I get the feeling that it's actually Gordon agreeing with me... has he been reading this blog? Well, maybe, but I was pleased that the issue of wasted food was raised at the highest political levels, at the G8 Summit in Japan. Many people were not pleased at Brown's 'advice' and the fact that the group had a huge multi-coursed meal with associated..... WASTE!!!
Anyway, this week I've been preserving more waste food.... my walnut
tree has produced lots of nuts this year, and following last year's
squirrel raids which left me nothing, I have picked most of them, just
leaving one nut per bunch, and pruning off over 100 immature nuts...
which are perfect for the wonderful delicacy, pickled walnuts.
Now, I've never eaten pickled walnuts, but several people I know say they are delicious, so I'm following a recipe from a Reader's Digest book found at a second hand book stall, called 'Food from Your Garden'. This advises pricking the immature whole nuts in their husks all over with a needle and putting them in brine to extract moisture, and after a change of brine and over a week in the salty liquid, to let them dry before putting them in spiced cold vinegar. So, even if the squirrels get the 30 or so nuts left on the tree, I'll have 4 large kilner jars of them. See Wikipedia's take on them here.
So this new recipe adds to my existing ways of preserving food, which include pickled eggs, pickled nasturtium seeds (just as good as capers, but free!), dried fruit, jams and chutneys, and of course the glut of raspberries and loganberries we are currently open-freezing on trays before putting them in bags for a reminder of Summer in the depths of Autumn and Winter...
And my recipe for using up old rice and other grains, soups, stews and most other leftovers, the ubiquitous nutloaf, would also be approved of by our Prime Minister. I wonder if he has a compost heap at No.10?
For those of you wanting to fill your cupboards rather than dig out old items for using up, you could go to the Cutty Sark Gardens Fair Trade Market this Sunday 13th July 08 from 11am til 4pm. Greenwich Council and Lovethatstuff, a not for profit fair-trade importer are organising the event, which promises to have 25 stalls and guest speakers, according to Ethical Junction's newsletter, Ethical Pulse. If I lived in London, I would go to this as it looks like a fun and worthwhile ethical shopping experience.