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!
