Food for free

We have now been able to pick some mushrooms, last week we found a few chanterelle mushrooms but it might be a bit early for them, last year it was November but we have gathered some field and parasols today to go into the goulash that we will be cooking tomorrow for some friends.We have to hope that it works out well as one of the people coming is a trained chef, so it has to be good! However, I hate recipes books, this probably goes back many years when I was doing my hotel and catering course, I was taught by a great cook who never used a book, she just remembered it all, the good thing about learning this way is that you can ask questions, with a recipe book you cant, I also have an aversion to all these cookery programs, once again you cant ask questions and the chefs never explain the why and wherefore.There is one program that we both enjoy however, Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall of River Cottage fame makes cooking fun, he is not a chef by trade but he is passionate about Organic and Local food and has done a tremendous amount for the green movement plus his campaigns over poultry, he is very much a finger dipper, if it tastes right leave it alone, if it doesn't, work out what's missing.

The last month has been very busy, we have had friends from France who we hadn't seen since we left Catalonia staying for a few days so there was a lot of catching up to do, we also had helpers here at the same time, most of my time was spent cooking and exchanging recipes.
We have had a bumper crop of peaches this year but I only had nineteen jars left for bottling so gave friends the rest. We have also had a mass of butternut squashes, so far we have harvested twenty from just two plants and there are at least another six to come providing we don't get any early frosts.
We also have a load of tomatoes, I had hope to be making tomato puree again this year, but have run out of jars, now that we are making our own yoghurt we don't get any jars.
Our maize was disappointing, a number of factors contributed to this, firstly geese attack, then the goats thought they would help themselves and the drought didn't help matters, still they are harvested now and stored away from mice, we hope! The ground has been cleared from weeds and rotorvated and now has been seeded with green manure, a combination of red clover alfalfa and phacelia, we are hoping that the weather is kind to us and we get decent germination, then next spring both the goats and geese can help themselves before we rotorvate it all in.
We will be growing more herbs next year, adding Arnica and Echinacea to our collection, this is thanks to a virtual WORLD BAN on herbal remedies, it is fortunate that I had done a herbal course years ago so will be able to make most of what we would normally use, there are some exceptions, so I guess we will just have to wait and see just how Draconian these bans are going to be.
We have had some rain in the last week, so now is the time for us to go forraging for mushrooms, we are hoping to find more Chanterelles than we did last year, once tasted, never forgotten, just lightly fried in a little butter and black pepper and served with home made bread, wonderful. Of course there other mushroom worth collecting,field mushrooms are good, as are the parasols and the inkcaps, many people use wild mushrooms in various recipes, but to us it seems a shame to loose all that subtle flavour by adding other things to them, unless of course you have a glut of them.
We also have had our first real harvest of walnuts, despite pruning the trees in Feb, which is not the right time,and they bled profusely, they had a second pruning from the council in Aug, which is the correct time, although we lost quite a few of them at this time we still have around seven kgs , enough to last us even though they are one of our favourites, we will be trying the rabbits on the chestnuts, I have couple of recipes to try out, but they are not one of my favourite things, still, we hate waste so will give them a go.

The Big Secret

Our next helper is not due for a few weeks, it would appear from her emails that she is well travelled and likes to use public transport, before she comes to us she will be staying in another part of Galicia and had wished to travel to us by bus. We have tried to get the necessary information for her via the internet.
Although the bus companies have web sites, none appear to publish time tables. This appears to be a great 'State Secret', they give information as to the fleet of buses and the fact that you can get discounts, even pictures of their offices, nice to see that they have desks and chairs,one has a picture of a road with their bus on it,maybe to reassure you that they do have a bus, but no time tables!
We have come across this problem before when wanting to travel from our village to Lugo, it appears that to find out the times we have to go to the bus station in Lugo and ask there, there are several companies that operate within Galicia, but the information is only obtainable from the different kiosks at the bus station, often these are only manned for twenty minutes before a bus is due to leave.
Last year we also had a problem in trying to get the train time table, the only way to get this was to have a password to enter the website, this has now been changed, but it did result in us taking a plane for an internal journey, not very eco friendly.
Tourism has always been a big part of Spain's economy and it does have quite a good public transport system. So come on Galicia, get your act together and publish the times of transport, don't be so shy, people do want to use it.

The Future of Food - Introduction

The forecasters had promised us some rain this week and then changed their minds so we are still having to keep the garden watered in the hope that we will get a spurt of growth, I have had to plant more chard and leeks also swede, I will not be defeated, I have also made further sowings of carrots to compensate for the feasting of the mice.
Our young birds are still doing well and we think, well we hope, that we have defeated the pine martin, the chicks are now being fed on straight grains, wheat and barley which we are sprouting for them, they seem happy enough with the new feed.
We have come to the conclusion that we will not be able to continue with rearing quail for the table, these little birds are something that we farmed years ago with no problems and they were ready to eat at six to seven weeks weighing around 200 grams at this age,the birds we are rearing now are just not putting on the weight and at five weeks are just 2 ozs whatever that is in grams, this is consistent with all the reports that we have read regarding animals feed on GM's, we don't think it is possible to grind grain small enough to feed to them when they are first hatched.
I have just started reading a book 'Genetic Roulette' written by Jeffrey Smith, Jeffrey is considered to be the worlds leading expert in understanding the health issues surrounding GM's, his previous book 'Seeds of Deceit' exposes the corrupt dealings of the Bio-tec companies with government bodies. For anyone interested in in their health and the environment these books are must reads.Easy to read and understand, maybe these ministers who make the laws should be locked into a room and made to read these books.

We have now given up trying to obtain GM free feed for the hens and will have to be feed straight grain, in a last ditch attempt to find feed we bought some eggs from an Organic Co-Op here in Galicia, this producer used to produce Organic eggs, now they only produce 'Free Range'due to GMO contamination.
We find certain world leaders have a double standard, the two in question have been the leaders in trying to convince the consumer that GMO's are fine, and in allowing the planting of the crops. both these leaders claim to be Christians, and in fact one, not so long ago converted to Catholicism, we were under the impression that the Christian hand book was the bible, well either these leaders are not familiar with it, or are selective in which parts they wish to abide by.

Jeremiah 2:7 And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.

"Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth" Gen 1:11.

To us, both these verses are clear,so what part of them do these Christians not understand?

This time of year I always feel as though I have a lot in common with squirrels, I cant stand waste, and was brought up in the post war era when nothing was wasted. String and paper from parcels was always saved for re-use, buttons were always cut off from garments that had reached the end of their days and put in the button box, always a source of delight for kids to play with, the garments themselves became dusters or went to the rag and bone man. This year we have had a bumper crop of pears but not so many plums, I would normally use extra plums for the chutney, but this year it's the pears, which with the figs have been turned into chutney, and it's delicious. Of course I have also bottled pears and we have the peaches to come yet,the pantry is already nearly full.
We have grown two butternut squashes plants this year for the first time, no one warned me that they would take over the garden and that they produce so many squashes, they keep very well, and we should have squashes for the entire winter.
We have drawn a blank in our quest to find Organic feed for our hens or at least GM free feed, we contacted a company advertising Organic feed by email, after a week when they failed to respond we phoned them, they only supply in Cantabria which for us is a ten hour round trip. We then tried contacting the Galician organic certifying body, their email address does not work, neither does their website and when you try to phone it just goes to fax. so, back to plan one, feed the birds with straight grain and make worm banks for the winter protein.In trying to track down non contaminated feed has been interesting, and raises many issues, as Spain grows the most GM crops in the EU, why is animal feed the dearest in Europe? Maybe the answer is simple, according to the US government it is now accepted that GM crops do not produce higher yields, funny, I remember that this was one of the boasts of the GM companies way back in the 90's! Also, according to scientific evidence, GM crops have lower nutritional value resulting in lower weight gains for the animals that are feed with it, and although there has been no control group study carried out, there has been an increase in allergies in humans since the introduction of GM's into the animal feed. Independent research also has found it causes infertility and liver damage in animals.Note the wording, INDEPENDENT! not research carried out by GM companies, who do not make their findings public. There seems to be something very wrong somewhere.
It is also interesting to note that 93% of all patented seeds are owned by one company, I'm not giving any prizes for guessing who that company might be, but a clue,it is one of the companies responsible for the manufacturing of Agent Orange, used during the Vietnam war.