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The White Hat Food GuideNewsletter - 14th October 2009Contents
SOLE FoodIn the past few newsletters we have been looking at some the issues connected with the currently popular concept of SOLE food where the SOLE stands for Sustainable, Organic, Local and Ethical, so let us continue with that theme for a while with SUSTAINABLE food.
Trouble
Eating Out - TasmaniaA hidden gem near Launcseton
With a capital 'P'
You see, my friends, Australia is a vast and ancient continent and for the most part the soils are old and poor in nutrients including phosphorous. Now phosphorous is essential to the continuation of human life. Your bones, I say your bones my friends and teeth are all made up of calcium phosphate and calcium starts with a capital ‘C’ and that rhymes with ‘P’ and that stands for phosphorous.
When the Cupboard is BareWhat to cook when there’s absolutely no food in the house. Now when a woman tells you they have absolutely nothing to wear, go and throw open their wardrobe which you will find stuffed full of clothes. There is obviously a higher form of logic at work here that transcends the mere matching of the statement with the visual evidence. Similarly, when people tell you there is absolutely no food in the house, go to the pantry or food cupboard. Look at that – a packet of spaghetti. That’s all you need. To make spaghetti al’olio (or spaghetti with oil & garlic) you only need a few ingredients. You’ve got the spaghetti but there’s no garlic in the house. Not a problem. Everyone in any Australian city has elderly Italian neighbours within walking distance and they will be happy to supply you with a couple of cloves of garlic from the back garden. While you are there it is only polite to accept a glass of grappa and to admire the photos of the grandchildren. “Gianni, look who’s here!” It would be impolite not to have a second glass of grappa with Gianni and you’re not sure where it’s brewed but it must be legal because the local priest always drinks it when he visits. You came to borrow several cloves of garlic and some time later you find yourself struggling home laden with a variety of fresh vegetables, oils and preserves which they insisted you must take. You dump them on the kitchen bench next to your lone packet of spaghetti – boy, that grappa has a delayed kick to it – and ponder what else you need. Lemon and parsley would go well, but you don’t have any. Not a problem. Everyone in any Australian city has elderly Greek neighbours within walking distance and they will be happy to supply you with a lemon and some parsley from the back garden. While you are there it is only polite to accept a glass of ouzo and to admire the photos of the grandchildren. You drink a toast to – well, you’re not sure from the name whether its one of the grandchildren or a historic hero from their homeland – but you’re sure they are worth toasting. You agree with Spiro that concreting the front lawn has made it much lower maintenance and has saved much water and he lets you into the secret of his lemons – recycled ouzo. You are then called upon to make a toast and that could be problematic because you never really did know if they’re Greek or Macedonian. Fortunately, you have a standard toast suitable to such occasions. “To the martyrs of the revolution.” Any country worth its salt has had a revolution and provided you don’t specify which side the martyrs came from you usually find an enthusiastic response. You came to borrow a lemon and some parsley and find yourself staggering home with a pile of vegetables, fruit and pickles. You plonk it on the kitchen bench next to your lone packet of spaghetti and the – boy, that ouzo has a kick – and the, the . . whatever. No person in Australia capable of admiring the photograph of a grandchild need lack for ingredients. Now to the cooking. A big pot of water for the pasta and in the meantime prepare your simple ingredients. About two garlic cloves per person (you heard right – you can do it with less but then it’s just spaghetti al woosio) either chopped finely or put through a garlic crusher. Heat some good olive oil in a frypan on moderate heat and add the garlic. I also like to add a couple of anchovy fillets which I have squashed with the back of a knife and then chopped finely but vegos can skip that bit. They will dissolve into the final coating. Soften the garlic but don’t allow it to brown, then throw in a generous amount of breadcrumbs. They help soak up the flavour. If necessary add some more olive oil then toss in the cooked, drained pasta. Add plenty of chopped parsley and I like to also add some lemon rind by simply scraping a lemon zester over the surface of the lemon. (Wash the lemon thoroughly because you’re never sure what concoction Spiro has put on their outsides.) Toss them all together and serve with freshly ground salt, pepper and Parmesan cheese and you have peasant food at its best. Time now to remember where you’re going tonight. That’s right – the symphony concert. A couple of peppermints and nobody will ever notice the garlic, will they? You may lso find our recipe for spag bol useful.
Eating Out - VictoriaOne of our favourite hidden gems in country Victoria provides a direct link to Italian and Swiss immigrants to Australia in the 19th century.
You could always order something fancy but I think I would go for spaghetti al’olio.
Reader FeedbackMarion was a little miffed when she received our last email and promptly unsubscribed feeling that it was spam. A little later we received this:
Nat's Baked ApplesWe received the following personal message. “hi from portc i heard u had another food newsletter coming out & i thought i would help u out cos im thinking of becoming a food writer & anyway my baked apples always work well & everyone says ‘yay! nats baked apples’ & all u need 2 do is go 2 the supermarket & get 8 apples & many people don’t realise there are 2 sorts of apples called red and green & the green 1s work well 4 this & u take them home and use the apple corer thingy which doesnt always work straight so u end with about 4 usable apples and throw the other ones away & then u send everyone out of the kitchen while u add your secret ingredient which is mars bars which u cut into shapes to stuff the holes where the core was then u put them in the oven & i don’t know what temperature cos our dial is broken & after a while every1 says whats that great smell then you bring them out & every1 says ‘yay nats baked apples!’ & u serve them with lots of thick cream & u can also add ice cream & drizzle them with honey & btw don’t peel the skin off the apples cos thats what makes this dish really healthy. luv nat”
Yes my friends, we've got trouble
Well my friends the soils in much of Australia were so poor in nutrients that they couldn’t grow much in the way of European style crops until we discovered superphosphate. You see my friends not only do animals like ourselves need phosphorous, we are very good at concentrating it for recycling as P1 and P2. Let me tell you my friends that birds are so good at doing this that over many thousands of years they covered a whole island in the Pacific with P2. Now this P2 is very sturdy stuff. In Melbourne they built a whole skyscraper out of it. That’s true my friend – would I lie to you? A whole skyscraper built with bird droppings. Well not directly with bird droppings but it was the money generated by guano from Nauru being used as phosphate fertiliser that built Nauru House and why the locals still refer to it as Bird Sh*t House. However all the P2 was eventually shipped off and the people of Nauru were left sitting on a bare rock.
Previous QuizDawn was the first with her answers to our quiz on preserving food. Here are her answers:
Seven Freezer BasicsNo.1 – Chook Stock This section of the newsletter can now be found at The White Hat Guide to Seven Freezer Basics.
How sustainable is the home freezer?We all know that frozen foods shipped half way around the world have a large carbon footprint as do foods kept frozen by supermarkets for six months or more, but what about our home freezer – is it doing more harm or good for the environment? Quite simply, we don’t know. Like most households we have a refrigerator with a freezer section and keep foods there for later use rather than throwing them out. Are we doing the right thing? There are so many variables to attempt to add up that the average punter can really only guess. If any of our readers has some solid evidence or references about the sustainability of this practice we would be pleased to hear from you.
Seven Basic SoupsThis section of the newsletter can now be found at The White Hat Guide to Seven Basic Soups.
Right Here in AustraliaNow my friends after Nauru was stripped bare nearly all our phosphate for farming comes from fast depleting rock deposits. The largest ones are in China but Australia has limited resources near Mt Isa. As a major food exporter Australia is exporting, I say exporting my friends, much of its phosphate in the form of food. Phosphorous cannot be produced in the laboratory and rock phosphate is just as much a finite resource as coal or oil except it will run out much earlier. Leaving Australia in the P2. And it doesn’t help to be vegetarian or organic – organic farming allows and uses rock phosphate in the same manner as other farming. No, my friends, the only way to be sustainable in P is through the reuse of P1 and P2 together with that of other animals.
But my friends in a country desperately short of P where does our P1 and P2 go. In many cases, my friends, after going through the sewage plant the P from the P1 and P2 goes out to sea. You can stand on the shore at the end of the pipe leading out to the ocean and wave goodbye to all that hard won P that went through P1 and P2 and is now going out to sea
You see my friends, one of our largest sustainable food issues in Australia comes down to P. Certain sewage plants such as Werribee and Shepparton in Victoria take the runoff from market gardens and orchards and use a multi-stage process to return the unused P to the soil and the food chain. Treated sewage rich in P is used for irrigating areas where cattle graze and hay is grown. The hay is then fed to cattle who return it to the soil through their P1 and P2 and to the food chain via their meat. There are other more carbon-intensive methods of capturing and recycling the P but certainly none we yet know of once it has been pumped out to sea
Kangaroos & sustainable eatingBoth the world renowned environmentalist Tim Flannery and the author of Australia’s Climate Change recommendations, Ross Garnaut, have suggested that judicious consumption of kangaroo offers one of the most sustainable dietary choices for Australians. When we last published a kangaroo recipe in our Melbourne newsletter about five years ago we were subject to a sustained campaign of hate mail. Well, we will stick our heads above the battlements again in our next food newsletter and discuss what role both native and feral animals might play in eating sustainably. [Quickly ducks head below battlements]
The White Hat Food QuizSoups
No prizes – just glory and a warm inner glow.
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