Sunday, 27 January 2019
Rights of passage.
Towersey festival takes place in Thame every August Bank Holiday. It used to be held in Towersey itself but owing to size was moved a couple of miles down the road a few years ago. It is a folk music festival that grew out of a Morris dancing festival. I have both been a visitor and worked at the festival in the past and it is truly a family friendly four or five days. Many families make it the last few days of a camping and touring holiday. Many thousands of people descend on Thame and the atmosphere is, by and large friendly and kind.
I suppose the mixed demographic helps with this, as well as the fantastic level of organisation. The fact that Toweresy and Thame are within 40 minutes walk of Corner Cottage means that the Beautiful Wife and I can visit without worrying about having a drink or two if we fancy ( Folk music and Real Ale are seldom far apart).
During the festival last year I was in Waitrose choosing a couple of beers when I witnessed an encounter between a mother and her teenage daughter which moved me more than I thought it would.
They were chatting about what beer the girls father would like and spotting ones they had seen him drink before. Having made their decision, the mother asked the girl, who was probably 15 or so, what she was going to have to drink. The girl headed off towards the soft drink section. Her mother then said " I thought you liked Cider?".
The girl looked surprised and with her head on one side asked quietly "I that alright?"
The reply came "Of course, we trust you, and you'll be with us anyway"
I'm still not sure why this generational encounter moved me but I'm sure it is to do with the fact that this honest and open communication is often what is missing in young people's lives. Legality aside, this young woman was learning to drink socially and not necessarily to excess with support and respect. It just seemed right.
On a different note, A year in Preserving carries on, this afternoon I have trussed a tenderloin of pork which has been curing in my fridge for 2 weeks. It is now in my mini wine cellar at 15 degrees drying. More of this later.
Sunday, 13 January 2019
A Year in Preserving. To begin - Marmalade
I have blogged on many occasions about marmalade. I am not going to re-hash any of those posts, surface is to say, like most jams and preserves home made marmalade is always better than anything you can buy in a shop. Below I have written my simple marmalade recipe. Please feel free to play with this recipe, add booze (whisky and brandy work well though I've never tried rum), mix up the sugars maybe to add some richness.
Seville Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
1kg Seville oranges
2kg Granulated sugar
2 ltr water
Cut all the oranges in half, scoop out the flesh and some of the pith of each half with a tea spoon.
Squeeze all the juice you can out of the flesh and pips, add this liquid to a large pan. Wrap the pulp and pips up in a square of muslin, tied at the top Dick Whittington style, attach this to the side of the pan with another length of string.
All of the skins and pith must now be shredded. I have been lent an antique to help with this - The Magic Marmalade shredder. This Victorian piece of kit was a joy to use and after over 100 years could still do the job!
All the shreds need to be added to the pan with the pith bag, squeezed juice and add the water. This is then boiled for about 90 minutes.
Now lift out the pith bag with a pair of tongs and place it in a sieve. Gently squeeze the bag gently with the tongs over the boil. Do not touch this with your hands it will be as hot as the sun! then discard all the pith.
Now the sugar should be added and stir until it is all dissolved. Bring the pan to the boil and continue to boil until the setting point is reached.
Setting point is the almost magical point where sugar, acid and pectin conspire to produce a solid jelly at room temperature; it is the basis of all jams! The simplest of tests for setting point is the wrinkle test. The wrinkle test is carried out by placing a small plate in the fridge at the start of your preserving session. When the marmalade has been boiling for a while and appears to be thickening, get the plate out and dribble a small droplet onto the cold plate, leave it for a few minutes and then push the droplet with a finger (be careful it may still be hot). If the droplet wrinkles, then you have reached setting point.
Take the pot off the heat and leave it alone for about 5 minutes, there is likely to be a scum on the top. Now is the time to pot up your marmalade. I do this by pushing the scum to one side and using a special funnel.
At the end you will be left with the scum, I pop this into a spare jar and keep it for use in recipes that require marmalade (a cheats sweet and sour sauce, marmalade cake, etc).
I like to hand write my labels, but whether you print them or write them it is vital that you clearly label what the product is and the date it was made. I have some mystery chutneys from a few years back and i'm a little scared to try them!
There are about three weeks more of the Seville orange season left this recipe will make you about 7 standard pots for the rest of the year so its probably worth doing two or three batches! Homemade marmalade is nearly always better than anything you could buy in a shop at any price, it is supposed to be bitter and sweet. It was once said that it should be, to the taste buds as a cold shower is to the rest of the body first thing in the morning. Happy preserving!
Seville Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
1kg Seville oranges
2kg Granulated sugar
2 ltr water
Cut all the oranges in half, scoop out the flesh and some of the pith of each half with a tea spoon.
Squeeze all the juice you can out of the flesh and pips, add this liquid to a large pan. Wrap the pulp and pips up in a square of muslin, tied at the top Dick Whittington style, attach this to the side of the pan with another length of string.
All of the skins and pith must now be shredded. I have been lent an antique to help with this - The Magic Marmalade shredder. This Victorian piece of kit was a joy to use and after over 100 years could still do the job!
All the shreds need to be added to the pan with the pith bag, squeezed juice and add the water. This is then boiled for about 90 minutes.
Now lift out the pith bag with a pair of tongs and place it in a sieve. Gently squeeze the bag gently with the tongs over the boil. Do not touch this with your hands it will be as hot as the sun! then discard all the pith.
Now the sugar should be added and stir until it is all dissolved. Bring the pan to the boil and continue to boil until the setting point is reached.
Setting point is the almost magical point where sugar, acid and pectin conspire to produce a solid jelly at room temperature; it is the basis of all jams! The simplest of tests for setting point is the wrinkle test. The wrinkle test is carried out by placing a small plate in the fridge at the start of your preserving session. When the marmalade has been boiling for a while and appears to be thickening, get the plate out and dribble a small droplet onto the cold plate, leave it for a few minutes and then push the droplet with a finger (be careful it may still be hot). If the droplet wrinkles, then you have reached setting point.
Take the pot off the heat and leave it alone for about 5 minutes, there is likely to be a scum on the top. Now is the time to pot up your marmalade. I do this by pushing the scum to one side and using a special funnel.
At the end you will be left with the scum, I pop this into a spare jar and keep it for use in recipes that require marmalade (a cheats sweet and sour sauce, marmalade cake, etc).
I like to hand write my labels, but whether you print them or write them it is vital that you clearly label what the product is and the date it was made. I have some mystery chutneys from a few years back and i'm a little scared to try them!
There are about three weeks more of the Seville orange season left this recipe will make you about 7 standard pots for the rest of the year so its probably worth doing two or three batches! Homemade marmalade is nearly always better than anything you could buy in a shop at any price, it is supposed to be bitter and sweet. It was once said that it should be, to the taste buds as a cold shower is to the rest of the body first thing in the morning. Happy preserving!
Tuesday, 1 January 2019
A Year in Preserving.
I do not own a freezer, there is a small freezing box at the top of the fridge but a pack of frozen peas and bag of oven chips fills that up so its not what you would call storage. I say this not because I feel I need a freezer it's just that the snug kitchen at Corner Cottage does not have the space for a freezer. For the same reason there is no dishwasher or tumble dryer. The reason for my mentioning my lack of white goods is to introduce the theme for a year of writing. This year I will be looking into how we can preserve food without freezing.
There is a certain irony here: The historical methods of preservation have created our luxury items. The methods used in the past to ensure that food would not spoil have created products that are now of greater value than the original product. This added value has come through the process of preservation, in this way necessity has created quality. The price of smoked salmon is, weight for weight, over twice that of fresh salmon.
My friends, who know I'm an avowed foodie, often give me their excess vegetables and fruits if they have a bumper harvest. This act of generosity means I often find myself with carrier bags full of courgettes or apples and, with no freezer, I am forced (without any real malice!) into finding ways of giving these products greater longevity. In food terms it is worth remembering that, historically, this would have been the difference between thriving through times of fresh food paucity and really struggling for nutrition.
Today is New Year's Day and we are half way through the season of Christmas. As a nation we have indulged in Smoked Salmon, Mince pies, Chutney with Cheese, sausages wrapped in Bacon, Chritmas Cake, Cranberry Sauce, and so many other preserved products. We tend to lose track of the fact that these treats are all preserved from earlier when the seasons provided us with plenty. The idea of a 'feast' was just this: Food saved for a special occasion.
For me, it all started with a gift of Seville oranges that a friend had purchased in error. They became my first marmalade and thus started a decades long obsession with food preservation. I now salt, smoke, jam, pickle, dehydrate and dry foods for eating later.
Our food consumption has become one of the many offspring of globalisation. This is not all bad. The ability to buy bananas all year round is a triumph, as is the availability of many exciting ingredients. However, global food waste is a international disgrace. Our commodification of food and our lack of respect for the resources required to produce food should shake us all. The preserving of food does not have all the answers to these difficult international problems but it is, without doubt, part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
So with my lack of freezer and some fairly rudimentary equipment, this year I shall be reporting on all the preserved foods that are created during their season. Happy New Year!
There is a certain irony here: The historical methods of preservation have created our luxury items. The methods used in the past to ensure that food would not spoil have created products that are now of greater value than the original product. This added value has come through the process of preservation, in this way necessity has created quality. The price of smoked salmon is, weight for weight, over twice that of fresh salmon.
My friends, who know I'm an avowed foodie, often give me their excess vegetables and fruits if they have a bumper harvest. This act of generosity means I often find myself with carrier bags full of courgettes or apples and, with no freezer, I am forced (without any real malice!) into finding ways of giving these products greater longevity. In food terms it is worth remembering that, historically, this would have been the difference between thriving through times of fresh food paucity and really struggling for nutrition.
Today is New Year's Day and we are half way through the season of Christmas. As a nation we have indulged in Smoked Salmon, Mince pies, Chutney with Cheese, sausages wrapped in Bacon, Chritmas Cake, Cranberry Sauce, and so many other preserved products. We tend to lose track of the fact that these treats are all preserved from earlier when the seasons provided us with plenty. The idea of a 'feast' was just this: Food saved for a special occasion.
For me, it all started with a gift of Seville oranges that a friend had purchased in error. They became my first marmalade and thus started a decades long obsession with food preservation. I now salt, smoke, jam, pickle, dehydrate and dry foods for eating later.
Our food consumption has become one of the many offspring of globalisation. This is not all bad. The ability to buy bananas all year round is a triumph, as is the availability of many exciting ingredients. However, global food waste is a international disgrace. Our commodification of food and our lack of respect for the resources required to produce food should shake us all. The preserving of food does not have all the answers to these difficult international problems but it is, without doubt, part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
So with my lack of freezer and some fairly rudimentary equipment, this year I shall be reporting on all the preserved foods that are created during their season. Happy New Year!
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