Slow Food London

Going Slow Week 30 - A journey of the highs and lows of eating Slow for a year

Slow Food London set a challenge: could regular Londoners go slow for an entire year? Would it be easy? Would it be hard? Would there be times when it would (slowly) start to go wrong?

Here, Susan Paul talks us through her thirtieth week:

Having celebrated Christmas with our family in mid December, we had a holiday in the sunshine of Oman this week. Seasonal and local (let alone clean and fair) don’t appear easy in an international hotel but I decided to try.

Breakfast was served buffet style and covered just about every type of food from all over the world in the hope, I guess, of dealing with the whims and fancies of all guests. This makes me concerned about waste. I opted for some very nice fruits, apples, plums and apricots preserved in a syrup spiced with vanilla, cardamom and star anise and added some almonds and yoghurt on some days. There were also eggs done any way desired. Melon sometimes too, which is supposed to be very good in Oman but I am not sure if it was local or not. And of course dates, which I like and they were lovely. I also drank lots of fresh mint tea.

 Lunch was often tabbouleh, a salad of finely chopped onions, tomatoes and mint, hummus, and mutabal, which probably need no further explanation here, and labneh, strained yoghurt, together with olives and flat bread. But I did occasionally have a Caesar salad, that stalwart of hotel menus all over the world.

And to drink, a delicious cocktail of cranberry juice with mint, ginger and lime, (limes being very local apparently), or some jasmine tea.

Supper could be a grill of lamb marinated in spices, some Kofta lamb or some chicken marinated with coriander with a salad of finely sliced onions and tomatoes and a creamy sauce made with sesame paste and of course more flat bread, or perhaps a vegetable tagine or curry. Fish was not an option for me here as I could not be sure about sustainability and having looked it up on my return, I find that most local species are over-fished.

Regional puddings were Halwa, made with sugar and semolina with dried fruits, and Um Ali a pudding made with bread, dried fruits and pistachio nuts – a Middle Eastern bread and butter pudding.

Other good things were coffee flavoured with cardamom, pickled vegetables of all kinds and dukkah (a mixture of ground nuts such as hazelnut or almonds and seeds such as sesame, cumin or coriander), which is eaten with flat bread and oil. But I remain unsure just how much of this food is local, seasonal, clean and fair.

Back home to the cold weather and very grateful for a sunny holiday but looking forward to some home food now. An empty fridge, apart from some ageing but not past it, Golden Cross goat’s milk cheese; so we raided the freezer and subsequently enjoyed a supper of carrot soup and toasted cheese on sourdough toast. A lovely week but it’s actually rather good to be home, at least as far as food is concerned.

 

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Going Slow Week 29 - A journey of the highs and lows of eating Slow for a year

Slow Food London set a challenge: could regular Londoners go slow for an entire year? Would it be easy? Would it be hard? Would there be times when it would (slowly) start to go wrong?

Here, Susan Paul talks us through her twenty-ninth week:

I used the stock made with the remains of the Christmas dinner goose for a supper of bacon and barley with lemon and parsley to eat with roast chicken and watercress– it was delicious, comforting and wholesome.

I roasted the bacon in the oven whilst cooking the chicken - I have been looking at economies in using fuel for cooking. Fuel economy in cookery was, in the distant past, something that was the norm. Nowadays it is not uncommon to see a recipe that needs at least three different methods of cooking – hob, oven and grill for example – not very economic or energy efficient.

A lovely (and I think mostly slow) lunch in a Sussex pub – it is good to see proper local cheese on the menu too. Most of our party had slow cooked lamb but I had a vegetarian meal of beans and Winter vegetables laced with parsley pesto – also freshly cooked kale which was the vegetable of the day. It was excellent.  A quality vegetarian option illustrates to me that the restaurant pays attention to all its dishes – not all bother so much with the vegetarian option.

We have been given a very special bottle of maple syrup and I added a spoonful to a smooth soup of
carrots, ginger and thyme. It was simple but delicious. All the vegetables we are buying from the Farmer’s market are so full of flavour – they need very little added to them. I use far fewer ingredients in cooking since starting the Challenge.

I scrubbed the skins and roasted some very small parsnips whole in the oven with honey, thyme, a little bit of rapeseed oil and salt. It made me wonder why I peeled them in the past – I will simply scrub them clean in future as they look and taste very good in this more natural state.

The British cheese we have sampled this week is Beauvale Blue, which is made in Nottinghamshire. I used it as part of a salad (similar to one last week) of purple sprouting broccoli and walnuts as we still have lots. Our son drank the water in which the broccoli had been simmered– he says it’s full of nutrients – I am sure he is right.

The Cox’s apples are particularly good now and we are still enjoying them each day with breakfast.

  We have been trying more British beers too and continue to be surprised at just how good they are – I am still having mine in a wine glass though.

In addition to walnuts we have cheese to use up so I used both to make some savoury shortbread biscuits. They were good albeit a bit crumbly, so I will try to improve the recipe next time.  I used more walnuts with some Wigmore cheese, red onions and parsley for a puff pastry tart.

Other good things have been: roast partrige with redcurrant gravy and Winter cabbage, spiced beetroot dip with sourdough toast, rice pudding with nutmeg and a Sunday supper of two soft boiled eggs  with rock salt, soda bread toast and raw butter.

 

 

 

 

 Really looking forward to Christmas now.

 

Terra Madre and 10,000 Gardens in Africa: A London perspective

The morning of 10^th December started for Slow Food with an exciting message from Samantha Cristoforetti, as astronaut on the  International Space station, wishing Planet Earth a happy Terra Madre Day!

 

Here in London, the day’s trading at Borough Market commenced with Paolo di Croce, the General Secretary of Slow Food International, opening the main gates of the market. This ceremonial act has only been performed once before, by HRH the Prince of Wales in February 2013 opening the newly refurbished Three Crown Square. SFL presented the market with an apple tree as a gesture of friendship, and spent Terra Madre Day at Borough talking to traders, shoppers and visitors, and participating in the annual “Evening of Cheese”.

The week before, Carlo Petrini came to London for the first of a series of events around the world to highlight the 10,000 Gardens in Africa programme. On 10^th December, he visited some of the Slow Food London Approved traders at Borough Market, before the relaunch of the programme in the Borough Market Hall. We heard first-hand from three young African farmers how the project had changed their lives, and the lives of their communities.

Carlo recalled the start of the 1,000 Gardens project in 2010, with the then ambitious target of creating 1,000 sustainable, community owned gardens in countries beset by famine, the aftermath of civil war, and the effects of climate change.

This year the number of gardens has already exceeded 1,600 and the bar has been raised to 10,000 Gardens: when the target of 10,000 gardens is reached, it is expected 500,000 people will be involved in the cultivation of a more sustainable future. 

In an inspirational address, Carlo emphasised that 10,000 Gardens is not a charity, but a way of giving Africans the opportunity to help themselves, and for the prosperous western world to make recompense for a history of slavery and colonialism, and the continuing landgrabbing, whereby extensive areas of Africa are owned by China, India and the USA.

Slow Food London has sponsored a garden in Uganda, and Slow Food England has sponsored another on behalf of all English groups. With these gardens will come the learning of new skills, rehabilitation from the terror of war, and a sense of security. We will be bringing you updates from our garden throughout the year. 

Alistair Cameron  @amaroandtwisted 

Going Slow Week 28 - A journey of the highs and lows of eating Slow for a year

Slow Food London set a challenge: could regular Londoners go slow for an entire year? Would it be easy? Would it be hard? Would there be times when it would (slowly) start to go wrong?

Here, Susan Paul talks us through her twenty-eighth week:

The British cheese we have sampled this week is Keen’s Cheddar, which is made in Somerset with raw milk. It has a good flavour and we ate it toasted on thickly sliced sourdough bread with plum chutney.

We also tried “Howgate Wonder”- a variety of cooking apples - which I stewed with a little sugar. These have an exceptionally good flavour and texture (they hold their shape despite the cooking) and were a welcome addition to breakfast.

 I tried roasting some Brussels sprouts by tossing them in a little oil and salt and roasting them in a hot (180c) oven for 30 minutes (I was using the oven for a casserole so it was an economical use)  – they taste very nutty done this way and there is no risk of sogginess but I am going to boil those for our Christmas dinner in the usual way – I am not inclined to make such a change to our traditions in this respect.

Other good things have been some purple sprouting broccoli, briefly boiled and eaten warm with walnuts, crumbled Stilton cheese and a dressing of rapeseed oil white wine vinegar and a teaspoon of Borage honey which I bought this week.

A trip to Norfolk and made time to visit P. J. Kew the butcher in East Rudham to buy some bacon, “Banquet” sausages and excellent roast ham and Howell’s the butcher for partridges which were £2 each. The partridges were used for a stew flavoured with some of the recurrant jelly made in week 10. The bacon and sausages were destined for the boxes of “slow” foods we have assembled to give to our children for Christmas presents.

We held our family Christmas dinner on Saturday.

 

 

Christmas  menu:

 

Fresh crab with watercress,

wholemeal bread and raw butter

 

Roast Goose, giblet gravy, bacon, sage and onion stuffing

 apple sauce spiked with cinnamon

Roast Potatoes (Wilja variety)

Roast parsnips

Brussels sprouts

 

Lemon curd ice cream with lemon and thyme shortbreads

Montgomery’s cheddar, Wigmore and Colston Bassett Stilton cheeses

marinated figs and soda bread

 

The delicious feast and family occasion was much enjoyed by all and the food boxes were hugely appreciated and admired!

On Sunday we made Bubble and Squeak with the leftover roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts, which we ate with the delicious roast ham and onion and raisin chutney. We also have a small amount of the goose meat left which I will make into a traditional “L
eftover Christmas Dinner Sandwich” together with some apple sauce, gravy and stuffing. The remains of the goose was used for stock.

Goose stock

I made lots of the things for our Christmas dinner in advance – the stuffing, soda bread, apple sauce, ice cream and shortbreads were all made “slowly” several weeks ago and frozen. I made the giblet stock for the gravy the night before the dinner and my husband prepared the potatoes, parsnips and Brussels sprouts in the morning. I am glad we did it this way – we really enjoyed the whole process.

 

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Slow Food London set a challenge: could regular Londoners go slow for an entire year? Would it be easy? Would it be hard? Would there be times when it would (slowly) start to go wrong?

Here, Susan Paul talks us through her twenty-seventh week:

There have been lots of lovely things this week.

We have made good use of the blackberry vinegar made in the Summer and the plum chutney made in week 12. I thought I had ruined the chutney by adding too much star anise and was ready to throw it away in defeat, but fortunately Shane Holland, our Slow Food Chairman, advised me to wait for a while and let it mature. So, I tasted it again recently and it is delicious; so thank you for the good advice Shane.

I used both these things to brighten a very easy and slow supper with friends. We started with a substantial dish of Brancaster mussels. These were simply steamed in a pan with the lid on until the mussels started to open. Chopped parsley and crushed garlic were added and when the mussels are fully opened they can be eaten with the resultant liquid, which is produced by this method of cooking. We followed with a plate of British cured meats from Canon and Canon which we ate with some good bread and butter, sliced red onions soaked in the Blackberry vinegar; and some young spinach leaves (I tried to buy watercress but it was past it’s best) with our usual dressing of 3 tablespoons of rapeseed oil, 1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar, a teaspoon of English mustard and, for a slight change, a teaspoon of chestnut honey - this subtle change made a good impression on the leaves and I will use it again. We then added some cheese: Lincolnshire Poacher and a new one for this week, Smoked Applewood from Somerset, which we ate with more good bread and the plum chutney.

I have been trying some British made beers and I have been really surprised at how good they are – they go particularly well with the kind of food described above. I like to have mine in a heavy wine glass bought from the secondhand shop.

We are putting together some small boxes of “Slow” Christmas gifts for our children, which so far include: some of the lemon vodka made a few weeks ago; home made chocolate Florentines (only a small amount of good quality chocolate involved here as recommended in the recent Slow Food news letter); some home made onion and raisin chutney and a vegetable brush to scrub the dirt from all those local seasonal vegetables I hope they are going to be eating in the New Year.

Other good things have been: dumplings, made with breadcrumbs and cheddar cheese in parsley broth; a simple and easy to make soup of cannellini beans, left over cured sausage and parsley; a slow-cooked beef casserole with a horseradish dressing; a mincemeat and almond cake; a potato omelette with melted Norfolk White Lady Cheese; and a slow roast shoulder of lamb for a supper with three boys.

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