Ethical eating: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Firstly, let me declare my bias. I am a Barbara Kingsolver fan. I haven't read everything she has ever written - but quite a lot from her first novel, The Bean Trees, through to her most recent work, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle written in collaboration with her husband Steven Hopp and her elder daughter Camille Kingsolver and ably and practically assisted by the youngest family member, Lily Hopp.

Kingsolver's pictorial representation of a Year of Local Food eaten seasonally - The Vegetannual.

Please reverse months for the Southern Hemisphere

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is subtitled Our Year of Seasonal Eating. It could, as easily, have been subtitled "How to Organise Your Local Food Menu". The Hopp-Kingsolver menage resolved to eat locally and eat seasonally - within the parameters of traditional food preservation methods. Their resolution included a determination to move from long-time residence in distance transport dependent Tucson, Arizona where the water travels long distances as do the fruit and veges and much else that supports modern life there. Fortunately, Steven Hopp long possessed a run-down farm and farmhouse in the Appalachian Mountians of Virginia.

There has been mention, some critical, of the magical or fairy tale quality of Kingsolver's description of the family's Appalachian lifestyle. I do take issue with this. If her description sounds magical, fairy tale, or idealistic, perhaps it is because it speaks to an ideal or fantasy within ourselves which is imbued with such qualities. True, not all of us - even if we wished - could replicate the Kingsolver-Hopp project. This family was particularly well resourced in more ways than one.

For starters, they did not risk their livelihood. Kingsolver has a high profile as a writer - not least because her best selling Poisonwood Bible was featured on that automatic provider of best selling status, Oprah's Book Club. One presumes that this provided some sound financial resource. Hopp is Adjunct Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Emory & Henry College in Emory, Virginia which is classified as a college that changes lives. Biology appears to be a family interest as Camille Kingsolver includes it in her studies at Duke University. Lily was too young to enter into a book contract but she, too, was committed every inch/centimetre of the way.

Secondly, they had the Appalachian farm - with house - which Steven had owned for a long time. Not everyone has one of those tucked away in their Glory Box.

Thirdly, they brought scientific training and literacy to the project. Having such skills backing the project has to be a plus.

Fourthly, the necessary resource of the free labour of three adults and one enthusiastic child. One adult (although she was absent at college for large chunks of the project) was young with, one assumes, the energy to match her age. Kingsolver and Hopp were hardly over the hill. I mention this because at my great age and antiquity I can get tired just thinking about consistent, strenuous, and demanding activity.

Lastly, the motivation of the entire family is a great spiritual resource. There is nothing quite like energetic, resourceful people reinforcing one another in their mutual resolve. It provides large quantities of fuel for the journey, particularly when the going gets tough or you wonder why you ever set out on the journey - although there did not appear to be much self-doubt in the Kingsolver-Hopp unit.

So, when these factors are present, I see nothing magical, fairy tale, or idealistic about Animal, Vegetable, Miracle merely a wonderful, imaginative, determined, and sensible use of resources by two people in mid-life. The Kingsolvers and Hopps appear to have done the project very well, very intelligently and in a well recorded manner - complete with detailed website. For those who wish to emulate them, there is a clear trail to follow.

Some of the clear, factual information provided in AVM is shocking:

Humans have eaten some 80,000 plant species in our history. After recent precipitous changes, three quarters of all human food now comes from just eight species with the field quickly narrowing down to genetically modified corn, soy and canola.

Garden seed inventories show that while about 5,000 non-hybrid vegetable varieties were available from catalogs in 1981, the number in 1998 was down to 600.

Hardly good stewardship of the planet's resources, is it?

The last chapter about the turkeys had me all but rolling on the floor with laughter - until the final paragraph when I was in tears. But it was life and death stuff Kingsolver was describing. The life and death of the re-creating pro-creating skills of created beings. If plain statistics make your eyes glaze over, the life and lot of an American turkey will not. Perhaps one day a futuristic Dr Strangelove will have wreaked the same havoc on humanity as has already been visited on the American turkey. It is our choice. Our questions, our demands, our very own actions will be the deciders. We can eat and die or we can eat and live.

I will be returning my copy to the Upper Ferntree Gully Library this afternoon, dear Reader, so get ye down there and check it out (641.0973 KIN). If it has disappeared from the shelf, great. Just get the friendly staff to put a hold on it.

It will take me a while to process all the information contained in AVM. For instance, I am a vegetarian and, for me, ahimsa/respect is a huge issue. My main motivation is the disrespect shown to animals by the industrial food chain. Kingsolver provides a rationale against vegetarian/vegan lifestyles in favour of respect and gratitude for animals while killing them for food. I do agree with her - in principle and in necessity. In reality, would I move to her side of the fence? I don't know.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is another contribution in the genre of think about what you eat or, in brief, ethical eating. We have philosophers, locavores, the 100 mile diet, seasonal eating, and the slow food movement. Kingsolver points out that when the family embarked on its project locavores and the 100 mile clubs were unknown. By the time the AVM was published, everyone was talking about ethically eating.

My view is that Prodigal Summer and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle should should be read in tandem. The first (written earlier than AVM) is fiction, the second non-fiction but each informs the other. Prodigal Summer deals with some issues that are not dealt with in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Some issues dealt with in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle are dealt with more explicitly and graphically in Prodigal Summer. Otherwise, what else is fiction for?

Water for beer but it's a drought in the garden

I reckon Miss Eagle can say without fear of contradiction that Denise Gadd is hopping mad. Denise blogs at The Age where she is also the gardening editor. Now the blog is in a bit of a hiatus for the silly season. Denise burst into the Opinion Pages of The Age with this piece to-day. Almost a year ago to the day, Denise was having her say with this piece. You will have noted, dear Reader, that Miss Eagle is promoting the petition, to which Denise refers, on her blogs. Go for it Denise, I say. Anyway can we send Tim Holding a ticket to a Permaculture design course for a New Year pressie? He clearly is not a gardener and has no sympathy for those who garden. I get mad when I think of all the water that it takes to make beer - and I don't drink a drop. I presume that Tim drinks his fair share - so how about giving me some leeway with my veges, Tim!

Happy New Year - and please rejig the menu

Photo: The Age

I have long felt that Phillippa Grogan was a woman after my own heart. I regard as one of the great luxuries of life the ability to walk into my local supermarket at Upper Gully and purchase Phillippa's breads and other assorted goodies. Now, I feel like she has been looking over my shoulder as I blog.

In M Magazine which accompanies The Sunday Age here in Melbourne, there was an article yesterday titled The Plates of 2008. The article holds predictions from "people who should know" about what lies ahead. Here's what Phillipa had to say: In 2008, retro sweets will come to the party, too. Look out for hedgehog, rumballs, lamingtons and bread-and-butter pudding, either made traditionally or spun with a contemporary twist. Older cakes will surge, too. "I think you'll see tea cakes with cinnamon and apple slices on top, that kind of thing," says Phillipa Grogan of Phillippa's Bakery. She has also been making carrot jam - "it's a post-war thing, born out of a lack of ingredients" - and chocolate ripple cake. Grogan thinks nibbling on old-school treats reminds people of childhood. "It takes them back into that place when they didn't have worries or responsibilities," she says. "You can smell a cake cooking you're right back when you're nine years old. It's amazingly seductive." And why would Miss Eagle think, for even a minute, that Phillippa has been looking over her shoulder. Here's the evidence:

1. Over here at The Trad Pad, Miss Eagle bemoaned the predictability of what is on offer in Melbourne at cake and coffee time and called for some good brains to rejig the menu.
2. Back in June I was waxing lyrical about Australian teacakes here and here .

One doesn't have too look too far on this blog to find a variety of bread-and-butter type puddings. As for the lamington, this blog specialises in making it known far and wide because of its dedication to the work of the inventor of the lamington, Miss Amy Schauer. Now where are my recipes for hedgehog and rumballs. Coming up!

The Magic Pudding

• Behind every successful man, there is a good woman. Tony Bilson is one of Australia's top chefs. The Christmas Pudding recipe is below is from Tony Bilson's mother. It was published in The Sydney Morning Herald's Good Living of Nov 23-Nov 29 1999. A reader with a l-o-n-g memory reminded The SMH that it had once published such a recipe many years before and, please, could they reprint it. Miss E has done this pudd - and it is a corker. Is it because it has stout - and the rum? Miss E being an expatriate Queenslander always uses Bundy Rum. The stout, of course, is Guinness. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Evelyn Bilson’s Christmas Pudding
  Ingredients (serves 12)
• 1½ cups suet
• ¾ cup plain flour
• ½ cup almond meal
• 4 cups soft breadcrumbs
• 1 cup white granulated sugar
• 1tsp mixed spice
• ¼ tsp salt
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 4½ cups mixed fruit (raisins, sultanas, currants, figs)
• 1/3 cup mixed peel
• ½ cup stout
• 4 eggs
• 2 tbsp marmalade
• 1 lemon, zest and juice
• 1 fresh tart apple, grated
• 4 tbps rum or cognac
• ¼ plain flour, sifted.
  Method:
• Rub suet into the flour and add remaining dry ingredients.
• Mix well.
• Add stout, stir in eggs and add marmalade.
• Add lemon zest, juice and apple and finally the rum or cognac.
• Let stand in a cool place overnight for the flavours to amalgamate.
• Take a wet pudding cloth (use a 75cm square of unbleached calico) and wring it out.
• Sprinkle liberally with the extra flour and place the pudding on top. This helps give the pudding a better skin.
• Gather corners and sides of the cloth around the pudding and pull tightly to give it a good, round shape.
• Tie tightly with string about 2.5cm above the top of the pudding to allow for expansion.
• Steam pudding in a bowl sitting in boiling water in a large saucepan for 4 hours and then hang it in the pantry for at least 2 weeks, until Christmas.
• The pudding must not touch anything.
• In hot weather, it is better to store it in the refrigerator.
  Brandy Sauce
  Ingredients:
• 6 egg yolks
• ½ cup orange juice
• ½ cup caster sugar
• ½ cup brandy or cognac
• ½ cup melted butter
  Method:
• Have ready a pot of simmering water.
• Mix yolks, orange juice and sugar in a stainless-steel bowl and whisk over simmering water until doubled in bulk and falling off the whisk in a stream or ribbon.
• Remove from heat and whisk in brandy, then melted butter.
• Serve warm with the pudding.
  Serving the Pudd
• Steam pudding in a large saucepan for a further 2 hours,
• remove cloth and
• transfer to a serving dish.
• Bring to table, pour over warmed brandy
• and ignite immediately.
• Serve with brandy sauce.

Water, water everywhere in the Outer East.

The previous post was talking about our lack of water and water restrictions. Clearly, a day is a long time in weather and climate. This afternoon, there was no shortage of water in the Outer Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Huge downpours this afternoon and flash flooding all over the place. For the first time in three years, the creek in front of our house is full and flowing: flowing fast, in fact.

Water, edibles and the elderly in the vege patch

Here is some of Miss Eagle's vege patch & pots.

Water is at a premium in Australia - and Victoria is no exception.

This morning we got a very welcome drop of rain.

But water is an issue with veges.

We are warned that there will some food shortages this summer along with higher prices for fruit and vegetables.

So it makes a lot of sense to grow your own.

You can eliminate the chemicals. Go organic. Plant permaculture.

And get a lot of pleasure and good nutrition all at the same time.

But water is an issue and Marika Wagner wants us to join her in lobbying the government about our needs. Marika knows what she is talking about. She works at the marvellous Bulleen Art and Garden here in Melbourne.

Marika says:

Produce gardens provide us with the very fruit, vegetables and herbs we eat, and many of us have worked hard to create these gardens with much of our own time and money.

It's understood that keeping higher water use ornamental gardens and lawns can be seen as luxury items in times of water shortage, but forcing us to let our produce gardens become unproductive and/or die is an outrage. Only being able to water on two pre-specified days of the week is not the most efficient way to keep a garden alive and productive and can lead to stressed and unproductive plants, defeating the purpose of this type of garden. Produce gardens should be allowed efficient, mindful watering, when required.

Education to efficient water use, is the key to saving water for Victoria, not forcing gardens to dwindle & perhaps perish.

To be able to grow our own food:- 1) Saves water for Victoria, according to a study done by David Holmgren, co-founder of ‘Permaculture’, (Holmgren Design Services), efficient backyard growers can use only one fifth of the water compared to commercial growers per $ value of produce.

2) Saves up to 25% of greenhouse gases by eliminating ‘food miles’, this means our fruit and vegetables don’t use excess energies of ; being machine harvested, transported to sorting sheds, stored in cool rooms, transported to market, then to supermarket, lit up by fluorescent lights and then transported again to homes to be then stored again in the fridge, whilst losing vitality and freshness along the way.

3) Reduces the overall Australia wide use of biocides like herbicides, pesticides and fungicides. This is because home produce gardens are naturally quite biodiverse, therefore resilient, and easy to apply natural pest control methods to.

4) Brings people and families together outdoors to gain healthy organic produce, fresh air, exercise and an awareness to our connection with nature.I believe that it is our right to grow and monitor our own fresh, healthy, chemical free food in our backyards. I am asking for an exemption from current water restrictions or for introduction of more appropriate water rules for our important produce gardens.

So, dear Reader, please pop across here and sign Marika's petition. And then, when you have done that, please let all your friends know and get them to sign too. Let's make Tim Holding and the Victorian Labor Government sit up and take notice. Otherwise, civil disobedience?

Miss E also supports Kevin Walsh's idea for a new E level of restriction: for the elderly and edibles. How sensible.