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From the October 2008 issue:
This month’s galley comes to us from Kari Beaven:
Miles of Carrots…
There are a lot of people talking about ‘food miles’ these days. Between
reducing our carbon footprint and maintaining a healthy, nutrient-rich, disease-
fighting diet, people are turning back the clock on year-round vegetables and
starting to look at what’s growing close to home.
When I was a kid, fruit was exciting. I would eye up my grandma’s orange tree
for weeks before she would finally announce that the green had faded enough
and we could launch ourselves on the bulging fruits; watermelons would come
into season to the sound of my brothers and I slurping the drips from our
chins and the sights of thousands of pips flying over the back fence (we didn’t
have neighbours). Now I can buy strawberries pretty much whenever I want to,
and if I’m happy to pay the price, grapes will be brought to my table, care of
Chile or China. The ‘price’ is higher than I thought. I was recently quoted 6 kg’
s of carbon for every 1 kg of Chilean grapes. Not only that, but the grapes
aren’t as good. They need to travel and so are chosen for the resilience of
their appearance, rather than their flavour or texture…
…and just before you think I’m going to launch into a rendition of ‘the good old
days’ apparently an orange back in the good old days contained up to 9 times
the vitamin C content of an orange eaten today. There, that’s all the ‘good ‘ol
days’ I’ll bring up - here’s to looking forward.
The answer to this is quite simple. Many people are eating ‘in season’. I know
it’s a way-out concept, but looking up what is grown locally (and I don’t mean
raiding Alan Gray’s vege patch, though growing a vege patch is a great way to
make use of soil, sunshine and water, which would otherwise just be making
grass. It’s not as hard as it looks, well okay it’s a little tricky but you have the
occasional accidental success and if you’re worried about moving house
before you reap the vegetables, think about the proverb that “one know
selflessness, who plants a tree for shade [she] knows [she] will never enjoy”. If
that doesn’t do it for you, how about asking a friend for a corner of their
garden and making your own gardening night?) and buying what is ‘in season’
is up there on the list of ‘Good Things We Can Do For Our Bodies and Our
Planet’. What’s more, eating becomes exciting again. Suddenly foods I’ve
never heard of are coming into season. How long since you sat down to a bit
of persimmon or put celeriac in a casserole? That ‘warty frog-prince of the
root vegetables’ is often mis-understood; however, with a little preparation it
becomes the royal root vegetable which holds the whole dinner together.
This brings me to my point: what do you do with 1001 carrots when the garden
tells you ‘honey, it’s time’? I like carrots but I know even with storage
techniques carefully followed out of my new ‘Growing Organic’ text book, I still
have far more carrots than I have recipes. Enter (stage right), the Internet.
This little marvel has an endless supply of recipes from around the world (and
some good carrot jokes, see below). Who would know ‘Carrot Soup with lentils’
doesn’t even taste like carrots?!
Useful sites for starters are www.freerecipes.co.nz, www.cuisine.co.nz (click
on ‘meal maker’, type in the ingredients you have and voila!), www.
fatfreevegan.com for fusspots, and www.allrecipes.com for access to 40,000
of our favourites.
Bon appetit!
Of yeah, good luck with the garden. If you want to know more about Food
Miles, go to www.good.net.nz and search their site for ‘food miles’ or read the
feature ‘Back to the Source’. While you’re at it, search their site for heaps of
other things, these guys get a wide range of journalists, scientists, activists
and everyday people to contribute thought-provoking questions and lines of
argument. They don’t all agree with each other, so you don’t feel obliged to
agree with them, but it’s a darn sight more positive than anything else I’ve
read about our role in our planet’s future!
Carrot joke: a guy walked in to see nurse Debs the other day with a carrot up
his nose and a piece of celery in his ear. Nurse Debs told him he probably
wasn’t eating right….
This month’s galley comes to us from Kari Beaven:
Miles of Carrots…
There are a lot of people talking about ‘food miles’ these days. Between
reducing our carbon footprint and maintaining a healthy, nutrient-rich, disease-
fighting diet, people are turning back the clock on year-round vegetables and
starting to look at what’s growing close to home.
When I was a kid, fruit was exciting. I would eye up my grandma’s orange tree
for weeks before she would finally announce that the green had faded enough
and we could launch ourselves on the bulging fruits; watermelons would come
into season to the sound of my brothers and I slurping the drips from our
chins and the sights of thousands of pips flying over the back fence (we didn’t
have neighbours). Now I can buy strawberries pretty much whenever I want to,
and if I’m happy to pay the price, grapes will be brought to my table, care of
Chile or China. The ‘price’ is higher than I thought. I was recently quoted 6 kg’
s of carbon for every 1 kg of Chilean grapes. Not only that, but the grapes
aren’t as good. They need to travel and so are chosen for the resilience of
their appearance, rather than their flavour or texture…
…and just before you think I’m going to launch into a rendition of ‘the good old
days’ apparently an orange back in the good old days contained up to 9 times
the vitamin C content of an orange eaten today. There, that’s all the ‘good ‘ol
days’ I’ll bring up - here’s to looking forward.
The answer to this is quite simple. Many people are eating ‘in season’. I know
it’s a way-out concept, but looking up what is grown locally (and I don’t mean
raiding Alan Gray’s vege patch, though growing a vege patch is a great way to
make use of soil, sunshine and water, which would otherwise just be making
grass. It’s not as hard as it looks, well okay it’s a little tricky but you have the
occasional accidental success and if you’re worried about moving house
before you reap the vegetables, think about the proverb that “one know
selflessness, who plants a tree for shade [she] knows [she] will never enjoy”. If
that doesn’t do it for you, how about asking a friend for a corner of their
garden and making your own gardening night?) and buying what is ‘in season’
is up there on the list of ‘Good Things We Can Do For Our Bodies and Our
Planet’. What’s more, eating becomes exciting again. Suddenly foods I’ve
never heard of are coming into season. How long since you sat down to a bit
of persimmon or put celeriac in a casserole? That ‘warty frog-prince of the
root vegetables’ is often mis-understood; however, with a little preparation it
becomes the royal root vegetable which holds the whole dinner together.
This brings me to my point: what do you do with 1001 carrots when the garden
tells you ‘honey, it’s time’? I like carrots but I know even with storage
techniques carefully followed out of my new ‘Growing Organic’ text book, I still
have far more carrots than I have recipes. Enter (stage right), the Internet.
This little marvel has an endless supply of recipes from around the world (and
some good carrot jokes, see below). Who would know ‘Carrot Soup with lentils’
doesn’t even taste like carrots?!
Useful sites for starters are www.freerecipes.co.nz, www.cuisine.co.nz (click
on ‘meal maker’, type in the ingredients you have and voila!), www.
fatfreevegan.com for fusspots, and www.allrecipes.com for access to 40,000
of our favourites.
Bon appetit!
Of yeah, good luck with the garden. If you want to know more about Food
Miles, go to www.good.net.nz and search their site for ‘food miles’ or read the
feature ‘Back to the Source’. While you’re at it, search their site for heaps of
other things, these guys get a wide range of journalists, scientists, activists
and everyday people to contribute thought-provoking questions and lines of
argument. They don’t all agree with each other, so you don’t feel obliged to
agree with them, but it’s a darn sight more positive than anything else I’ve
read about our role in our planet’s future!
Carrot joke: a guy walked in to see nurse Debs the other day with a carrot up
his nose and a piece of celery in his ear. Nurse Debs told him he probably
wasn’t eating right….
the GALLEY
Local recipes from the pages of the Stewart Island News.
Local recipes from the pages of the Stewart Island News.
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the GALLEY
Local recipes from the pages of the Stewart Island News.
Local recipes from the pages of the Stewart Island News.