Food as Fuel

bluehairsue just posted thoughts in response to the food meme that many of my flist did last week and she set me thinking about the ethics and otherwise of food.

I am not a fancy foodie though I could tick some of the boxes on the food meme accidentally. Yes, I've eaten alligator (tastes like fishy chicken) and funnel cake (tastes like hot Blackpool doughnuts) but I've never gone out of my way to eat strange stuff for the sake of it. I'm just as happy with fish and chipsbecause someone was paying me to be at a food and folk festival. Add blooming onions, pit-beef and pulled pork to that list which seem exotic to a Yorkshire girl... but I've never gone out of my way to eat strange stuff for the sake of it. I'm just as happy with fish and chips.

Best Beloved is a 'food as fuel' type and I am a 'food as comfort' type and since comfort-food tends to be fuel-food we largely get on just fine at the dinner table. I'm not ethical for the sake of it, but reducing food miles is just common sense. Our local farm shop mostly sells home grown seasonal veg. I bought five huge cauliflowers for a pound last week because all their caulis are ready at once and they were encouraging people to buy them. (Home-frozen cauli makes decent cauli-cheese and is fine in Thai-green-anything.) At the same time as the Great-Cauli-Grab I bought a bunch of mucky carrots with their tops on. I saw the farmer walk down the field and into the shop with them, baught the carrots five minutes later and two hours after that they were on my plate. Beautiful.

I'm an old fashioned cook and in many ways what our mothers taught us makes sense. Eat seasonal stuff when it's cheap; don't throw away anything that's fit to be turned into a meal. I know how to boil a chicken carcass (or any old bones) for stock. I can make soup. I can bake a cake or (if pushed) make a pie. I can make a tasty meal out of  the contents of my store cupboard (rice, tuna, Campbell's condensed mushroom soup) of the leftovers in my fridge (cabbage, leek, apple, Campbell's condensed chicken soup) And I know how to bake bread without a machine, though I confess I use the machine my daughter gave me because it makes so much sense NOT to heat a whole oven for one loaf. (I very rarely buy ready made bread there days.) I can trim and joint a half hindquarter of beef without passing out at bloody hunks of flesh in a big box and I can turn the scrap bits into something tasty.

Christmas dinner for fourteen holds no fears for me.

Being able to deal with fresh food just makes so much sense. Why pay someone to make a ready meal for you when the meal you get ready yourself is tastier and you can control what goes into it?

Of course, I'm not a fancy cook. I don't even really like cooking most of the time and I spend as little time as possible in the kitchen because I've got a life. (I actually seem to have many lives at the moment and would like a break from some of them.) The range of what I am prepared to stand and fuss over is limited. Note I don't say my skill is limited because - hey - I can read a recipe book. I mostly work on the principle of: take food; apply heat until it looks/smells right; eat.

It comes down to Richard Adams who said that evolution had changed Man's essential question from 'What shall we eat?' to 'Where shall we do lunch?'

Food as Fuel

bluehairsue just posted thoughts in response to the food meme that many of my flist did last week and she set me thinking about the ethics and otherwise of food.

I am not a fancy foodie though I could tick some of the boxes on the food meme accidentally. Yes, I've eaten alligator (tastes like fishy chicken) and funnel cake (tastes like hot Blackpool doughnuts) but I've never gone out of my way to eat strange stuff for the sake of it. I'm just as happy with fish and chipsbecause someone was paying me to be at a food and folk festival. Add blooming onions, pit-beef and pulled pork to that list which seem exotic to a Yorkshire girl... but I've never gone out of my way to eat strange stuff for the sake of it. I'm just as happy with fish and chips.

Best Beloved is a 'food as fuel' type and I am a 'food as comfort' type and since comfort-food tends to be fuel-food we largely get on just fine at the dinner table. I'm not ethical for the sake of it, but reducing food miles is just common sense. Our local farm shop mostly sells home grown seasonal veg. I bought five huge cauliflowers for a pound last week because all their caulis are ready at once and they were encouraging people to buy them. (Home-frozen cauli makes decent cauli-cheese and is fine in Thai-green-anything.) At the same time as the Great-Cauli-Grab I bought a bunch of mucky carrots with their tops on. I saw the farmer walk down the field and into the shop with them, baught the carrots five minutes later and two hours after that they were on my plate. Beautiful.

I'm an old fashioned cook and in many ways what our mothers taught us makes sense. Eat seasonal stuff when it's cheap; don't throw away anything that's fit to be turned into a meal. I know how to boil a chicken carcass (or any old bones) for stock. I can make soup. I can bake a cake or (if pushed) make a pie. I can make a tasty meal out of  the contents of my store cupboard (rice, tuna, Campbell's condensed mushroom soup) of the leftovers in my fridge (cabbage, leek, apple, Campbell's condensed chicken soup) And I know how to bake bread without a machine, though I confess I use the machine my daughter gave me because it makes so much sense NOT to heat a whole oven for one loaf. (I very rarely buy ready made bread there days.) I can trim and joint a half hindquarter of beef without passing out at bloody hunks of flesh in a big box and I can turn the scrap bits into something tasty.

Christmas dinner for fourteen holds no fears for me.

Being able to deal with fresh food just makes so much sense. Why pay someone to make a ready meal for you when the meal you get ready yourself is tastier and you can control what goes into it?

Of course, I'm not a fancy cook. I don't even really like cooking most of the time and I spend as little time as possible in the kitchen because I've got a life. (I actually seem to have many lives at the moment and would like a break from some of them.) The range of what I am prepared to stand and fuss over is limited. Note I don't say my skill is limited because - hey - I can read a recipe book. I mostly work on the principle of: take food; apply heat until it looks/smells right; eat.

It comes down to Richard Adams who said that evolution had changed Man's essential question from 'What shall we eat?' to 'Where shall we do lunch?'