilk (which can of course be used to make bread etc).  You then need to get all the liquid out of the butter by pouring through a sieve or a muslin cloth.  Then pat it in to shape using two wooden spoons or put it in to containers if you are using it straight away.  Add some salt if you wish to taste.  Easypeezyjapaneezey!  You can also freeze portions of it and use as required. 

I’ve written elsewhere on this blog about the home farmer’s greatest dillemma - the fact that sometimes the vegetables you like least are the ones that are easiest to grow.  Spinach is a case in point for us.  We’ve never been huge fans but we were sort of forced to take a second look and come up with some decent recipes to help us grow to love it, because (a) it’s so bloody easy to grow and (b) it’s a vegetable that you can harvest all year round.  In the lean winter months when you might be tempted to start heading in to your local German supermarket to buy some out-of-season vegetables which have been flown half way round the world - your spinach crop will still be making its formidable bounty available to you. 

Interestingly (in a sort of terribly uninteresting way), Spinach and it’s sister veg, Swiss Chard are related to the beetroot which explains why it is sometimes called “leaf beet” - a source of confusion for some (Ok, me). We ordered chard seeds a few years ago and when I received them, because it said leaf beet on the packet I called the supplier and said in a haughty manner “Kind Sir, I will be returning this product to you, for it is incorrect!”.  Calmly and with considerable patience the lady informed me that leaf beet and rainbow chard are infact one in the same thing.  Ouch.  Anyway though they are related, leaf beet and beetroot differ in one important way - the beetroot has small leaves and a large edible root, while the leaf beet has large leaves and a small root.

Very little can go wrong in the growing of either chard or spinach.  Hurrah!  The things that can really tend to piss you off about growing other vegetables (e.g. diseases, stubborness, seasonality etc) just won’t be an issue here.  While regular spinach can run to seed, perpetual spinach almost never does so and it’s a doughty survivor too which means you will be able to use it all winter.  It is also a “cut-and-come-again” crop - in other words you can harvest away on it as you need it and it will produce new leaves to replace the ones you have taken away.  Chard is undoubtedly the more beautiful of the two, producing beautiful colourful stalks (red, yellow or even purple) - it is so eye-cathing that lots of people grow it in pots as a sort of edible ornament.  Spinach is more conventional looking but it is lent a considerable cachet by the fact that it made Popeye’s muscles bulge. 

I’m always sceptical about the lofty claims made about so-called “superfoods” and spinach has more lofty claims made on its behalf than most.  In SuperFoods Rx: Fourteen Foods That Will Change Your Life for example it is accredited with decreasing your chances of cardiovascular disease and age-related macular degeneration.  I was thinking of writing a book called Spinach - the Food that Made me Rich, just to see would it sell.  I bet it would.  Anyway, when any publication tells you that a food will change your life, you should take it with a large grain of salt - but life-changing exagerations aside, spinach is a nutritional powerhouse - loaded with calcium, folic acid, vitamin K, iron, vitamin C, fibre, carotenoids, lutein and bioflavanoids (and no, I don’t know what those last three are either but they sound impressive). 

Of course, all the nutritional value in the world is no good to you if you hate the stuff.  I’ve never been a huge fan mainly because of the Irish mammy’s propensity to boil the bejaysus out of it and ladle it on to the plate in big slimey steaming piles (sorry mammy).  The golden rule with spinach is that you never boil the arse out of it - it needs only a few seconds in boiling water and its done (except in the soup recipe below where it is in fact boiled for over half an hour, but there are other veg in the pot too).  Anyway, I think the recipes below make spinach a joy to eat as well as unleashing its considerable health benefits.

Spinach, lentil and lemon soup

Whenever I hear or use the word “lentil” my inner meat-eater panics, sensing that someone is trying to force us to become vegetarian.  It immediately sends a rush of blood to my cheeks to make me blush and look ridiculous as a reminder of who’s wearing the pants in our relationship.  After some delicate negotiations we have agreed that I am allowed to have lentils once or twice a month and this is one of the recipes that it has signed off on.  It comes courtesy of my friend Eunice Power who is a chef in Dungarvan - the recipe hails from Lebanon where it is typically eaten in the winter months and particularly during the holy month of Ramadan.  It is a meal in itself and uses a whopping 8 oz of spinach.  The lemon juice gives it a lovely fresh, zesty taste.  Since it contains so much “stuff” that is good for you (spinach, garlic, lentils, lemon juice, etc) I defy you not to feel healthy afterwards.

Ingredients:

250g/8oz green lentils (don’t tell your inner meat-eater)
1.5 litres / 2.5 pints veg stock
1 onion, finely chopped
250g/8oz potatoes - peeled and chopped in to cubes
250g/8oz spinach - roughly chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
5 tbsp lemon juice
salt, pepper

Directions:

Put the lentils and stock in a large saucepan and bring to the boil.  Add the onion, potato, spinach and oil.  Simmer for 15 mins.  Then add the garlic, cumin and about half the lemon juice.  Cover and simmer slowly for 20 mins.  Add the remaining lemon juice and season to taste (go easy on salt - if you have used a stock cube it will be salty enough).  Thin the soup with some water if you need to.  Ladle in to warm bowls and serve with brown or focaccia bread. 

Spinach with Sesame Dressing

If you want to serve spinach as an accompanying vegetable, this is a great way to turn it from “worthy yet dull” to spectacular.  Boil the spinach for about 5 seconds only (200g of spinach per person).  This is really important - to not be tempted to go down the Irish Mammy route and leave it boiling overnight.  Drain and set aside.  Grind 1/4 cup of sesame seeds with a pestle and mortar.  To the ground seeds, add 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, a 1/4 cup of mirin (a type of rice wine used in Japanese cooking), 2 tablespoons of water and 2 teaspoons of sugar.  Mix them well.  Pour this mixture over little bundles of spinach and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

(If you find this is too sweet, leave out the mirin or sugar as mirin itself comprises about 40 per cent sugar). 

Over the last few weeks I have been in crazy news-hoovering mode, scanning the papers for articles about economics (which I would normally run a mile from), reading blogs and news sites online, listening to radio show post-mortems during the day and watching news channels on TV in the evenings (now there is a recipe for depression if ever there was one).  It’s a miracle that I have any time left for work.

There are two reasons that I stay tuned in.  Firstly, from a news-junkie’s perspective, I am just riveted by the whole thing.  I mean, without trying to make light of the very serious consequences of a global recession, this is pretty exciting stuff.  We’ve had our fair share of boring news cycles, and this isn’t one of them.

But secondly, I keep tuning in because I have an all-consuming, unfulfilled desire for a nugget of good news.  I’m not asking for much.  Just the slightest hint of some optimism - a straw on the wind, a rumour in the mill.  Anything at all to help me get out from under this ominous black cloud.  But what is remarkable about this crisis is that the news is so relentlessly and consistently bad.  Just when you think we have reached rock-bottom and that we must surely have grounds for some gentle optimism, it gets worse. 

At times like these it helps to look out your window and remind yourself that the world is still turning despite our best efforts, or perhaps to take a quiet moment and listen to your own breath to remind yourself that despite the global economic meltdown, your body is continuing to function.  Continuing to breathe in and out, in and out, in and out. 

Sarah Teasdale wrote a poem in the 1920’s called There Will Come Soft Rain in which she reminded us that no matter how important we think we are, no matter how serious we think our petty troubles have become, Mother Nature is basically ignoring us and doing her own thing - I think that is reason to be cheerful.

In fact, Teasdale’s poem argued that if mankind was to be wiped off the face of the earth in the morning, “Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, would scarcely know that we were gone.” Hurrah for that!

Here’s the full poem:

There will come soft rain and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

I’m not the kind of person who has a relevant quote from a poem on hand for every occasion, but Teasdale’s wonderful verse came to mind this morning as I was picking carrots outside in the garden to go in to a nice hearty stew for tonight’s dinner. 

After listening to an hour’s worth of bad news on Morning Ireland about the global economy, I was feeling tetchy and irritable and all of a sudden I got a peculiar desire to cook a stew.  I don’t know where this came from but deep down I think something as nebulous as a global economic crisis just makes you want to get in touch with things that are real.  Like a stew for example.  Bear with me, this is going somewhere.

Anyway, I switched off the news, put on my wellies and went outside the back door to have a root around in the vegetable plot.  The sun was shining and there was a vague hint of a frost on the grass.  Birds were singing, the dogs were trying to warm themselves up on the corner of the deck where the sun shines at that hour of the morning; the hens were preening themselves in front of the kitchen window.  A beautiful, crisp, autumnal morning when everything seems possible. 

Even as we face in to the winter and the pickings in the garden are starting to slim, there is enough there to keep the stew pot happy.  Crazy-shaped, intensely sweet carrots and juicy stalks of celery were plucked from the ground, onions and generous handfuls of fresh thyme and parsley were collected from the polytunnel; from the freezer comes a home-made stock and (best of all) some gigot lamb chops (the result of a fruitful pork-for-lamb bartering arrangement with a local farmer).

In no time at all, the smell of the stew filled the house and all seemed right with the world again.  And do you know why?  Because I found my nugget of optimism and it is this: Mother Nature doesn’t give two hoots about the current banking crisis.  She hasn’t given it a thought.  She knows nothing of the UK Treasury’s 50 billion pound bailout of their banking system.  She knows nothing of Sky News ALERTS or interest rate hikes; the US Fed, liquidity, capitalisation or short selling.  She cares nothing at all for bankers or traders or fat cats (except the feline variety).  She would never concern herself with such grubbiness. 

Instead, she busies herself making those crazy-shaped carrots grow; or convincing the sun to shine to warm the hen’s backs.  She busies herself concocting that restorative frost to break down the soil after a busy growing season, or making our breath go in and out and in and out.  Strangely, amidst all the gloom and doom, boom and bust, there are grounds for optimism in the fact that Mother Nature couldn’t care less about the current news cycle.  There will come soft rain.

Ah the Breakfast Roll Man.  He is variously credited with winning the last election for Fianna Fail and for being a stalwart of our economy.  He rises diligently before dawn and travels fifty miles to work from his home in some commuter belt town, beating his way through traffic to get to his office cubicle or construction site a few hours later. 

Of course, if you are to believe the stereotype he also stops en route each and every morning to stock up on greasy forecourt stodge and specifically a 1,200 kcal culinary delight which contains (in one sitting) 100 per cent of his recommended daily fat intake and over half his daily calorie requirements.

But in this age of nutritional enlightenment, could Breakfast Roll Man really still exist?  Is he an accurate reflection of Irish men’s nutritional habits?  Or just a dubious, outdated socio-economic cliche? 

In the absence of actual breakfast roll sales figures (now wouldn’t that be fun?) we are left to plum the depths of food surveys for evidence of his existence.  The Irish Universities Nutrition Alliance (IUNA) 2001 Food Consumption Survey for example offered some tantalising clues, albeit no hard evidence.  It found that meat and meat products were in fact the largest contributor to fat intake in our diets and intriguingly that as a nation we consume more bacon than any other meat. 

But the trail grows a little colder after that.  According to the same survey women were equally prone to meat and meat products as men, so perhaps Breakfast Roll Person would be more appropriate?  It is also worth pointing out that attitudes to nutrition have changed significantly in the seven years since that report was published.

A more recent study (the 2007 SLAN Report by the Department of Health and Children), hinted at a decrease in the amount of fried and fatty foods being consumed.  While most of us are guilty of gorging on foods that are too high in fat and sugar (87 per cent of men are consuming more than the recommended number of daily servings), just 14 per cent of men consume fried food more than 4 times a week.

So along with the Celtic Tiger economy, has Breakfast Roll Man left the building?  “I do not think that people are going for the fry-up as much as they used to,” says the Manager of the Nutrition and Health Foundation (NHF) Dr. Muireann Cullen.  “There is a whole shift in attitude among men in relation to looking after themselves.  We have some recent research on this which indicates that the majority of people have a reasonable understanding of what constitutes a healthy diet, though nutrition still seems to be more of a concern to women.”

Nutrition consultant Paula Mee believes that men are far more nutrition savvy than we are given credit for.  “It might be fun to stereo type the sexes but I do not think the breakfast roll man is an accurate representation of men today.” Mee paints an entirely different picture of Irish men when it comes to the fuel we put in our bodies.  We are, she says, extremely interested in nutrition, highly motivated (when spurred to action) and poorly served by the lack of research and focus on the specifics of men’s nutrition.  She also says that men are seeking out dietary advice for lifestyle as well as health reasons.

“We are surprised by the amount of men who attend the practice.  Some days it can be as high as 40 per cent men.  We get an increasing number of young men looking at their nutritional intake - it could be from a sports performance perspective or just that they lead a hectic lifestyle and find it hard to get the balance right.  And of course you get older men who are attending because they have been advised to reduce their weight, blood pressure or cholesterol.”

Men are great goal-setters when it comes to behavioural changes, according to Mee.  “They have great grit and determination and when they set their mind to it, they get better results than many women.  I think myself this is because women have a deeper, emotional connection with food and we tend to find it harder to change our behaviour, even when we have all the knowledge and all the answers.  Women often come back and they have all manner of excuses as to why it didn’t work out.  Men are just better at doing it.”

According to Dr. Cullen of the NHF, the logical mind which compels men to present to their GP when there is a problem, is the very trait which helps us to stay the course when it comes to dietary changes. “With women it is less about logic and more about emotion - and of course emotions change.”

It would be wrong to depict Irish men on the verge of some sort of nutritional utopia however - the evidence suggests otherwise.  The SLAN report had dismal news with regard to the three major cardiovascular risk factors for men, namely BMI (Body/Mass), blood pressure and raised cholesterol.  45 per cent of Irish men are overweight and a further 24 per cent are obese (a combined percentage of almost 70 per cent); 60 per cent of men have high blood pressure, while almost 78 per cent have raised levels of total cholesterol. 

These figures are extremely worrying, according to the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institutes’ Margot Brennan.  “In terms of the key risk factors, the figures are very high.  It means that any advancement we have seen in terms of cardiovascular health will be reversed.”

Getting men to understand nutrition is the key to addressing these problems, according to Irish College of General Practitioners spokesperson Dr. Mel Bates.  “The human race evolved not to waste food and so we deposit the food we do not immediately need as fat, to be used in leaner times.  But the point is that now there are no lean times.  It’s not rocket science - our mothers and our grandmothers knew all about the basics of nutrition and not much as changed in terms of the advice.  It’s about consuming fish, fruit and vegetables; eating more slowly and eating smaller portions.  Unfortunately this is a message that is just not getting through or if it is, it is only getting through to the people who need it least.  For someone who is overweight these messages are just another stick to beat them with.”

Bates believes that only a certain group of men are good at taking nutrition advice on board.  “The majority pretend it is not a big deal and try to ignore it.  Major nutritional changes are a very difficult road to follow.  But the men who do buy in to it, tend to do very well.  They are highly motivated.”

So when it comes to Irish men’s attitude to nutrition perhaps we could borrow another Celtic Tiger banality - a lot done, more to do?

Thousands of years ago, our ancestors didn’t rely on vitamin supplements to get themselves ready for the winter. All they had to do was go outside and stock up on blackberries (the fruit, not the email-on-demand device).

The next time you are out and about picking the little luscious fruits off a local ditch you can rightly feel connected to your past - there is fossil evidence that Blackberries have been consumed for up to 2,500 years.

The blackberry is known to contain polyphenol antioxidants, naturally occurring chemicals that can improve our metabolism. They are also abundant in vitamin C, so much so that in times past they were prescribed for victims of scurvy. And the benefits don’t stop with the berries - the leaves and shoots of the plant were considered medicinal in ancient times, most commonly for mouth ailments and as a cure for diarrhoea.

Given the amount of money we shell out on fruit and berries (I paid 8 euro for a punnet of blueberries recently), it’s pretty ridiculous that each year millions of Blackberries rot in ditches all over Ireland. If you spend the time to pick them you can then freeze them and enjoy for months to come. Blackberries are supremely useful - they can go in to jams, smoothies, tarts, wine, tea, ink (see below) and dyes.

If you haven’t picked any yet this year, you need to get moving - common superstition dictates that you shouldn’t pick them later than the end of September as after that date the devil claims them for himself. And he’s welcome to them - wetter, colder weather usually means the fruits become infected with mould which gives them an unpleasant flavour and renders them toxic. I go walking with our dogs out in the fields each day and from late August on have been keeping an eye on the blackberries for ripeness - in the last few days i’ve been having an impromptu snack on the way home!  They are ready which means it’s time to go berrying.

A single bramble can include fruits at all stages of development which happens as follows. Initially small and green, the berries then ripen to a pinky red before finally becoming an impressive glossy black. After that they begin to fade to a cloudier purple colour (they are by then overripe) before finally going mouldy, shrivelled and grey. The ones you are looking for are obviously the impressive glossy ones. Unripe berries are too acid and too hard to eat.

Blackberry picking, while enjoyable, requires some care. The thorns on the plants are a substantial defence mechanism - so you probably shouldn’t wear a t-shirt. Avoid busy roads - apart from the obvious dangers of traffic, it is also thought that roadside berries can become polluted.

In the ditches around us we get a great crop of blackberries each year. Mostly we just use them for desserts and to put in muesli in the morning. This year though I decided to be a bit adventurous and make a jam, a first for me. It took me about an hour to pick enough of them to make about five pots, but it was an enjoyable hour. You would understand how the fruit was used as a dye in ancient times if you saw the state of my hands afterwards (my face wasn’t much better, I did eat quite a few). Jam making I found, either through luck or some freakish latent talent, is a complete sinch (especially compared to marmalade making which can be so hit and miss).

I found a recipe on the web for blackberry and apple jam and since we have a good harvest of apples currently, it seems the perfect way to use some of them.  Heat 4lbs of berries in a little water and separately soften two cooking apples until mushy. Warm the contents of a bag of sugar in the oven (not in the bag you understand). Put the whole lot in to a big pot and boil for about 15 minutes and voila! 5 pots of the greatest blackberry and apple jam ever.

There is no food more enjoyable than slow food - the slice of brown bread I had yesterday evening with a big dollop of freshly made jam was an absolute treat, probably because of all the effort that went in to making it. The mother in law was on last night and we agreed to trade some of her strawberry jam for my blackberry - I reckon two pots of hers’ for one of mine would be fair.

Blackberry Ink:

Push 1/2 cup of ripe blackberries through a strainer with the back of a spoon, collecting the juice in a bowl underneath. Add 1/2 teaspoon vinegar (this will help the ink to keep its colour) and 1/2 teaspoon salt (preservative). Add water if the mixture is too thick. Store it in a small glass jar with a tight lid and refrigerate. Be careful not to spill on clothes!

Edited Transcript of Interview with Carlo Petrini, Founder and President of Slow Food International.

Michael Kelly
Do you think our Food Chain is sick?  And if so, what can be done to make it better?

Carlo Petrini
There is no doubt that the food chain is sick and not only that, it is unsustainable for the health of the planet and its inhabitants.  It’s obviously sick because it’s based on an altogether unsustainable logic where goods are transported wholly disproportionately along the food chain.  It’s also strongly in the hands of the food industry.

There are a lot of things we can do to stem this tide but there are principally two that I will go through.  The first one is that every country should re-localise its agriculture and re-evaluate the value that they place on farmers and local communities in society. The second thing is to shorten the food chain distribution. 

We also need to work towards re-educating consumers.  I would like to see consumers no longer called consumers but they should be referred to as co-producers because if we can not cement an alliance between producers and co-producers then I am afraid the battle is lost.

MK
What do you mean by co-producers?

CP
Co-producers are consumers that are fully aware, informed and sensitive to what’s involved with regard to food production.  They should be consumers that do not always look for the lowest price goods but goods at the right price.  A lot of the time food is actually cheap but it is the add-on costs like distribution and transport which make them expensive.  A co-producer is somebody who is active in their choice of what they buy in the supermarket.  We have to break the division that there is at the moment between consumers and producers for the good of the earth.  We must be more responsible.

MK
I think there is a general understanding of what “Slow Food” is about as a concept but can you explain how the organisation and Terra Madre actually work?  As a consumer for example, can you join” the slow food movement? 

CP
The basic concept of slow food and the association is based on food culture and it works to defend biodiversity and local economies.  We have a network of local convivia which number about 1,400 throughout the world and in Ireland we have 14 of these local branches.

Basically they work to cement relationship between the producers and consumers or co-producers of food.  They are working towards developing taste education in children and adults.  This manifests in games in schools and fun activities to get children involved in food.  There are also courses and educational programmes for adults also.

When they can they work towards creating local farmers markets.  From this idea of working with local communities came the idea of Terra Madre.  Terra Madre is a multitude of networks of food producers and this year we will be having our third edition of the event which is held every two years in Turin.

This year over 10,000 people will attend the international Terra Madre festivals. We have more than 1,000 chefs and 3,000 students who are interested in environmental issues and problems related to sustainability of agriculture on the earth.  We have 7,000 fishermen, farmers, nomads, anyone interested in local food.  And for the first time this year we will also have groups of musicians who are another expression of the artistic ability of these communities.

Terra Madre on grander scale is resulting in smaller events happening around the world.  And at the start of September we will have the Irish Terra Madre which will be a fantastic event and a chance for producers to come together with people who are interested in local economies and food production.  We have already had similar smaller versions in Brazil, Kenya, Hungary, Holland and Belarus. 

You can join a local convivia or get involved in the extraordinary event that is Terra Madre in Waterford.  The question of food is a central issue at the heart of all our lives.  It is in our interest to be protagonists and proactive as opposed to inactive on this issue.

MK
What do you mean by food that is good, clean and fair?  (Note: Good, Clean and Fair was the subtitle of Petrini’s book)

CP
We have an ethos of food that is good to taste, its production does not harm the environment and the people who are involved in the production are paid a proper wage.

MK
What does it mean to live “slowly”?

CP
It could be compared to homeopathic medicine.  Somebody who is too slow is a little too stupid!  But if we slow down the frenetic rhythms of modern life it can do an awful lot of good in people’s lives.

MK
Where do you think we are with the slow food movement now?  Are things improving since you started in the 1980’s?  Do you see a sea-change in terms of the attitude to fast food, processed food and junk food?  Or are things worse than they were? 

CP
I can only respond to that as an observer of slow food.  With regard to the organisation itself there is no doubt that since its foundation in 1989 things have changed dramatically.  It is now on a global level with regard to the organisation and Terra Madre.

With regard to the attitudes of people in the last few years we are noticing changes in people’s attitudes.  With regard to processed and junk food or everything that goes against traditional food, I think in Western Europe and Mediterranean countries these kind of foods do not have the same kind of hold on people that they do in the United States but having said that there has been a reaction in the last couple of years against food which go against the grain of what slow food is about.

A couple of days before Terra Madre in Waterford there is a huge event in San Francisco called Slow Food Nation.  In this country which invented fast food and the supermarket and malls; and industrial food production which has destroyed small scale farming, there is a sea-change happening. 

Ten years ago in the United States they had about 150-200 farmer markets, now it is more than 8,000.  And at the moment Slow Food has almost 40,000 adherents in the USA alone.

There has been a reaction which has been determined by two principle factors.  Firstly industrial processed food is not as good to taste as traditional food.  There are a lot of people out there who are now against destroying soil fertility, against producing huge amounts of CO2, against polluting the water table and against the destruction of the massive heritage of farming in that country.

MK
Do you agree that there is an irony at the core of the slow food movement in that it does not appear to be anti-globalisation or anti-business per se and yet in some ways its ethos seems to suggest these are the twin evils?

CP
I think one of the strengths of slow food is that it does not take itself too seriously.  We are not a political organisation or like a union.  We give a lot of value to the autonomy of the people who are involved in slow food throughout the world.  An organisation which aims to defend diversity can not be homogenous.

I am from Italy and the son of Italian culture but I have to respect the diversity that exists throughout the world in Ireland or Australia or Kenya or wherever that may be.  Our aim is to strengthen creativity and biodiversity in an autonomous way and have the ability create networks.  One of the fundamental issues is not to be too serious. 

I have a saying that a gastronome who is not an environmentalist is very stupid.  But also an environmentalist who isn’t a gastronome is extremely sad.  This is one of the things we must to create this balance.

MK
I am fascinated with the importance you attach to the idea of breaking bread with friends/family in your book.  Is that a realistic goal for the modern family, where so many other things are pressing on our time?  Is this practical for families in our frenetic modern world? 

CP
On this first point we really need to wage a war of resistance.  I think that sharing food with family and friends in conviviality is a great ethical heritage that we have.  And especially with regards to Europeans, and you Irish and us Italians.  When ever I go to Ireland I am fascinated by seeing so many large families.

If this heritage is not shared at lunch time this is a complete disaster.  We should be proud of our own traditions.  Ask family and friends to share these moments together - this is a fundamental part of our civilisation and also very important for our own health and our psychological wellbeing.  I think it is more modern to do it this way then to eat quickly on your own or in the car.

MK
Western Society is obsessed with celebrity chefs.  Should we worship the food producers instead?

CP
I really don’t think we need to be worshipping anyone but having said that there should be strong relationships between food producers and chefs and co-producers. I think this is the right way to go.  In Europe we have to be careful not to lose small scale farming and small scale artisan producers as this is an extremely important part of our food heritage.  We need to sustain them and also remind chefs that without quality raw materials they will never become great chefs.

MK
There is still a view among farmers that organic is not possible on a large scale, commercial basis.  In addition we constantly hear the argument that GMO foods and fertilisers are the solution to world hunger.  How do you marry the desire for small-scale, local and artisan producers with the realities of so many mouths to feed?

CP
I really think organic agriculture has to grow and develop and come out of the elite environment that it is currently in.  To do this we must increase demand for organic products.  In Italy, Germany and England we are launching a campaign so that hospitals, canteens, universities and schools are buying local and organic produce from farmers and local producers.  If we are able to increase demand and increase soil fertility in this way, and if we do this organic farming will be more accessible and more commercial for farmers.  But it also should be very local.  Even organic products that do round the world trip are doing the same environment damage as normal products.

This is a huge question.  We need to regenerate soils.  After 150 years of conventional agriculture with fertilisers and pesticides the quality and fertility of the soil has been really impoverished.  This concept that GMO and pesticides are the solution to world hunger we have to be brave in saying that this is absolute rubbish, totally not true.  It has been widely demonstrated that GMO products consume a lot more water, need more intensive production, and don’t produce same yields as varied agriculture.  To be honest the only people who need GMOs are the large multinationals.

The evidence that the use of fertilisers has done great damage we can see for ourselves that soil fertility is at its lowest ever.  Many of the Terra Madre communities from poorer countries have demonstrated that diverse, varied and local agriculture will save them from hunger – not GMOs.  It is very evident the damage that huge corporations have done with fertilisers and pesticides in India.  For example every year in India there are 20,000 suicides in farming communities because they can not afford seeds and pesticides from multinationals.  From this point of view it is very important that we rebuild and regenerate seed banks in these rural communities and that they are the property of local communities.  That is why at the Terra Madre event there will be a strong representation from the scientific community involved in food production to sustain these initiatives.

MK
Ireland is generally accepted to be entering a recession.  When people feel threatened economically they often react by scrimping on the food they buy. They buy two chickens for 5 euro.  They buy “own-brand” in supermarkets.  Can Slow Food produce compete in tough economic times?

CP
I think if we are able to shorten the food chain with regard to quality products these will cost an awful lot less than products in supermarkets.  If we are able to do this, costs will come down and farmers will earn a living.  I have to make an observation on the cost of food:  In 1970 in EU an average family spent 32% of their disposable income on food.  Now in Italy and in Ireland an average family spend about 15% of their disposable income on food.

I think that any mother or father who is interested in the health of their children should look to food quality.  I am not saying to go to 32% but even if we could get it up to 17% that wouldn’t have much of an effect on budget.  For example in Italy the average family now spends 12% of their disposable income on mobile phones.  Perhaps if we made a couple less phone calls and concentrate more on the quality of our food this will also lead to spending less of our disposable incomes on medicines which results from eating junk foods.

MK
Do you feel paternal about the movement you have founded?  With such a large organisation it’s obviously difficult to control.  How do you feel about the direction that it’s going in?

CP
I like to think that we are austerely anarchical.  All our convivia have freedom to do their own thing.  It is very important that it doesn’t become a hierarchical movement which is why we embrace the concept of networks to exalt biodiversity and cultural diversity. 

MK
It’s easy to be pessimistic about our food chain - that the quality isn’t what it used to be and never will be again.  Has globalisation and convenience culture ruined our food forever?

CP
The honest answer is yes.  Our food has been ruined by the consumer-centric model and we haven’t sustained demand for quality products.  Quality should not be a luxury.  Quality products should be used by everyone when they are making their meals every day.  We have to convince more and more young people to get involved in food.

MK
Is slow food nostalgic for a time that has long past?  Can it have relevance in modern life?  Will we ever give up buying out of season produce for example or recipe-led cooking?

CP
Slow Food has many times been accused of being nostalgic or looking back to a bygone era but I think our political and cultural ideas are extremely modern and forward looking.  To sustain food heritage in Ireland means creating a completely new economy.  It means nothing less than safeguarding our lands, our traditions, our identities and our heritages.  It is the new frontier.  The people who arentt forward thinking are those who continue to pursue the obsolete thinking of conventional agriculture.

MK
What is your view as to where Ireland stands in terms of its openness to Slow Food?  If we were a pupil in the slow food class, what grade would we get?

CP
*Laughs*
I don’t like to think of myself as a teacher but I want to have a bet - that the Terra Madre festival in Ireland will be an exceptional event.  I am convinced that it is an extremely important event in helping slow food and re-launching local traditional economies.

MK
Have you been to Ireland before?  What do you enjoy eating here or what are you looking forward to eating here when you come?

CP
I have been in Ireland seven or eight times and it is a country I love very much, especially the relationship that Irish people have with their music.  From my own gastronomic perspective I am very aware of the quality of the raw materials available to Irish people.  I would highlight the new cheeses in the last few years, salmon, lamb, and last but not least the beer!  I can’t wait to get there.

Thanks to our translator Ronan ODowd for his assistance with this interview.

There are two types of people in this world - the type that think rabbits are cute, adorable, fluffy etc.  And the type that think all rabbits are b**tards.  It’s no surprise that the people who think they are b**tards are also the people who try to grow their own vegetables.  This year alone rabbits have caused me more grief than just about any other pest in the garden, except perhaps slugs and we all know that you can’t eat slugs. 

Pretty much every morning when I wake up and look out the window there are a few rabbits out on the lawn, munching happily on the grass.  This should be an idyllic picture (I will admit if forced to do so, that they are a little bit cute) but instead of standing there marvelling at the diversity of God’s earth, I can feel my blood pressure rising because I know the little gits have been most likely raising havoc during the night. 

I will give you an idea of what I am talking about - last year I spent weeks growing kohlrabi from seed in modules in the polytunnel. In early summer, I spent an entire day preparing a bed outside in the plot and then lovingly planted about twenty of them in two neat rows.  I was immensely tired but satisfied at the end of the day, leaning on my shovel admiring my work.  Next morning I came out to admire my work again and, yes you’ve guessed it - rabbits had eaten every single last one of them.  Months of work, gone in one night of greedy bunny gorging.

Last winter I put in two new raised beds up the top of the garden near the house - they are separate to the main veg plot and were designed specifically with rabbits in mind.  They are made of railway sleepers and are about 3 ft high (apparently high enough so that rabbits can’t get up on to them) and 30ft long each.  We put in about 5 tonnes of soil in to them which as you can imagine is quite a bit of muck-hauling.  And all because of rabbits.  And wouldn’t you know when we were finished and had started growing things in these new rabbit-proof beds, what did the rabbits do?  They thumbed their noses at us, climbed right up on top of them and helped themselves to whatever produce was available.

Due to the all-round mayhem and destruction that rabbits caused in the veg plot we also made a decision in the spring to completely surround the plot with a picket fence.  Again, there was considerable expense and work involved (for me and the brother-in-law.  well ok, mainly the brother-in-law).  I had to dig a trench the whole way around the plot so that we could bury chicken wire underneath the ground to stop them from digging underneath the fence (you need to go down about 8 inches).  A considerable job of work but unfortunately the only really effective way of keeping them out.  Mainly it works a treat but every now and then I will find one of the pickets in the fence scratched (or chewed?) away and know that they have been working away over night trying to get in. 

Anyway, all that’s by way of introduction as to why I am not at all squeamish about the notion of killing a rabbit for meat.  It’s amazing really that I feel the need to justify myself when it comes to rabbits.  I mean, each time I eat a chicken I don’t feel the need to defend myself by outlining all the wrongs that chickens have committed against me.  Just goes to show you, we have a very strange attitude to the meat we eat - one that is inconsistent and often illogical.  Is there a slight taboo about eating rabbit meat because they are sometimes kept as pets?

It’s strange that rabbit has fallen so far off society’s meat radar because it is a meat that tastes very good indeed.  Traditionally they were much hunted for their meat and some small-holders even bred them.  Rabbits are prolific breeders - we all know the phrase about bonking like rabbits, well that translates in to about 40 offspring a year.  Just three breeding rabbits will provide a meal once a week all year round.  That’s pretty impressive given that they don’t need alot of space, require little time or investment, and the meat is reported to be better for you than chicken, pork and beef (according to the UN, rabbit meat is easier to digest than most meats, highly nutritious, low-fat, low-cholesterol and rich in proteins).

It’s pretty unlikely that Mrs Kelly will ever agree to have breeding rabbits around the place so I must look to other methods of capture.  I would love to get an airgun and practice my shooting on them first thing in the morning but I haven’t got around to that yet.  I’ve tried trapping rabbits in the garden but I have to admit that I’m a complete wuss when it comes to trapping animals and I don’t like the idea that I would snare one in the trap and it would be stuck there injured overnight. 

But fate was shining down on me.  We’ve recently got a new dog, a rescued Red Setter called Amber - personally I think the name makes her sound like a hooker but that’s her name and we are stuck with it.  Anyway, I will post another day on the difficulties she has caused us - she’s a beauty of a dog but completely out of control.  But as it turns out, Amber has quiet a talent for catching rabbits.  It helps that she’s the fastest dog in the universe of course, but she’s also got a killer instinct which Sam our Lab doesn’t.  I’ve seen him run down the garden after a rabbit and catch up with it but when he does so, he stalls - it’s like he’s thinking “Fecking hell, I’ve caught up with it - what exactly do I do now?”

Amber on the other hand, knows exactly what to do.  Last week I was out walking the two dogs in the fields and next minute I turn around and see Amber taking off like a bullet after a rabbit.  She runs in to a ditch after it and all I can see is her bum in the air, tail wagging furiously.  To be honest I wasn’t expecting much and I just walked past her.  Next thing I know she’s trotting along beside me with the rabbit in her mouth.  She dumps it at my feet and looks at me expectantly, waiting for praise, a treat, payment, I don’t know what.  The rabbit is clearly dead, whether from a heart attack or Amber breaking its neck I am not sure.  The fur is not damaged and there’s no blood or anything like that.  I give the dog a pat on the head and she picks it up again and trots along beside me, carrying it all the way home.  (By the way, all this time, Sam is just standing there looking at me, the big useless article).

It didn’t occur to me to do anything else other than prepare it for the table and have a nice rabbit stew - it just seemed the right thing to do.  I mean I don’t want to get all new age or spiritual about this but when an animal has given its life in a chase, I think it’s only right that you celebrate that by putting it to good use.  What’s the alternative - throw it over the ditch and let the birds/rats/etc get it?  There was also something about the time of year that made it feel right too - coming in to Autumn, evenings closing in, lots of root veg in the veg plot to go in the pot with it etc. 

Rabbits are paunched or de-gutted to prepare them for the table and it’s best to do this immediately otherwise the meat can become tainted.  It’s not the most pleasant job in the universe but it’s a damn sight less smelly than gutting a chicken or fish for that matter.  I guess this is because rabbits are eating only grass (as well as a healthy proportion of veg from your garden).

All you do is make a cut down through the belly and pull out the innards, being careful not to pierce any of the organs.  It is an entirely freaky experience to be looking at the bright red heart and lungs of an animal, which minutes earlier were pumping air and blood around its body.  Never mind these thoughts - back to work.  Lots of people retain the heart, liver and kidneys to eat but I’m only learning when it comes to being barbaric so maybe another day.  This time around they went to Amber as a prize for being my favourite dog in the world (sorry Sam but when have you ever provided me with a meal?).

Once you’ve gutted the rabbit you can hang it for 24 hours - strictly speaking a rabbit doesn’t need to be hung because its not game but some people say it tastes better if left alone for a while.  To be honest, after the gutting I was quite happy to leave it be for a day before I needed to think about skinning and jointing.  The rabbit hung from a beam in the garage for a day and Mrs Kelly gave out quite a bit about that for a while - for a farmer’s daughter sometimes she can be pretty squeamish when it comes to these things.

Skinning a rabbit is alot easier than you would imagine - you make a nick in (or remove) the paws and then pull the skin down over the body.  People say it’s like removing a glove and this is a description that does fit the bill quite well.  You stop pulling when you get to the head and then just cut the head off and voila - your work is done.

The jointing is a little trickier than for a chicken and I was sort of feeling my way along to be honest.  You need a very sharp knife.  I removed the front legs first, then cut the muscle which covers the gut.  Then sever the backbone and finally remove the back legs.  Once you have that done you are ready to cook - rabbits can be cooked in a number of ways (it will make a good substitute in any recipe that demands chicken), but are generally thought to be dry when roasted.  Boiled is therefore the norm.  I fried up some lardons (the fat from the bacon is important to counteract dryness in the rabbit meat), then browned the meat.  A trip to the garden produced some fine herbs and vegetables to accompany it - garlic, onions, carrots, celery, thyme and parsley - the hunter-gatherer excitement in me bubbling to a crescendo.  I added some stock and wine and cooked for about an hour.  A nice way to finish it off is to remove the meat and veg, reduce the cooking liquid and add some cream and dijon mustard. 

A certain person who will remain nameless, tried to get me all freaked out about eating rabbit (warning me that if I started to weep from the eyes after the meal, I should immediately head for A&E because that’s the Myxomatosis setting in) but I didn’t let their scaremongering get to me.  A fine, comforting meal was had.  Don’t be tempted to feel any twangs of guilt as you tuck in - this is fresh, 100 per cent free range organic meat at it’s absolute finest.  And it’s completely free (compare that with the 15-20 euro you would have spent on a chicken).  So relish every single bite - who knows when Amber will catch another? 

They say that when you sit down to plan what you are going to grow in your garden you should always steer clear of vegetables that you don’t like - the argument goes that if you hate cabbage for example, you are unlikely to enjoy the home-grown variety any more than shop-bought.  There’s a certain amount of logic to this of course - but it’s not 100 per cent foolproof advice. 

Some vegetables are just easier to grow than others and sometimes, sod’s law, the ones that are easiest to grow are likely to be the ones you don’t really like to eat.  If that happens, it’s only right and proper to give them another try.  If they are easy to grow, it would be foolish to ignore them.  On the other side of this “isn’t life a bitch” coin, some of the hardest veg to grow might be the ones that you like to eat most.  We’ve had all manner of hassle growing carrots and parsnips for example which is a huge pity because they are arguably some of the tastiest and most useful vegetables going (particularly carrots).

Ease of growing has forced me to take another look at some vegetables that frankly I’ve never had much time for.  Thankfully, some of them have proved quite surprising in the kitchen (while others I just continue to hate with a vengence).  Often the traditional method of cooking has been the problem and not the vegetables themselves.  Cabbage, is a case in point.  We had friends when I was a kid who used to eat boiled cabbage all the time and the smell of their house stayed with me all my life.  The guy himself actually smelled of cabbage come to think of it, so strong was the stink from their kitchen. 

Cabbage does smell awful, but only if you boil the living shit out of it, which was the only way it was cooked in Ireland traditionally.  Finely sliced and then briefly fried or steamed with some garlic and butter (and perhaps some chopped nuts thrown in for good measure), it’s another dish entirely.  You’re unlikely ever to really relish it, if you’ve hated it all your life - but you may well be able to convince yourself to just get on with it.  Cabbage is one of those vegetables that is (a) easy to grow and (b) harvestable all year round so it can provide you with those all important greens (antioxidants and all that good stuff) in the winter and spring when the garden (and larder) is depressingly empty.

Beetroot is another good example - the vast majority of beetroots are processed by pickling in vinegar and sold in slices in jars (I’ve never been a fan) or shredded in salad (which I could honestly take or leave).  We started growing it this year because someone told me the baby leaves are great for salads (which they are - they give a lovely bite and a splash of colour ).  Of course after a few weeks the leaves get big and coarse and are no good to you anymore and then the root starts to form and in no time at all you’re left with a big vegetable that is begging to be eaten. 

So you have a dilemma - do you give it to the pigs or give it another try?  Can you come up with some way of cooking, serving or poshing it up that will make it more acceptable?  In my book excessive boiling of root veg is never a good plan - you only have to look at the colour of the water afterwards to know that most of the goodness (and taste) has leeched in to the water.  This is especially the case with a vegetable as vibrantly coloured as the beetroot - it’s that magic burgundy colour that you need to get inside you, not in the water you will be throwing down the sink. 

So, baking the beets in an oven with the skins on is a better option.  Take a few small beets (or if they are large, cut them in to half or quarters though there will be some bleeding during cooking this way), twist off the leaves (leave about an inch or two of the stems attached to the root) and wrap them in tinfoil.  Cook in a hot oven for about 20 mins or until they are meltingly tender when pierced with a skewer.  Then put them in a bowl and put in a few splashes of your best olive oil and vinegar (balsamic is good).  Serve them on a bed of salad (a few little beet leaves if you have any left, or some lettuce or rocket) and I promise they will be a revelation.  A nice soft cheese like goats cheese or even ricotta will help to soften the taste too. 

As you would expect for such a vibrant looking vegetable, it’s exceptionally good for you.  The Romans used beetroot as a treatment for fevers and constipation, amongst other ailments while Hippocrates (him of the oath) recommended the use of beet leaves as binding for wounds.  Researchers in the American Heart Association found a substantial decrease in blood pressure just one hour after drinking 500mls of beetroot juice. It is also considered an aphrodisiac though I ate a whole plate of them last night and can’t say that I felt particularly randy (no more so than usual at any rate). 

You can sow beetroot in the polytunnel or greenhouse from February (March outside unless there is still frost) and continue to sow until August.  It’s one of those vegetables that rarely seems to fail.  We’ve found the easiest approach (as ever) is sowing the seeds in seed trays or modules and then planting them out when the roots are bursting out of the base of the module. In the soil outside, they will need about 20cm of space.  It’s best to harvest beetroot when young (about lemon size) but we’ve had some big old roots this year which tasted great so don’t worry about it too much.  It’s a hardy veg so they will do fine left in the soil for the winter but if you want to store them, put them in boxes of sand.  If you have a good supply for the winter, congratulate yourself - you can throw away that multivitamin and while your friends will be pale and uninteresting looking for the winter, you will have an eerie glow…

Hello Michael,

I just came across your excellent website and was delighted to find a eulogy to one of my favourite vegetables, the Kohlrabi!  You can imagine my disbelief and distress when I moved from Germany to Ireland, the uncontested empire of tuberous and bulbous veggies, and realized: nobody here knows, eats, or sells Kohlrabi (and celeriac, for that matter)!  That was eight years ago and in the meantime I have been able to source both, albeit of rather mediocre quality.  Nearly every time I buy them, people sidle up to me: “...tell me, what are them kolrabbis - and what do you do wid’em?”

This is what I prefer to do with them as a quick and light-ish main course for two:

KOHLRABI WITH WALNUTS

3-4 young kohlrabis
3-4 shallots
1 tbsp butter or walnut oil
150 ml cream
2-3 tbsp roughly chopped walnuts
a handful of chervil (optional)
good quality dry veg stock
freshly ground white pepper
nutmeg to taste

Clean, peel and cut kohlrabis into pinkie-sized sticks. Gently heat butter or oil in a pan.  Add finely chop shallots and fry until soft but not brown.  Add the kohlrabi sticks and toss until they are evenly coated.  Pour in the cream, then add pepper, nutmeg and veg stock (or herb salt).  Bring to the boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 5-8 minutes. Serve with baby spuds or brown Jasmin rice and scatter finely chopped chervil and walnuts on top.  (It’s also nice with lamb or pork chops)

Enjoy!

I’ve often wondered what visitors to the Deise County must think when they stand in a shop and hear a local say: “Give us a few blaas there, boy, will ye?” What on earth is this exotic-sounding item, this “blaa” of which your speak? Perhaps they are disappointed to discover that a blaa is merely a type of bread roll, but that disappointment will not last, so long as they make it their business to sample one.

Before we go any further, let’s make one thing perfectly clear: A blaa is not a bap! Once you’ve tried one, you will know that to compare the two is to denigrate one and elevate the other. Blaas are what baps want to be when they grow up. Bap-makers in Waterford are a destitute bunch - they loiter in the bread aisles of shops and supermarkets, placing a bap or two among the blaas when no one is looking, in the vain hope that locals might buy a bap by mistake. Thankfully a blaa is instantly recognisable. It is square, rather than round, and its crown is dusted liberally with flour. Because of the floury topping, eating a blaa is like sucking the juice from a rack of spare ribs - it’s incredibly messy.

Waterford people are known regularly to leave the house in the morning with a generous coating of flour on their noses, chins and lips, but they do so without shame because that’s all part of the blaa experience.

So how did the floury marvels come to be made in Waterford in the first place? The most popular explanation is that they were first baked by Huguenot craftsmen who arrived in the port of Waterford towards the end of the 17th century. The Christian Brothers’ founder, Edmund Ignatius Rice, was responsible for making blaas popular with locals when he put them on the menu in the school he established in Mount Sion in 1802. The origin of the word blaa is thought variously to come from either French (pain blanc is white bread and blé is used for certain types of flour), Latin (blandus, meaning bland) or Spanish (blando, meaning soft).

Dermot “Blaa” Walsh and his brother Michael own one of the three bakeries in the city that still bake blaas daily. “We started 20 years ago and we are third generation bakers. It’s bred in to us,” he says, oblivious to the rather marvellous pun. There are about 12,000 blaas sold each day in Waterford and getting them out around the county in time for breakfast is no mean feat: “It takes about three hours to bake a blaa and we have to finish by 3.30am to let them cool in time for loading the vans at 5am.” In a world of culinary globalisation, the blaa stands almost alone in its refusal to become ubiquitous.

Why is it, since it tastes so good, that it is still available only in Waterford? A clue is to be found in the simplicity of its ingredients. “Blaas are not enriched with anything,” says Walsh. “They are made from a very specific lean dough of flour, yeast, salt and water. There’s no fat, sugar or anything like that in them. As a result they go stale within hours so they don’t travel very well. There’s no fat in them to keep them soft. It’s a morning product and 90 per cent of them are sold before lunchtime.”

In other words, the blaa-baker inserts a time bomb of sorts into the product to ensure it is never tempted to travel beyond the county border. Walsh tells tales of Waterford mammies trying to defuse the time-bomb by sending frozen blaas overseas to homesick offspring.

Blaas can be eaten with several fillings or none. They taste great with real butter and some jam or with an egg atop for breakfast. Favourite lunch-time fillings include ham, coleslaw, salad and crisps (not all together, obviously). A particularly odious local custom is to fill your blaa with “red lead”, a type of luncheon meat - it is rumoured that red lead blaas are the reason that John Mullane always looks so fired up before inter-county hurling matches.

When I was in college in Waterford RTC (now Waterford IT) the staple diet was “a blaa and two sausages” and a more profound culinary experience it was hard to find. Blaa Walsh’s very own recipe for “Waterford Bruschetta” is a great way to use blaas which have survived until teatime. It involves a topping of extra virgin olive oil, chopped tomato, garlic, onion and mozzarella, toasted until golden brown. Yum.

There are two different types of blaa - soft or crusty - and if ever there is to be a civil war in the county it will surely start with a row over which tastes nicer. “Soft blaas are more popular because they are easier for kids to eat. Crusty blaas are very tasty and have more flavour because they are baked longer,” says Walsh. Can the blaa be made at home or is there a secret ingredient? “The only secret ingredient is time. The longer you leave them sit before baking, the more flavour they develop.”

Walsh is so synonymous with blaas in his native city that most people have forgotten he actually has a first name.

“Most of my friends don’t even know my first name. Even my friend’s kids say, ‘Well, Blaa?’ - and I say: ‘The name’s Dermot, ye cheeky pup!’”

© 2008 The Irish Times

One of the ladies who attended a hen course here on the home farm recently got me interested in elderberry wine.  Like most people I love the idea of a good homebrew and last summer I made my first foray in to the wierd and wacky world by creating a batch of my own lager.  It was enormous fun but tasted like complete and utter muck.  I’ve drank some God awful beer in my time with little complaint but this was on another level of wretchedness - there are 30 bottles of the stuff out in the garage and i am feeding it to the pigs, who are very pleased with it.  But pigs will eat a plastic bucket so they are not a great judge of taste.

Still, passion undimmed, I asked lots of questions of my new friend and she was so impressed by my enthusiasm she sent me up a bottle of her wine that every evening.  I wasted no time in opening it and drinking the lot.  It’s not merlot that’s for sure, but it tastes impressive nonetheless.  Quite sweet, very drinkable. You’d have to think you would be very pleased with yourself if you had bottles of this maturing on a shelf somewhere.  She also gave me the skinny so to speak on good locations for elder in the area.  It’s very treasured knowledge so I am afraid, i can’t print it here!  In case you steal it on me.

There are loads of things you can make from the produce of the elder bush and it delivers its generous bounty gradually from May onwards.  The flowers come first followed by the berries later in the summer.  Typically the flowers are used to make cordials, ice-creams, sorbets, non-alcoholic champagne (what’s the point of that i hear you ask) and fritters (fried in some batter).  The berries usually end up in a vintage wine.

The elder bush is in flower from May/June timeframe and we picked flowers up to about a week ago (mid-late July) - at this time of the year you can see that the flowers are on their last legs.  You should pick when they are still creamy and before they fade to white - also try and get them on a country road (if you get them from the side of a busy road you will end up with a drink that smells of petrol). 

Still, though the flowers were just barely good enough to use, it was still exciting bringing them home - beautiful cream coloured sprays of flowers - and thinking about the lovely drink we would make from them.  Elderflower smell God-awful - the kitchen smelled to me like cat’s piss but we don’t keep cats so i could be wrong on that score.  The wonderful flavour of the flowers can be infused in to an array of drinks and foods - ice cream, sorbets, cordials, jams and jellies.  We bought a bottle of elderflower cordial last year and thought it tasted amazing - a little drop in to a long ice-filled glass, fill with water and you have an amazing, lemony, fresh tasting thirst quencher - so we decided to use our free bounty to make that.  Give it a try....it’s brilliant having this concentrate in the fridge/freezer and make up batches with water as you need it.

Elderflower cordial

20 elderflower heads
Syrup made with 2 litres boiling water and 600g white sugar
4 unwaxed lemons sliced as thinly as possible

Strip the florets of elderflowers from the stalks with a fork.
Add the lemons and pour the syrup over. Cover the bowl well.
Leave in a cool place for 24 hours, stirring occasionally.
Strain through some muslin and bottle in small quantities. It will freeze well. 

When using, dilute with 6 – 10 parts water or sparkling water.

There is a gentle revolution happening in the food chain which has received many a column inch of late. Shoppers are flocking to farmer’s markets to try and source food direct from the producers. That’s all good stuff but the reality is that the overwhelming majority of us still buy our food in supermarkets. Which is why it’s exciting to see that many of those supermarkets are starting to wake up to the profit potential in selling produce from small-scale producers.

I was wandering around my local supermarket earlier this week and was suddenly drawn to the unmistakeable smell of cooking sausages. I was feeling peckish so I moseyed over to the promotional stand where a helpful lady gave me the background to Jane Russell’s Homemade Sausages. While I tasted the delectable varieties on offer (Original, Toulouse, Bratwurst and Italian) the helpful lady gave me the background (made from prime cuts of pork from Oakpark in Tipperary, Pinhead Oats from Flahavans in Waterford). Hold on a minute, I thought to myself, this sounds like more than your average promotional pitch. That’s because the helpful lady was none other than Jane Russell herself!

Jane and her husband got in to sausage making because they couldn’t find a decent sausage to eat. I can empathise. I can’t get enough of sausages but I do sometimes wonder what’s in them. It’s therefore very comforting to be able to see the whites of the eyes of the person who has produced the food you are eating.

They say there are two things you should never see being made; laws and sausages. The recipe for most cheap sausages is typically; 30% pork fat, 20% recovered meat (what the hell is ‘recovered’ meat?), 30% rusk (basically a filler), 15% water and 5% assorted e-numbers, flavourings, sugar, flavour enhancer, preservatives and colours. If you are thinking, well at least there’s some meat in them then bear in mind that the definition of “meat” can include skin, rind, gristle and bone. The problems don’t end with what’s inside the sausage: the casing is normally made from collagen. Yuk.

According to the Sausage experts at sausagelinks.co.uk, a decent sausage should include at least 70% meat but equally important that meat should be pork belly or shoulder. Jane Russell’s sausages contain 80% prime cut pork. The sausages cost me €3.50 for six. If you think that’s too expensive you can pick up various own-brand sausages in a supermarket for under 90 cent. Roughly the same price as a tin of dog food. Go figure.

Jane Russell’s sausages are available at Caviston’s, Donnybrook Fair, Morton’s, Ardkeen Shopping Centre in Waterford and various farmer’s markets nationwide (Monkstown, Kilkenny, Clonmel, Naas).

http://www.straightsausages.com

When you are visiting Paris for the first time, it would be folly to do anything other than the standard tourist experience; the old favourites like the Eiffel Tower, Musee du Louvre and Arc de Triomphe really are worth seeing if you are a first-timer. Thankfully Paris is complex and multi-layered enough to withstand multiple return visits and a good way to put some manners on your weekend (if you like your weekends to have manners that is) is to have a “theme” - for example music, classical art, fashion, photography etc. We particularly love eating - so we decided the most fun theme of all would be a gastronomic one.

You have to love the French attitude to food. You can talk about Paris being the home of haute cuisine until the cows come home, but the real beauty of French food is their insistence on using only the freshest ingredients in their recipes, either grown locally or bought daily from their local market. Ask any Parisian and they will tell you proudly why “their” market is the best in the city and who their favourite artisan producer is. It’s like the entire nation has a deep understanding of the importance of “slow food” without every needing a movement to guide them. Their food culture seems to be more deeply rooted and less prone to the evils of homogenisation and globalisation than elsewhere in the world. For example, there seems to be fewer Starbucks and McDonalds in Paris than other European cities - but that may be wishful thinking on my part. Also, the French understand the need to sit down and actually enjoy meals (with good company).  Not for them the grab on the go western lunch philosophy.

Our first stop is a food flavoured jaunt across the river Seine to the district of St-Germain-des-Pres on the Left Bank. The area was originally a little market town formed around the abbey of St. Germain but following World War II it became known as a center of intellectualism where the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir ‘existentialized’ at cafes such as Deux Magot, Cafe de Flore and Brasserie Lipp. All three can be found around the intersection of St-Germain des Pres and rue Bonaparte. We sip hot chocolates and try talking deep at Deux Magot and sample some Sauerkraut at Brasserie Lipp.

We visit the venerable institution which is Laduree at rue Bonaparte. The company can trace its history back to 1862 when Laduree had their first bakery at rue Royale in Paris. The company now run a tea salon, pastry shop, restaurant, chocolate shop and ice cream parlor at various locations in Paris (and one at Harrods in London). The Laduree speciality is called a macaroon which is a round cake, crisp on the outside, with a smooth ganache center. It looks for all the world like an elaborate Kimberly biscuit. For each new season, Laduree pay tribute to the macaroon by creating a new flavour; some of the more outlandish include rose petal, blackcurrant violet and salted butter caramel. The winter themed one we tried was purple in colour - you can only imagine how difficult it is to create purple colouring naturally.

Warming to the theme of “food as art” we head for Pierre Herme also on rue Bonaparte. Herme is known as the ‘Picasso of Cakes’ and fittingly the outside of the chocolaterie looks more like a Louis Vuitton outlet. There were more signature macaroons to sample here - I try a Truffle flavoured one which can best be described as ‘interesting’. A short walk to rue de Seine brings us to the outlet for Belgian chocolate maestro Pierre Marcolini which opened in 2003. Marcolini is one of only three craftsmen left in Europe who manufactures chocolate from scratch (i.e. from the cacao bean). His chocolates are indescribably good, albeit expensive. If your wallet is up to the job, you could go for a limited edition chocolate bar made from porcelana beans in Mexico - the porcelana bean was facing extinction before Marcolini stepped in. We were particularly fond of a blood red, heart shaped Coeur Framboise, which was a bitter ganache coated with white chocolate and raspberry pulp.

Over at a la Reine Astrid (named after the tragic Queen who died in 1935) on rue du Cherche-Midi, owner Madame Salmon, who by the way is a stunning advertisement for the benefits of eating lots of good chocolate, donned immaculate white gloves to talk us through their specialities. “For us, chocolate is the packaging as well as the ingredients,” she purred. Displayed in an open glass counter in the centre of the shop, the chocolates just cry out to be eaten, so not to disappoint them we did just that.

Exhausted from our travels we head to the art-deco splendour of Hotel Lutetia for afternoon tea. I had an exotic concoction called Les jardins de Mogador which was a green tea with Nana mint and roses - pricey at €8 but damn refreshing. Feeling quite full, we ignore the cake selection reluctantly.

We resume our culinary tour at Poilane bakery, also on rue du Cherche-Midi. They say that the only place that Parisians don’t mind queuing is at a bakery and some of the longest queues of all are to be found at Poilane. Pierre Poilane started baking bread here in 1932 in the basement of a building which once housed a 17th century monastery. They specialise in traditional sourdough bread which became deeply unfashionable in the 19th century when the white-bread baguette came on the scene. You can pay up to $40 for a Poilane loaf in posh restaurants in New York - here in Paris it costs a mere €8. Incredibly the company (which employs 130 people) is now run by 22 year old Appolliona Poilane who took over the company in 2002 when her parents were killed in a helicopter crash.

If you talk nicely to people at the front counter in Poilane they might allow you in to the back room which has a “won’t-believe-it-’till-you-see-it” chandelier made entirely out of bread which was initially designed for Salvador Dali (although it now has to be remade every 4 to 5 years). They also allow us down to the basement to see the wood-fired ovens which are 5 metres deep.

You wouldn’t think we would have been able for eating after all that chocolate, but after a short nap we rouse ourselves and get a taxi to rue Montreuil and restaurant L’Aiguiere where we are welcomed by owner and sommelier Patrick Masbatin for a superb fish supper.

It’s fair to say that we feel a tad sluggish the next day, so what better way to battle lethargy than with a spot of retail therapy. We head for Galleries Lafayette on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th Arrondissement. Lafayette gets more visitors each year than the Eiffel Tower and many of them are visiting not for shopping but to check out the building itself with it’s beautiful glass dome which is classified as a historical monument. Ever since its opening in 1893 Galeries Lafayette has attracted the “midinettes” (literally light-lunchers), high society ladies and working women who made time during their lunch breaks for shopping. It’s still a food-lover’s paradise; head for Lafayette Gourmet on the first floor which hosts the Gourmet Foodstore (where we sample some foie gras, caviar and pastries), Library of Wines and two restaurants. We enjoy a sublime meal at one of them, Le Chenevert - a Pastilla filled with minced guinea fowl and dried fruit will live long in the memory.

Feeling cultured after some excellent red wine, we decide it would be interesting to take a cultural tourist attraction and give it a gourmet twist. Our guide Jean-Manuel Traimond brought us on a whirlwind tour of the Louvre taking in food-themed paintings from artists such as Murillo (La Cuisine des Anges) and Arcimboldo (four bizarre paintings collectively known as The Seasons). Visitors to the Salle de la Joconde typically march straight for the room’s most famous occupant, de Vinci’s Mona Lisa and leave without turning to admire the largest painting at the Louvre, the frankly enormous study of 16th century fine dining, Veronese’s The Wedding Feast at Cana. It is so large they had to leave a whopping 28 meters in front of it to allow people to fully appreciate the scale. The painting has been fully restored following an accident in 1992 when workers trying to hoist it in to a new location, dropped it leaving five gashes in the canvas. Oops.

That evening we dined at a cosy little spot on rue Lamark, called A Beauvilliers. Incidentally, for accommodation we opted for the Hotel Mayfair on rue Rouget de Lisle which is a stone’s throw from Place de la Concorde and the Louvre and was perfectly comfortable.

Hotel Mayfair - http://www.paris-hotel-mayfair.com
Restaurant L’Aiguiere - tel 01 43 72 42 32
http://www.galerieslafayette.com Metro stop: Havre-Caumartin, Opera.
Le Chenevert Restaurant - tel 01 40 23 52 31
Restaurant A. Beauvilliers - tel 01 42 55 05 42
Louvre Guide - Jean-Manuel Traimond - tel 0147374270
We flew Air France from Dublin, see airfrance.ie

I discovered the joys of making jams last autumn when I had a glut of fruit in the garden and much time on my hands after quitting my job.  Making jams is an absolute sinch - it is complete entry level stuff.  Making marmalade on the other hand, is trickier.  It is university to jam’s primary school.  As it happens this is the perfect time of year to make marmalade; firstly that fresh orangey fragrance will bring some cheer to gloomy winter mornings.  Secondly your supermarket should be stocking mega-bitter Seville oranges about now which are the right job for marmalade.  The season for Seville oranges is short, December to February, so act fast.  Either make enough to last the year or freeze the oranges (they freeze well but take up lots of room in the freezer).

Recipes for marmalade are easy to remember since all you are adding is sugar and water; as long as you have the right oranges, you should be set (geddit?!).  This recipe from Waterford chef Martin Dwyer involves 3 lbs of oranges, 3 litres of water and 3 kgs of sugar which makes about twenty jars.  Start by boiling the oranges for about 2 hours or until the skin is soft, and then set them aside to cool.  Cut them in half and scoop out the pips.  This is messy because all the pith that clings to the pips is full of pectin and needs to be retained.  I stooped over a chopping board with a knife for about 45 minutes, separating pith from pip like an overzealous neurosurgeon. 

You can finely chop the peel if you want but I really could not be bothered with that malarkey so I just threw the oranges in to a food-processor instead which seems to work OK (especially if you like thick-cut marmalade).  Put the pips in to a muslin bag and put back in the water with the pith and the peel (making marmalade involves a lot of things beginning with P).  Add two bags of warm sugar (important, do not forget to remove the bags).  Any illusions you have about marmalade being healthy disappear when you see how much sugar is added.  Bring gradually to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.  It only needs boiling for about five to ten minutes.  Exactly how long is determined by a disappointingly subjective set-test, taking a small bit out on to a cold saucer and if it wrinkles when you prod it with your finger it is ready. 

After much prodding, I judged it sufficiently wrinkly and started ladling it in to sterilised jars.  Having endured first degree burns on my hands and an extensive clean-up job I can tell you that a worth while investment is a funnel so you can easily siphon the boiling hot liquid in to pots.  I could not help thinking that boiling marmalade could have been used in medieval times to pour down from the castle ramparts on top of advancing soldiers.  Perhaps this level of distractedness and day-dreaming explains why the job was so messy.  Hmmm.  Interesting.  The finished product looked nice in the jars, but was disturbingly runny. 

I called Chef Dwyer for a post-mortem.  Did you use Sureset sugar? he asks.  Eh? It has a higher pectin content so it is more reliable, he tells me. If you use ordinary sugar, he says, invest in a sugar thermometer so you can be sure that it is up to a high enough temperature to reach setting point.

Never mind, says Mrs Kelly sympathetically, we can have it in the mornings as juice. 

See http://www.martindwyer.com