Katie and her mental meanderings

This was a couple of weeks ago but I’ve just got round to working out how local (or not) it was:

Starter: Vegetable soup. The veggies were local but the butter and bay leaves weren’t (don’t know about the pepper either), and the vegetable stock was Swiss. Points: 2.29

Main course: Fish pie with two kinds of veg. Again, local veg and smoked haddock, the potatoes were Northern as, I suppose, were the Manx kippers (it’s not very far!); the crème fraiche was French. 1.92.

Dessert: as made by The Spouse™, lime pie. The limes were from Brazil. They don’t grow limes in the North, I don’t think… The digestives however were from Stockport… Points: 1

but I have been doing something.

You can see the results here.

and here’s one of the photos:

I finally got a response from two organic producers (one mill, one bakery) who are in Cumbria, just over 50 miles from here. The bakery told me they use a mixture of flours, some from the UK and some from overseas, while the mill – who use all UK flours – told me they come from the Midlands (“where there is more sun than in Cumbria”!), but I think I will order some of their flour as it is better than anything else I’ve come across.

I had plans to go to some farm shops over the weekend, but nipped into town first to find we were having a farmers’ market. This seems to be one of those events that happens completely randomly, either that or I am disorganised and can’t keep track. You decide.

Anyway the market had four meat stalls (one with some fish and some cheese) and one cheese stall. Very Atkins. No fruit or veg – although I know where to get local veg, I’ve still had no luck tracing local fruit. There was an apple day about 30 miles away but we missed it due to, er, running late (and lots of traffic on the M6), and I’ve seen an ad for one in town in 2 weeks’ time – we are away but I have emailed the organisers about where to find the producers.

This eating local stuff is exhausting!

Tilda Rice, in fact, for actually telling people on their website where their rice comes from. Unfortunately, it’s almost all outside Europe, apart from their risotto rice – we had basmati on Tuesday, together with chilli that I’d made previously with local mince, European beans and tomatoes, chilli from the garden and cumin, I imagine, from India. Average for the meal was 1.33.

Nul points to Altu bars, for not even having an email address on their website that works. And not much more to the two millers and two bakeries that I emailed to ask where their supplies come from, who didn’t reply.

I went to the local chain of supermarkets (Booth’s) which prides itself on buying food “from the region”, and came up with quite a few interesting things: local yoghurts, lemon curd, English wine (with a Bronze medal no less, I’ll let you know how it tastes), sticky toffee pudding ice cream (MMMM), a brand of soup that is made 40 miles away and “tries to use local ingredients where possible), but no local fruit at all. I have a lead for an apple day about 25 miles away at the weekend so I’ll try that – at least I got some local apple juice. Irritatingly, they label their fresh food nicely but don’t even have country of origin on their own-brand dry food (barley, lentils, dried fruit, that sort of thing). I feel another email coming on…

Best meal of the week so far: Tuesday’s lunch, which was oatcakes from the North, cottage cheese ditto, yoghurt from 20 miles away (sweetened with apple juice, too, so no cane sugar!), and an apple from Kent. Average: 1.88

Worst meal: well, a collection of snacks, from yesterday: a drinks reception after work had S. American wine and “mixed” apple juice, and I had some coffee and fruit cake. Average: -0.5

A very good friend of ours, A, who is married to C, the community worker at my old church in London, and who is the mother of A (nearly 3) and K (6 months) has been diagnosed with cancer. It has spread and is not operable, but she is starting chemo. She is my age.

OK, I promise not to be boring and tell you every single piece of food that passes my lips but here is what I had today. Remember it gets points for locally grown and locally produced, and I’m going to average each meal, and for multi-ingredient items I’ll either average them or take the largest ingredient if there’s one in particular:

Breakfast, average score 0.25 for growing, 0.75 for processing, overall 0.5:

Granola: Oats, malt, raisins. From the wholefood shop. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume mainly UK, but I’ll try and remember to ask next time I’m in.
Milk: Our milk comes from the Northwest but it’s all from over 50 miles away (just! – there is a dairy closer but it doesn’t produce liquid milk)
Orange juice: this is almost certainly not European, and indeed probably it’s the concentrate which is shipped to UK
Coffee: Grown in S. America, I assume it’s packed in the UK. I am not giving up coffee. That’s final.

Lunch, average 1.4 for growing, 1.8 for processing, overall 1.6:

Kingsmill bread: Produced in the UK. I have emailed to ask about ingredients, but I suspect the flour is non-UK
Lurpak spread: I’m assuming this is European
Lancashire cheese: from 10 miles down the road although it may have travelled 10 miles to the warehouse and then 20 back!
Tomatoes: these are the most local. They are from someone’s allotment in exchange for shelves.
Pear: from our organic box, I’m assuming it’s from the North of England. I feel a bit cheeky asking the organic people where their fruit and veg comes from.

Snack, average -1 for growing, 1 for processing, overall 0. Hmm.

Redbush tea: Grown in S. Africa, though I’m not sure if it’s packed there or in the UK. I should look out for some local herbal tea.
Wedding cake (it’s been in the freezer): the ingredients (flour, sugar, dried fruit) may be mainly non-European, but it was baked in London!

Dinner, average 1.7 for growing, 1.7 for processing, overall 1.7.

Pasta: European, probably Italian. Can you get pasta made in the UK?
Cauliflower: a Romanesque, which looks like this:

Local, although I’m assuming this, but based on slightly better evidence than the pear – I saw some in the local greengrocer’s, too.
Cheese: from Wensleydale, which is 30 miles away
Philadephia cheese: this is from Germany, I discover
Yogurt: this is from the Midlands, normally the plain yoghurt we have is from much closer
Jam Rhubarb from someone’s allotment – the sugar is probably British – the ginger is probably not!

We were given the tomatoes and rhubarb in exchange for some shelves (complicated, but a great system). I’m disturbed today by the difficulty of finding out where grains and grain products come from, even though we grow them in the UK. I’ve emailed Allied Bakeries, a local organic bakery, a local mill (that says on their website they only use UK flour), and a large organic mill, to find out exactly where their flour comes from. I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, if anyone comes across UK-grown-and-made pasta or herbal tea, let me know…

I am thinking about taking part in this experiment. The organiser of the website suggested either trying our best to use local food (and writing notes about when we can’t, when we can’t get information etc.) or giving ourselves points for how local things are. It sounds interesting, anyway.

Update: I’ve emailed the website organiser and have decided on a points system. He suggested something based on the value of the food but thinking about it I would find it very difficult to put a value on things (especially veg – we get a veg box and it’s going to be confusing enough to ring them up and work out where it all came from!), so perhaps I will use the following. Each food will get a point for where it was made and a point for where it was processed so:

3+3 grown and produced within 50 miles of us
2+2 grown and produced in the North of England (I’ve just found out our milk is bottled either 55 or 60 miles away – even if it’s from cows down the road, it has to go that far to the bottling plant!)
1+1 grown and produced in the UK
0+0 grown and produced in Europe
-1-1 grown and produced outside Europe.

The only problem is where something is packaged in its country of origin I would imagine it’s better than where the raw material is transported, e.g. dried mango from Africa takes less fuel to transport and is better for the producers than fresh mango.

So if it was grown and produced in a developing country, I will be kind and give it -1+1 (so dried mango, grown and dried in Africa works out the same as dried mango, grown in Africa and dried in the UK).

No, that doesn’t make much sense to me either, but I’ll give it a go.

We went for a walk yesterday – not the astonishing bit – and I wore my new boots. Here’s the astonishing bit: 5 miles later, I had no blisters. That is a first. They were new boots, too.

I’ve never actually managed to get a pair of boots that don’t give me blisters, so I’m not actually sure what happens now: the boots are still a bit stiff over the toes, and they are also a bit tight round the ankles, or rather, they dig in round the ankles. I’m not used to wearing boots – normally I wear walking sandals or lower walking shoes – so I don’t really know if they get softer, or if I get used to them, or what.

They even seem to be waterproof, too – at least, they didn’t let in any of the puddles we went through.

I am in shock.

In other news: I have been invited to join A Year of Living Generously; I’ve put a link to the left.

Currently reading: Stich n’ Bitch, I have just finished it actually, it is a “new knitting” book – as Perceval said to me yesterday on MSN, “knitting is the new yoga, daahling”. I’m making a shawl (shawls are the new ponchos, and a lot more flattering I hope). I’ve also cut up a very 1980s dress (puffy sleeves, anyone?) I will never fit into again, because the fabric is lovely, to make a blouse. And The Spouse™ thinks yes, I should get a new sewing machine (I think he’s got a gadget planned for himself, the acquiescence was awfully rapid…).

This one works, just about, but lacks little things like a line to show you where you should sew (I have to keep putting tape on it), and keeps breaking the thread unless you speak very very nicely to it and pull it very very gently… and it only has about 2 stitches… I used to use my grandmother’s machine (although my grandmother is now dead, the machine is in the US so it would have been not only impractical but electrically bad for me to have brought it over here), and that had lots of stitches.. an automatic buttonholer… twin needles… blind hems… salivate…