Preserving plenty. Kitchen action for seasonal bounty
The many activities to sequester the season’s produce for future use continue at Maison Bleue: harvesting and pickling, preserving and fermenting and seed saving for next year. Heather’s giant Darwin tomato seeds provided a particularly tasty variety of firm fleshed, large, dark pink tomatoes and seeds are stashed for next season and for gifts for those appreciative of interesting heritage varieties of tomatoes. There has been experimentation with yellow peaches in a honey syrup infused with homegrown lemongrass (doing particularly well in its long and narrow repurposed polystyrene box outside the kitchen window), cloves and cinnamon. Last year Mario’s figs were terrific done in honey with ginger, cloves and star anise and there is one jar left, with an order placed for this year’s supply.
Since then Maison Bleue has acquired a food dehydrator, so drying figs is on the agenda as well. It worked nicely to preserve the abundance of San Marzano tomatoes I grew from seed for the first time. They are now nicely marinating in olive oil for winter salads. Ferments continue and a batch of vanilla and cumquat bitters is maturing and I am learning to work with the effects of changing seasons and temperature on my sourdough starter.
The question on many people’s lips at this time of year remains what to do with those zuccinis that keep coming and morphing into baseball bat size, seemingly overnight? I have always liked bread and butter zuccini pickles so now we have a generous supply.
Zuccini bread and butter pickles
1.5 kg zuccini sliced finely
3 red onions, sliced finely
¼ cup salt
1 tablespoon coriander seeds,
roasted and ground
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon celery seed
3 cups cider vinegar
1 ½ cups light brown sugar
Add salt to zuccini and onion and refrigerate for 3 hours. Rinse and drain and pat dry. Heat remaining ingredients to dissolve sugar. Boil and simmer for 3 minutes. Pour over vegetables and bottle in sterilised jars.
Celebrating diversity and tasting harmony
Traditions relating to food are increasingly being celebrated in Australia’s cultural melting pot, providing many exciting opportunities to experience tastes and flavours, both exotic and accessible.
Food has a central role in many community activities and special events and is an essential component of hospitality. Where green tea was the entry point for communication in my time in VietNam, in India my recent experience was that chai was the equivalent entry point. It was a demonstration of individual and regional difference in what may appear a simple recipe for spiced tea. A far cry from the powdered chai latte prevalent here. The nuances and special touches in recipes were prized and respected. Similarly here, a unique flavour to foods and recipes is one way to celebrate diversity. Without a diverse range of foods available not only are we nutritionally worse off, but culturally as well. In many communities around the world even when the makings of meals prove light on quantities, great importance is placed on the artistry, love, generosity and pride expressed in bringing food to the table, particularly for visitors.
In Victoria Cultural Diversity Week March 16 – 24th includes National Harmony Day on March 21st and the exciting concept of a Taste of Harmony – where in workplaces around Victoria people can come together to share food and stories from different cultural backgrounds.
Despite food rituals and traditions in Australia growing in popularity there is still scope for greater festivity around food, especially when that includes a wide and varied range of foods and celebrations. It doesn’t have to be a huge organised festival, but a smaller local celebration of the produce and associated activities unique to one region or community. Seasonal bounties and the associated harvest festivals often provide the conduit for this type of community interaction overseas. In a previous blog I have shown how in Mexico radishes are celebrated in novel ways. Perhaps more citrus festivals would be beneficial to the farmers in northern Victoria who forsake their orange crops due to lack of markets.
There are some who criticise this level of interest in food as an obsession. Indeed, it was the theme for a debate at this year’s Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. Perhaps the proposition should be how we create a healthy interest in sustainable and just food systems, something being addressed by the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance’s People’s Food Plan Working Paper just released. In the process of creating food policy relevant to communities of the future it is possible to invest in the revival of lost food-related knowledge and skills and the production and celebration of diverse varieties of seasonal produce in a manner that is accessible to everyone.