The Herefoodshire Challenge

contact info

2009-03-22T16:15:00.000-07:00

I've enjoyed doing the talks.
If you'd like to get in touch my email is herefoodshire@hotmail.co.uk

End of challenge digestion

2009-02-22T11:58:00.001-08:00

So it’s now that confusing time that comes when any period with clear rules/structure comes to an end. What now? What will we actually eat now we can eat anything?
Will I actually go on making bread- which I enjoyed doing- or will I be too idle?
Will I go back to things like rubbish Cornish pasties – I hope only when desperate as one I had recently was horrible! I’m sure that that eating much more fresh food and cooking from scratch was definitely a health benefit in itself.
It will be relaxing to be less fussy about hospitality – it has never seems a good look to question food you are being offered as a gift. On the other hand, some of the happiest moments of the challenge were shared meals of local food with a variety people- it makes a great basis for hospitality.
I've just been reading Fast Food Nation (2001), a lively, though depressing, read on the many disadvantages of industrialised agriculture. Schlosser focuses the short and long term health risks that relate to eating the food. And on the stories of the workers who farm, process and sell fast food - often poorly paid and working in deeply unsatisfactory conditions. This seems a timely reminder of the importance of a fair deal for producers as we move into Fairtrade Fortnight – though that does not cover migrant workers outside the developing world.
I strongly believe that it is nourishing to support what you do believe in, as well as challenging what you don’t. And I appreciate the extra services local shops offer. Like the corner shop who kindly pack goods for my elderly mother in law and take time to have a chat. Our plan is to focus on independents and markets and skip the supermarkets as much as possible. So I hope that lethargy and convenience don’t totally change our now-established habits much.

Valentine vegetable valete

2009-02-14T12:23:00.000-08:00

Well I wasn't sure it could all be done- but it was! And I guess that applies to the whole year, as well as this morning.
Leominster Farmers Market featured vegetable jugglers, plus fantastic carrot recorders with kitchen samba backing from the Valentine vegetable ensemble, led with panache by my dear husband Andrew, aka Mr H.
We had vegetable mosaic and sculpture, heart shaped vegetable bunting (swede works a treat), a full heart shaped English breakfast, a red fluffy food heart (made by Echo) and ‘guess the weight of the characterful squash’. Plus heart shaped cress, cake and biscuits generated by Farmers Market stallholders. Thoroughly satisfactory! Many thanks to all who helped. The Hereford Times came and so there should soon be some pics up on their website.
Despite all the excitement I was frozen after 2 hours and even more respectful of the hardy farmers’ market stall holders who manage 4 hours stints, often several times a week. It was good to recover at the Forbury Fairtrade café with some mostly local soup afterwards. And of course I realise that I can adjust my diet at my own convenience, while friends with, for instance, gluten intolerance, do not have this luxury.
It’s been an excellent year and recommended as an experiment. This week we’ve added with a few dashing ingredients to our diet. Sparkling water. Oats, lentils and lapsang tea - really pushing the boat out on celebratory food! Some French wine has made an appearance too. And it’s relaxing to be able to buy things like brownies from the market without an inquisition on where every ingredient has come from. The plan is to stay with shopping in the independents and markets and give the supermarkets a miss in general.
There are a couple of talks on Herefoodshire coming up in Leominster. The first is for Fairtrade fortnight and also features Jan and Les Hardy talking about their Fairtrade trip to Peru; it’s on Saturday, March 6th at the Community Centre at 7.30 and includes wine tasting, Traidcraft snacks and hand made Peruvian alpaca goods for sale. Then there’s another burst on Monday, 9th March at 7.30 at the Talbot for the Leominster Civic Society, who showed my Herefoodshire film earlier in the year.

Hello Times readers!

2009-02-06T10:56:00.000-08:00

Herefordshire is indeed blessed with glorious food & drink. And plenty of places to buy it, especially in the market towns. I hope you'll come and try it - or indeed buy more of whatever food is local to you.
If you’d like to find out more about our year of local/Fairtrade eating do browse the blog or visit http://www.myherefordshire.com/herefoodshire.aspx for some background to the Challenge. You’ll find a 5 minute film you can watch from there (scroll down the page a short way) and links to some our of local food websites (below the lettuce photo).
Personally we’ve found this a really positive challenge as it is about doing something enjoyable, rather than giving up things, or doing deeply unappealing things like only eating McDonalds.
And it not just us! Reuters ran this story on Feb 2nd: ”Ethical food shopping has not been abandoned despite the economic downturn and shoppers are buying more locally-produced and Fairtrade foods, as well as goods with higher animal welfare standards, a survey showed on Monday.” http://uk.reuters.com/article/personalFinanceNews/idUKLNE51102F20090202.
These choices by shoppers, whether of a few pounds a week or more, all make a difference to small scale producers, independent shops and the way our countryside is farmed.Give it a try!
Fairtrade fortnight is coming up fast: 23rd Feb- 6th March. See http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/ for more: and there is indeed much more Fairtrade marked food than there used to be.

We’re giving our hearts to Herefordshire produce!

2009-02-03T12:14:00.000-08:00

We'll ending our year long Herefoodshire Challenge as we started it - at Leominster Farmers’ Market. A year ago we emptied our kitchen cupboards of all non-Herefordshire and non-Fairtrade produce and ran a tombola to give it all away to surprised members of the public. Since then we've been eating and drinking entirely Herefordshire and Fairtrade produce –which has been an interesting and tasty adventure.
This year February’s Farmers market fortuitously falls on Saturday Feb 14th, providing plenty of chance for Valentine’s fun. Join us in Corn Square: the market runs from 9am to 1pm and activities will be taking place from 10.30 - 12.30.
So come to Leominster to buy lots of great local produce, see our vegetable bunting and admire a ‘hearty’ English breakfast (that’s heart shaped eggs, bacon and sausages…). There’ll be plenty of chances to get involved in vegetable based fun activities – with a touch of romance. In the Forbury chapel you can make a heart shaped felt purse with local Ryeland sheep wool from 10 am – and enjoy Fairtrade and local refreshments. And, to round things off, at noon we will have the Valentine Vegetable Ensemble playing music on edible instruments, flanked by vegetable juggling.
This all adds up to even more reason to come and support our stalwart and skilful Farmers’ Market stallholders, who grow, pick and sell their fine produce 12 months a year in all weathers. There's plenty of great local produce to eat and drink, even in winter! Plus Leominster boasts many locally owned independent shops selling lots of local food and drink all week through.

14 sorts of veg and counting - not bad for January!

2009-01-25T13:28:00.000-08:00

January is galloping by at an alarming rate - but the nights are drawing out and the mornings finally starting to turn. There are loads of vegetables about. We have some spinach in the garden and inside we have supplies from 2 Farm shops of brussel sprouts, broccoli, potatoes, swedes, carrots, onion, celeriac, parsnips, beetroot, green cabbage, red cabbage, leeks, and butternut squash .
So that’s 14 sorts of veg, not counting cauliflower (we just finished one), 2 other sorts of squash we could have bought from Green Acres or purple sprouting, which I’m sure is round somewhere as Court Farm were selling it a month or more ago. I admit we’re short on green salad (though Grove Farm probably have some) – but coleslaw is not a problem, though I admit I’d forgotten about it entirely till just now.
We have started to look back over the year and realise how much we've learnt. And how many things we haven’t got round to that would be easy and fun – endless food producers we haven’t met yet and recipes untried. There is still such a lot more we could do with promoting/enjoying/eating our Herefordshire food and drink – plus valuing the producers and the contribution agriculture makes to our landscape. Jane Wheatley's piece in this week’s Times, http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/gardens/article5573746.ece, shows how a small group in Todmorden has started a ball rolling that has got people all over the town engaged with growing their own - in a place with far fewer natural food growing advantages than Herefordshire.
Plans are now underway for the end of the Herefoodshire Challenge year - Saturday Feb 14th at the Farmers Market in Leominster. We’re going for a predictable but heart felt theme – dreaming up a variety of veggie and other food valentines. Hope you can come along!

Freezing ground veg shock horror

2009-01-11T13:24:00.000-08:00

What a surprise! It turns out that it’s difficult to get root veg out of the ground when it’s frozen. Extraordinary...
Anyway, luckily we've still got some veg left from before Christmas - and there is still the above ground veg, like cauliflower and cabbage, which we're hopeful of tracking down soon.
It’s now less than a month till the completion of our year. We’re waiting with interest to see what our response to this is - but we're both quite clear that life without supermarkets is Absolutely fine. There are enough local shops which we pass as part of our normal routines to keep us going – not to mention the whole of Leominster as a weekend treat. Mr H is clear that he is looking forward to being able to go into local shops without being picky about stuff from Shropshire & Gloucestershire – and even further away. And I'm definitely looking forward to some oats. Apparently a lot of Herfordshire oats go to Mornflake, so maybe I’ll try them first.
I'll be at Leominster Farmers Markets on Leominster on Feb 14th. As we started the Challenge there it seems a good way to sign off with a Valentine for Herefordshire produce and its producers. But for now we’re still chugging along, munching our way down our sack of potatoes (£5.99) and other assorted produce.

Christmas cheer

2008-12-26T12:43:00.000-08:00

After frantic efforts to track down last minute Fairtrade tangerines (thank you Ledbury Rd Co-op) we seemed all set. Even our own breadcrumbs. Various sacks of veg in the back porch along with the chicken and excellent cheeses in the fridge. My first attempt at making cheese biscuits in the new oven was touching rather than particularly edible – I now realise that the prick marks are to stop them blowing up like mini chapattis... Fairtrade sparkling wine at the ready, plus sparkling local perry and quantities of Dunkertons Black Fox cider in hand.
And despite a few key people being off colour with various bugs we had a lovely meal. Springfield chicken, local veg and Fairtrade Christmas pud with most impressive cider brandy flames.
Very pleased with the stuffing which included fresh parsley and thyme from the garden, along with some dill that’s been hanging on in the conservatory. There’s even a rather confused orange tomato in there - though I’m not sure what it would taste like.
Flour situation critical – I finally got round to buying another a sack of wheat but, whoops, all millers are away for Christmas. The kindly Glyn Jones have loaned us a hand grinder, which we're marketing to passers by as a festive work out. A kung fu friend of our son is way in front on production. And you certainly appreciate flour more when you’ve ground it and sieved yourself!
Tonight we have young friends in, eating Golden Valley lamb with garlic, own rosemary and best Bray mint jelly. Meanwhile a vegetarian friend is tucking into roast squash (after the usual life and death struggle to hack the thing apart, which always makes me fear for my arteries.) Lots of lovely veg to roast and windfall apple crumble for pud. Mulling spices producing strengthening results as always. So here's to a happy festive season and best wishes for the New Year and 2009!

Sterling slide yet another reason to buy British food

2008-12-13T09:55:00.000-08:00

It doesn't look as if sterling is having a good Christmas.
And this is important for our food shopping - because as the pound slides against the euro the price of imports goes up... And 68% of our UK food imports come from the EU (2006 figures). OK the supermarkets may absorb the increases in costs in the short term - but not indefinitely.
We are going to be needing our local producers even more as prices of imports climb. So let's support them now and make sure they are all in good heart for this new challenge.
Veg growing is catching on and even small areas can produce a fair bit. Browsing a few seed catalogues for Christmas might be nearly as much fun as travel brochures (!).... The BBC has a good website on Growing your own - http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/techniques/growfruitandveg_index.shtml
Its important not to get morose, so for a counterbalance to the doom and gloom around at the moment try this article on 'One man's crusade to plough up the inner city': http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/the-urban-farmer-one-mans-crusade-to-plough-up-the-inner-city-836358.html?r=RSS as a tonic. And then follow with a glass of mulled cider. Or two.

Festive jollity opps

2008-12-06T10:31:00.000-08:00

This is of course the season to be jolly - and Herefordshire offers plenty of opportunity on both food and drink fronts to make yourself, your family and friends and our splendid producers jolly in one fell swoop - or indeed swipe.
Farmers markets are coming up in profusion:-
• Saturday 13th Dec: Leominster Corn Square from 9.00 – 1.00 with Victorian Street market and Priory Christmas tree festival thrown in for good measure
• Thursday 18th Dec: Hereford Hightown 9.00 - 2.00 + Victorian market in Commercial St
• Friday 19th Dec: Ross Market House 9.00- 1.00
• Saturday 20th Dec: Leominster Corn Square 9.00 – 1.00
There are also 6 weekly country markets in Herefordshire with excellent homemade mince pies and other treats: see www.country-markets.co.uk/herefordshire for locations and opening times.
Plus village markets
• Friday 19th Dec: Much Birch Community Hall 2.30 – 5.00
• Saturday 20th Dec: Woolhope Dome Village Hall 10.00 -12.30
• And probably in Bosbury the same day
There is such a choice of meat: turkeys, geese, clucks, chicken plus whatever you might want in the way of beef, pork and ham… and there’s no problem getting free range meat either. The helpful butchers in Leominster are offering all kinds of options, like frozen duck and 6lb turkey breasts, for those who want something less massive.
Lots of great tasting good value veg around – great offers on sacks of spuds or smaller nets of root veg and sprouts if you ask at your local farm shop.
Nancy’s Christmas puddings are very strong on local ingredients – and always splendid quality. I’m looking forward with interest to trying out brandy butter made with cider brandy and also testing its pudding ignition qualities.
In the last 2 days we’ve been to two events with excellent mulled cider, which seems to me to have a lot going for it. You can get handy sachets of FT cider (& wine) mulling spices in Oxfam – thus getting 2 sorts of warm glow at the same time by supporting both local and international farmers .
Fairtrade comes into its own at Christmas - all that dried fruit, nuts and chocolate….and I’ve always thought that as a county of farmers it makes sense for us in Herefordshire to do our best to ensure that other places’ farmers get a fair deal for their produce too.
Traidcraft and Oxfam have a good selection of Fairtrade treats and present options, plus cakes and puddings. If you’re more of a web person you can get a great range from Traidcraft, now including Palestinian olives and sun dried tomatoes.
The supermarkets have got a good range of Fairtrade fresh fruit and a quick ring round was encouraging on what is available locally. Sainsburys & the Co-op come up with the most lines on the Fairtrade Foundation site. When I rang the local stores they both had easy peel citrus, lemons and avocados in stock. Asda also sounded promising and said they have a Fairtrade fruit section. The Co-op are particularly strong on Fairtrade wine.

November slithers by

2008-11-28T13:59:00.000-08:00

Somehow November is nearly over and not a single entry on the blog. October was a rush of blog-blood to the head with the end of summer time, the food festival and the much enjoyed ‘bicycling round the market towns’ trip.
December is about preparing for Christmas, which I’m keen to avoid in November. And somehow November hasn’t been high profile on the food front. We've munched away, continuing to enjoy what’s around but without any dramatic new ideas. Enjoying 6 types of squashes from Greenacres at Dinmore. Drying 3 sorts of bean that we hope will be good in soups. Being impressed at staying power of mizuma and parsley in the garden. Mr H is suffering frightful withdrawal pangs for cheese biscuits, so will have a go at those.. though our oven is a tad unpredictable and my track record on biscuits shaky.
And now its nearly time to turn attention to local/Fairtrade Christmas.
Mr H was feeling on the glum side about this, but after making endless lists things are looking promising. There are a few question marks on the fruit front, especially finding Fairtrade oranges and lemons - but I haven’t really looked yet. Lots of opportunities for using Fairtrade dried fruit and maybe the considerable stash of dates we seem to have…There are Palestinian Fairtrade olives on the way, which is very exciting.
Several interesting bottles of local alcohol plus some non-alcoholic cordials are squirreled away. Still undecided on the meat front - but spoiled for choice there. And veg should be no problem.
So… we’ll keep you posted.

5 days: 100 miles: 60 producers/retailers/caterers

2008-10-31T10:20:00.000-07:00

Cycle trip a great experience. Straight out of our front door on the bike and within yards there are local food producers. And that's pretty much how it went all week.
We'd got to 20 by the time we got to Kington at the end of Day 1. I'm quite sure there were loads more within yards if it had been warmer/we’d been fitter... you can see the photos at gallery.me.com/andrewjmorris/100267, which give an idea of who we saw where.

One obvious thing is the variety - both of sorts of produce and scale. So we went from micro cider makers to Westons to the monster new UBL cider plant at Ledbury. We saw kitchen gardens, allotments, small fields, enormous orchards. Its food everywhere. And it was good to meet a lot of the people who actually produce it and hear stories of the triumphs and many difficulties they face.

Nancy was brilliant at finding not too steep back roads, often with hardly any traffic. We went through such lovely villages and hamlets – no need to go far to explore. You may have spotted our fluorescent ‘Herefoodshire’ flags on the back which greatly improved our visibility.

One small difficulty is that when you ask for 'Whatever you've got that's local' the easy answer is often 'meat'. Which is delicious - but I can only cope with so much…. While doing some research for the Food Festival I found out that the 1950s ration for meat per adult per week was 100gms - and we now gnash our way through 1.6kgs a week of the stuff. So there's certainly some scope for a major reduction -while making sure the meat we do eat is high quality and outdoor raised and of course local from one of the many excellent butchers we saw in all the market towns this week. We have a vegetarian friend staying for a while so the next challenge is to see what we can rustle up together on the veggie front... There are certainly fantastic veg around at the moment.

APPEAL!
Does anyone have any overripe runner or other beans hanging about still? I’m looking for beans to dry and put in soups later in the year. The pods don’t matter- it’s the beans inside I’m after. So if you’re about to compost yours please don’t and let me know - especially if you’re round Leominster or Hereford.

Autumn sun , chillies and grapes

2008-10-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

Another good day at the Food Festival, where the Hairy Bikers were obviously enjoying themselves going round the stalls and meeting people. Lots of fascinating stalls, good footfall and the sun shone after rain overnight. Splendid double rainbow on the way home.

In my Slow Food talk I mentioned a shortage of aubergines - and was immediately offered some from Luston. When I arrived there things got even better as they had remarkably perky and productive bushes of chillies. I’m now the proud owner of some of the startlingly bright red fruits - now sitting in the airing cupboard. Expect the unexpected!

I’ve also been given some Bircher grapes, ripened by an old stone wall - autumn has a lot going for it. What a remarkably fruitful place Herefordshire is.

Biking tomorrow. We have splendid flags to increase visibility still further. Maybe we'll see you this week

Canary bikers rule! County here we come!

2008-10-25T12:20:00.001-07:00

This morning the Hairy Bikers presented the winners of the "Local Food for £5" meal with their prize in front of a packed house at the Flavours of Herefordshire Food Festival. The winners, Kate and James Miller of Leominster, thriftily managed to extract not one, not two, but three classy courses from their £5 - and develop a Roman theme to boot. You can see their recipe on the Flavours website at http://mediafiles.thedms.co.uk/Publication/HF/cms/pdf/A%20Roman%20Meal.pdf
The festival was buzzing - several stalls sold out. We have a talk on Herefoodshire there tomorrow (Sunday) at1.30pm. This is apt as I launched the Challenge there last year with Fiona of Grove Farm - who kept her promise to supply us with excellent local veg and salad right through the winter.

Inspired by the Hairy Bikers enthusiasm for the combination of 2 wheels and local food - plus the realisation that short days are rapidly approaching - I'm off next week on a bicycling safari with my friend, experienced cycle tourer and talented cook Nancy (of pudding fame). We aim to visit all Herefordshire’s market towns between Monday and Friday and visit 50 producers/shops selling local food. We are rapidly realising we could bicycle for a month without running out of local producers - but a week will have to do for now. We will of course be eating entirely local and Fairtrade food and drink - maybe I should take a small stove so we can boil up potatoes en route…

As a homage to the Hairy Bikers and the importance of lurid fluorescent clothing to personal safety we are calling ourselves the ‘Canary Bikers’- though Mr H feels maybe the Contrary Bikers would be more appropriate. Or maybe the Low Carbon Canary Bikers. Anyway, we’ll keep you up to speed with our investigations as we go. The plan is Kington on Monday night, Golden Valley Tuesday night, somewhere near Ross on Wednesday night and Ledbury on Thursday night. That’s the plan... I haven’t bicycled more than about 3 miles for 4 years so it may well turn out useful that we can find 50 producers within 10 miles of Leominster.

Leominster Priory local harvest meal

2008-10-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

The Priory congregation went local in a big way for their harvest lunch on October 5th. More than 70 people sat down in the norman nave to an all-locally sourced meal of meat casseroles and baked potatoes, followed by apple pie and cream.

The 6 strong organising group had an adventurous time tracking down their Herefordshire ingredients - one of the surprises was a dairy in South Street who produced half a gallon of whipping cream for a bargain £3.50. Fairtrade stepped in to provide the casserole wine and sugar for the pies. Fairtrade costs little more than standard sugar in many supermarkets - but makes a big difference to the well being of the producers.

Broadwood farm, off the Hereford Road, provided rainbow chard, kale, celeriac and a huge bag of organic carrots, dug up fresh for the event. They did need considerable washing and trimming - but scored top marks for flavour and local-ness. Quarry Farm Shop, Drapers Lane and Neil Powell in Hereford provided all the meat for the casseroles – and could each say exactly which farms it had come from.

The price was the same as last year, £5 a head. Some items, like butter, were appreciably more, some were less and many – like the apples and the onions from a local allotment holder, were given for free. In return people knew that not only were they having an excellent meal and a social occasion - but that they were supporting local businesses and enjoying a real link to this fertile county in which we live.

The congregation were also encouraged to bring fresh local and Fairtrade produce to take round to pensioners who weren’t able to come. And people were encouraged to go easy on first helpings, just to make sure everyone got a reasonable share - and there was plenty for all.

The group hope to write up their recipes so other congregations and community groups can use them as a basis for communal catering.

Autumn delights

2008-10-11T02:14:00.000-07:00

One of the great pleasures of life (writes Mr H in a rare appearance) at this time of year is going into the garden in the early morning and picking the autumn raspberries. There is something quite mystical to me about how these fruits keep appearing - more each day, with many different darkening shades of red into purple. They are wonderfully sexual fruits - and there is something extraordinarily satisfying about picking them one at a time off the stalks and then taking them inside to put on breakfast cereal.

One day recently when Ms H was away I realised that the morning delight of the raspberries had been followed by a pre-lunch trip into the garden to pick tomatoes and salad leaves. And then in the early evening a pre-supper trip into the garden to pick some spinach and one of the last courgettes. What a wonderfully satisfying day. What greater demonstration could there be of the bountiness of all creation. At this time when people seem completely bound up with anxiety about that which is both incomprehensible and quite unreal - the world banking system - what about connecting with the land and going into the garden? Highly recommended!

Focal food local (new blog) & meat rant

2008-10-08T11:50:00.000-07:00

We are putting in a small grant application for Food Lottery funding for ‘Focal food local’. This project targets young people who have grown up in a generation for whom supermarkets are the shopping norm and will use their normal communication channels - the web and downloads accessible on mobile phones. See http://focalfoodlocal.blogspot.com/ for a 2 page flyer: there's a comment box at the end - please do add one. Comments received by next the end of October can be used as evidence of support for the application.

Last call for your Hairy Biker “Local meal for a 2 for a £5r” recipes! The revised closing date is next Monday, 12th October: so submit yours now to gem@herefordshire.gov.uk (see August entry below for details).

Delighted to be proud owner of half a lamb born and bred in Golden Valley with an uplifting view of the Black Mountains. And what a strapping lamb it is! as I found out when I tried to pick up half of it… First piece taken up to starving son in London was well received. I have now heard separately from 2 contacts about recent work demonstrating that fat from grass fed grazing animals has positive health benefits – unlike the fat from unfortunate animals fed grain in confined conditions: the latest edition of the Ecologist has an article on the subject. I am very keen to learn more about this for two reasons. The first is that, in a deeply politically incorrect way, I always find the fat is by far the nicest bit of most meat. The second is that singing the virtues of free range livestock for our landscape, biodiversity and health is a particularly important issue for Herefordshire and one I hope to follow up. I take exception to the school of easy answers that says a carnivore on a bike is more damaging to the environment than a veggie in a 4x4. I acknowledge we all need to eat considerably less of it – but all meat is not the same!

Hang on in there veg growers!

2008-10-01T13:55:00.000-07:00

On a bus recently I overheard an older man explaining that he'd cut back on veg production because he and his wife were on their own now. And because "no-one wants home grown produce any more".

He's wrong! Though cutting back may well be right for him we do want home grown produce, and need to find ways to pass on valuable experience like his to younger generations who have often missed out on food growing altogether. And chances to buy the surpluses of successful small growers.

Since 1946 the WI, latterly County, Market have been running their Friday morning market in the heart of Hereford. They sell plants, cakes, eggs, veg and lots of other home made and home grown items from St Peters church opposite Shire Hall– washed down with lots of tea. It’s a friendly, knowledgeable group and their cakes have certainly added greatly to many of my office birthday and family celebrations. Now they plan to close at the end of October because no new committee members have been found. A spokesperson is quoted as saying "...fewer people are interested in home cooking to sell their produce".

Meanwhile Country Markets nationally have £1/2 million of Lottery money to invest in Making Local Food Work (http://www.country-markets.co.uk/making-local-food-work-c188.html), building on country markets to build sales in community shops. We need to protect our infrastructure and skills at growing and making: 2 generations of expertise is too much to lose! And with the price of transport and fertiliser rising steadily the economics of home growing is shifting. We need more, not less local outlets!

Last month our 'Exploring Herefood' walk visited around 15 outlets selling a heady variety of local food and drink over a trail covering around 2 miles from St James into the centre of High Town. We hope to get a copy of the Trail up on the blog shortly. The food is there –and delicious. I hope you’ll give some a try at this season of autumn plenty.

And remember to enter the Local recipe for a £5r comp- see 22nd August blog below: the closing date is now October12th. Prize £50!

Flour famine

2008-09-05T01:29:00.001-07:00

Well, as always, a wild over statement.
But it’s odd how threatening it feels to be without any flour at all, even when I know we will have another sack within 24 hours. We used the last of our second sack a whole hour ago for some breakfast pancakes and now I feel peckish already and it feels like a huge problem… Luckily there is a Grove Farm Shepherd’s pie lurking in the freezer for lunch.

Given the dreadful weather it is indeed lucky that we are not entirely dependent on what we can grow right here – but this challenge does make me much more aware of how directly we depend on the weather for our food. And of course I am hoping hard that there will be some bread quality wheat harvested in Herefordshire this year or we are going to have a skinny time of it later.

This time our wheat has been stone milled at a historic mill and I’m looking forward to finding out if that makes any difference to the texture. We’ve found the machine ground flour keeps well and is fine for bread and cooking, although I admit it looks a bit gritty. And at £8 for a full sack no-one could say that it is an expensive commodity! Certainly not compared to the 65p I was charged yesterday for a Geobar from a cafe.

So spare a thought for the farmers for whom the rain is more than an inconvenience - farmers are debating whether this is the worst harvest for 50 years: http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2008/09/08/112041/weekend-of-rain-leaves-floods-and-a-third-of-cereals-uncut-share-your-pictures-and-videos.html. Even when crops have been harvested they are much too wet to keep - and the energy needed to dry them can cost 20% of the value of the crop (info from NFU Harvest 2008 report)
So as we fume when stuck behind slow moving agricultural vehicles at this time of year its worth remembering how much we depend on them.

Hereford 6th Sept event and Menu challenge

2008-08-22T17:05:00.000-07:00

Delighted to get Hereford Times coverage this week at half way mark for the Challenge. And hope hard that will be dry enough to get the cereal crops in.

I hope you will be able to join us on Saturday September 6th for 'Exploring Herefood': a leisurely guided walk round food related places old & new.
The walk will start at 13, Harold Street, Hereford, at 11am and will include a visit to the Farmers Market in High town Hereford. There is no charge: please bring Herefordshire food &/or drink to share for lunch after the walk (this can be left at 13, Harold Street) – or pick some up while we are at the Market.
Many people don’t know where they can find local food in Hereford itself. I’m hoping this event will pool everyone’s information so we can start to publicise a listing of shops and eating places selling local food in the city.

Please enter the Flavours of Hereford Local Food challenge - a chance to meet the Hairy Bikers and win £50! Many people think local food is expensive. It ain’t necessarily so. So Flavours and Herefoodshire are challenging people to come up with a meal for 2 for £5, made entirely from local produce. Flour, herbs, spices and condiments can be sourced outside the county. Please list prices and suppliers of the main ingredients and estimate a price if you grew it yourself.

We’d like lots of entries - simple meals are just fine: plenty of menus for local meals that ordinary people could make with ease. And if there are some advanced options for the more talented that would be lovely too. The £50 prize will be presented by the Hairy Bikers at the Hereford Food Festival. Please send your own entries to gem@herefordshire.gov.uk by 6th October – and spread the word.

Apples & strawberries at half way mark

2008-08-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

Last week marked the half way point of the 12 month challenge - and 36 hours of intense local food activity. On Friday Mr H went to the Leominster County Market (next to the Snooker Club) and I went to the Hereford County Market at St Peters. I was amazed to find 2 parsnips - as I had recently explained to Mr H that they would be returning in October or so...

Then on Saturday I set off for Leominster Farmers’ Market where I found strawberries and apples on sale at the same stall. This was another surprise as we'd just written a press release for the Flavours of Herefordshire £5 local food challenge, which explained that as dishes were seasonal you must be able to get all the ingredients at the same time.. And therefore should avoid combinations like... strawberries and apples. Shows (again) how ignorant I am. Delighted to find plums, and relieved to find lots of onions from Tillington Court, as they have been tricky to track down for the last month.

Later I pottered into Hereford to join the end of the first Foodlinks Fruit Fair in High Town, which was going well in what (compared to this Saturday) was really quite good weather. There I found my first aubergine of the year at the Flights Orchard stall - as well as all sorts of excellent goodies like perry, blackcurrant cordial and fruit smoothies. Plans are already afoot to repeat the Fruit Fair on September 5th 2009 with a jammy theme. Sounds good: book the date!

I reckon we spend £45 at all 4 places in total and ended up with a table heaving with lovely food - meat, vegetables, drink and fruit… I'll add the picture when I can work out the uploading.

HerefoodshireTrial meeets Herefordshire Trail

2008-08-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

At last - 2 months or so after thinking of doing the Herefordshire Trail - we finally did the first leg today. We caught the bus out to Richards Castle, then walked back to Leominster. It’s a while since we’ve been on a proper walk so 9.5 miles felt quite sufficient – we now have less than 150 miles left to walk!

Seriously, it was a lovely thing to do. It was one food after another all day, growing – or grazing - right next to our feet. We started with rabbits and sheep as soon as we left the road, quickly followed by scrunching through the first harvested field I've noticed. Then we rapidly found geese and hens, followed by happy black Tudge pigs – and later on cows, horses and goats.

On the crops front we walked through ripening fields of wheat (mainly), barley and oats, sampling a few grains as we strolled past. It was an immensely secure feeling walking through thigh-high grain and realising what a lot of loaves it would make. I’m reading Wendell Berry poems at the moment, and am very struck by his visceral connection to the land he’s worked. Conscious of links back to all those who have tended crops for thousands of years. And to those who continue to do so across the world. Remembering my trip to Ethiopia 2 years ago, where children in the rural area we were passing through in spent all day in tree nests guarding the harvest – in tiny fields - against birds, armed with stones and slingshots, similar to those in use in biblical times.

We also walked past potatoes, field beans, sweet corn (tassels just appearing)and orchards of ripening apples, with elderberries, blackberries and rosehips plumping in the hedge rows. There can be few places with such variety as Herefordshire. I don’t know if humans can eat the field beans and sweet corn, which are mainly grown for cattle - but am hoping to find out soon.

Eye was the food hotspot of the trip. Though we didn’t track down Eye Game Larder we found runner beans on sale in Eye Church porch and swapped freshly picked plums for sandwiches with a friend who lives on Eye Lane.

I did realise that the chances of me following the Trail notes successfully on my own are remote so I will definitely be seeking company. I expect to be walking it mostly on Sundays and Mondays.

Of parties and bay trees

2008-07-23T14:55:00.000-07:00

This is a great year for summer parties - but it is always tricky guessing what the local food offer is going to be. It’s all very well asking pubs and restaurants what they have that's local – after all you are paying for it - but it doesn’t really seem appropriate at a party.

I've been to a couple of lovely local events recently where the company was excellent - but local food was thin on the ground, necessitating belt tightening. So tonight when I was invited to a barbecue I thought I would be sensible and have something to eat before I went – predicting gloomily it would be industrial sausages and hamburgers. Wrong again! Herefordshire Hog Roast from Wellington had been engaged and produced a fabulous pig, complemented with salads from their own garden. Serious belt loosening required... And proud that an international youth orchestra, just arrived at Moor Park from all over Europe for a 10 day course, were getting some proper local food on their first evening in the UK.

I am all in favour of trade. I'm not aiming for pure self sufficiency - just want the county to make the most of its numerous strengths and produce on our doorstep. Which from time to time does produce gluts … so if anyone would like any unsprayed bay leaves I have several thousand, having finally got round to pruning a bay tree that felt a mission to multiply. Just the thing for athletics winners crowns. Or indeed stews.

Feast of events

2008-07-21T02:09:00.000-07:00

Too many events on this weekend - couldn’t keep up! Which has to be good in itself. And suddenly Herefordshire seems enormous. Such a lot of alluring places still to explore, even though we've lived here over 20 years. I guess having worked out that the car costs 10p a miles on petrol has contributed to the county's increase in size.

Saturday was the food fair at Brampton Bryan, where the cookery demonstrations were in a fine Indian tent. Then Emma's rare breed pigs were having an open day at Preston on Wye. Then yesterday was the open day at Herbfarmcy near Eardisley... Anyway, I’ve just enjoyed Emma's pigs without leaving home: I can highly recommend emmaspigs.blogspot.com and she's much better than us at keeping her photos in the right place. We need some tips as ours seem to post totally at random.

Suddenly a week ago I began to realise autumn was on the way. Found first ripe blackberry - looks like it'll be a bumper crop this year with branches laden down on Great Western Way. Then noticed fields subtly shifting from green to yellow as I drove back across the county from the Ledbury Poetry Festival. Then saw red windfalls round an apple tree (though tasted disgusting). The courgettes have started too - first that have evaded the slugs for years. And all this was a before the middle of July. As I have strict views on autumn and harvest starting in September this has all been a bit of a shock.

But this season - despite the lack of sun- has a lot going for it on the food front. Last weekend we feasted on 5 sorts of berries – 4 of which we’d picked in the garden (even if in miniscule quantities). I hope someone is freezing some of them. Miss Herefoodshire, just back from 6 months in Australia, is understandably deeply unimpressed by the weather- but slightly consoled by berry feast. Apparently you can get sick of pineapples.

local food genuinely not just a middle class luxury

2008-07-11T13:28:00.000-07:00

Rant time. ‘Food Matters’ has just been published by the Cabinet Office - but growing more food in the UK is still nowhere on the list of 4 strategic policy objectives. Or indeed mentioned at all. Hmmm. http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/~/media/assets/www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/food/food_matters_es%20pdf.ashx

Luckily the good people of Middlesbrough didn’t bother to wait for government endorsement to launch their urban farming project - I now have a DVD of if anyone would like to borrow it. It shows conclusively that ordinary British people respond spectacularly well to growing food given the chance. Over 2000 people fed at the project’s town meal is remarkable.

They feel the same way in Detroit where a US charity is helping Detroit's poorest people turn vacant lots into blooming gardens. An even more inspiring read than Food Matters! http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/7495717.stm >

I don’t know if we notice, but here in Herefordshire we have a few extra advantages that the good people of Detroit and Middlesbrough don’t have on the farming and food growing front. Why aren’t we capitalising on them?

We should be bursting with pride at being part of the county that brought the world the Hereford Bull, did pioneering work on apples and I’m quite sure has other rousing tales to tell on our contribution to the development of food production. Which characteristically don’t seem to be written up anywhere handy (let me know if they are). Instead we mumble about agriculture being a declining sector and turn our back on a fantastic legacy - and a new generation of entrepreneurs, both from our traditional farming families and from quite different backgrounds, who are managing to build food and drink businesses on that same fertile ground.

Had a good evening with Leominster Transition Towns last night who had no difficulty in coming up with an chunky list of local food outlets they pass regularly without having to go our of their way at all. Might anyone be able to help design a leaflet for Leominster or research one for Hereford showing off places to buy local food? Ludlow sent a very smooth 'Local to Ludlow' leaflet round with the Journal last week and I gnashed my teeth and wondered why we don’t have one. So if anyone has a few spare hours do get in touch – support available!

A spoonful of sugar

2008-07-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

Shobdon Food Festival last weekend was good, if on the damp side at times, and it was fun being part of the demonstration tent.
I watched Jenny Beard knocking up 5 dishes in an hour or so and realised that I had a lot to learn on the cooking front. She chucked in extra gems as well - like Herefordshire’s role in the development of the modern strawberry from the small wild ones.
Jenny alleged that you can raise bread with the yeast on elderflowers so I vowed to give it a go, though I had to brave nettles to get the last few flowers. Jenny thought it would take 6 hours to rise, which turned out to be an bit of an underestimate... it is rather a cold summer. But we’ve just come home after a quick trip away and found my loaf had risen Just Right after a mere 48 hours. And tastes good!
After my Herefoodshire slot Carolyn Chesshire from Lower Buckton Country house near Leintwardine was the next up. As the two time Flavours of Herefordshire breakfast champion. she was, unsurprisingly, demonstrating breakfasts. Carolyn is a supporter of Silver Spoon sugar, as it’s made from sugar beet grown in the UK. In her opinion charity begins at home, which seems a fair point. I’ll keep going with my Fairtrade sugar – but supporting Silver Spoon has a lot going for it too! Slow Food is taken very seriously at Lower Buckton, which is proud to be a multi-national supermarket-free zone. Shopping is done at local, privately owned, independent businesses and producers in Leintwardine village (one and half miles) or the market towns of Knighton (seven miles) and Ludlow (ten miles). Carolyn also runs combined Food safaris/cooking courses, introducing guests to local producers as part of the deal.
While I’m giving out entirely free testimonials, I had a brilliant lunch at Ludlow Race Course last week, provided by Fingers and Forks of Llandrindod (who also have strong Herefordshire links). Absolutely lovely local food and drink, all sourced from the Rural Regeneration Zone area.
Another recent discovery is Hereford Cathedral café - now serving almost entirely local and Fairtrade food and drink – so a Herefordshire haven! It’s been going down a storm with customers. Their only remaining challenge is local bread - because there are no corn mills in the county at the moment. But there are moves afoot on that front…

Herefoodshire meets DEFRA

2008-06-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

Last week Ms H was up in London with an appointment to meet DEFRA's pro-environmental behaviours team.
Eating local food in season is on the shortlist of 12 behaviours DEFRA are seeking to popularise (http://www.defra.gov.uk/evidence/social/behaviour/index.htm).
Less happily, local food is down the bottom of the list as research so far has only logged a paltry 10kg per household a year carbon advantage to eating local. This is based entirely on transport (oddly replacing air freight with HGV).
I did my best to say that my experience was more bicycle than HGV and the impact must be more than that. But although we all agreed that food in general is responsible for over a quarter of household carbon emissions and that eating local food had many fine aspects and community impacts they were unconvinced about the carbon. So the national focus will be on Wasting less food - which potentially saves 600kg per household per year. This is based on the sad research by WRAP which found that 30% of food bought by households is thrown away- though over half of it is still edible (http://www.wrap.org.uk/retail/food_waste/research/the_food_we_waste.html).
While agreeing that reducing food waste is indeed sensible, I hope there may be a smidgeon of opportunity to point out that some of the money saved (an average of £420 per household) could perhaps be spent on local food...
A DEFRA study is underway looking at different length food chains with Northumbria University and if I get my act together I 'll make an effort to see if they can be persuaded to reconsider the potential carbon savings of local food. It must be more than 10kg! Apparently a US study found a 4% saving for local food (which would be more than 10kg), but I haven't had time to follow it up yet. Any volunteer researchers out there - please get in touch! If anyone is feeling like a cornucopia of chewy facts the Food Climate Research Network site is worth a visit - http://www.fcrn.org.uk/
Back home and huge thrill to find garden producing strawberries, gooseberries and now raspberries. All in small quantities but special. Stung by the success of London friend's mint - doing much better than mine on Harrow Road - I have hastily moved mine to a sunnier place. I never did get round to attempting elderflower fritters but Nancy made us some brilliant elderflower cordial. Maybe next year...
Food festivals are coming up thick and fast and hopefully surges in local production as well. The Leominster County Market now has much more fruit and veg on offer - it a great time to up your local food spend!

Back from Italy

2008-06-13T23:10:00.000-07:00

Mr and Ms H returned from their trip to Italy a few days ago and have been catching up with the bounteous growth in the garden while they were away. Chard, purple sprouting courgettes have now been planted out, more radishes and lettuces and rocket sown, lots of basil, sorrel and quilquina plants re-potted, tomatoes and beans planted in the new troughs created before the holiday. There are far more local vegetables now available and the whole Herefoodshire initiative seems a real joy at this time of the year.
In Italy - or particularly where we were staying in Assisi - it seemed that local food was much more highly valued than in the UK. It was simple to buy small quantities of fresh salad vegetables and fruit for lunch each day. There was a wealth of local cheeses and meats and breads available - and we had some really great picnics. A few pictures attached from the trip.

Go Go Gordon R- backing local food

2008-05-19T05:51:00.000-07:00

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey has said restaurants should be fined if they serve out-of-season produce to customers… http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2008/05/09/110436/gordon-ramsey-declares-war-on-out-of-season-produce.html
And with slightly less reporting, the Herefordshire Challenge made it into this week’s Times newspaper via Jane Wheatley… http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article3916319.ece I fear I shall never make a good French housewife, but never mind.

Back at home, beans are continuing to erupt mole-like from their pots. It’s remarkable the force a plant can unleash just by growing. On the more petite side we have some tiny very pretty (2 leaf) basil seedlings of which Mr H is inordinately proud. We’re getting positively blasé about home grown lettuce and salad. There are now local cucumbers and tomatoes at the farm shop - am checking out how they are grown but they are definitely here. Their early arrival still seems a bit odd to me - but good to have them as an option. Lurid troughs have been constructed so we can plant our own tomatoes and more beans when we get back from holiday. We’re off to Italy, where local food is, I understand, still taken seriously, leaving a complex rota of bean waterers with detailed and confusing instructions.

On a more epic and local note, I’m cooking up a plan to walk the Herefordshire Trail (http://www.herefordshiretrail.com/index.html) over the summer in time for the Hereford Food Festival. It takes 15 days and covers all the market towns except Hereford in legs between 7.5 and 15 miles so I’ll probably do it in chunks. The idea is to combine walking with fitting in maximum foraging / eating opportunities. It seems a fair test of what local food is available over the whole county. I hope people will join me for any leg they like the look of. I’ll get a Plan up when I’ve got one organised. We’ll start with few days near Leominster at the start of August to get the hang of it.

Shock & awe in the veg patch

2008-05-11T08:41:00.000-07:00

Bowled over by the speed of events. I said I saw this as an adventure, and that’s certainly what it feels like. White water vegetable growing! Last weekend we were getting all dewy eyed about growing one whole bowl of our own salad and this week there are rampant plants everywhere, some trying to go to seed, and I can’t see how we’re going to eat them all. Or where put in the ones that are now ready to plant. Or how brutal to be on thinning.

It all shows how far removed we are from actually understanding what feeds us. I’m not sure what the equivalent of illiterate is - ivegetate? – but we’re certainly it. Luckily we have highly competent friends to bother for advice. Delighted to hear a lot of the county’s schools are doing vegetable gardening, so perhaps these important skills will be built again from the bottom up (see http://www.sendacow.org.uk/schools.asp?active_page_id=317 for a quick film on the African bag gardens, being tried locally at Cradley Primary).

Eating all Herefordshire produce has shortened our food chain considerably. I’m much more aware of the blindingly obvious truth that all the food in supermarkets, small shops & eating places must actually come from somewhere. On some piece of the earth not covered in concrete. It seems to me miraculous there is anywhere near enough space to grow it all. And at the same time I can see for myself the surge in growth that I never quite believe/remember happens in May. And enjoy the fact that even complete amateurs like us can have a go at very modest cost – there are lots of young plants for sale all over the place at the moment.

It’s a fantastic time to be out in Herefordshire with the apple trees in spectacular blossom. But the landscape doesn’t all happen by itself. There is such a lot of hard work, skill and dedication all round us. At Leominster’s Farmers’ Market I talked to the honey producers, who had just put out 70 hives out in orchards & elsewhere, each with 20,000 bees raring to go. Not surprisingly they (the producers) were a bit tired. And our favourite farm shop couldn’t come to my birthday meal (thank you to the Granary) because she was spending the evening - after a normal day’s work - cooking then packing pies for Ludlow market because her cook was off. We can’t just take the orchards and other farming we enjoy seeing for granted as if they will be there forever by right: if orchards and other crops/animals don’t make an economic return land use will change. So buying local apples (still just about available), juice and cider seems to me to have a lot going for it. And of course meat , milk and so on.

We asked people to bring a local bottle to my birthday and ended up with an excellent selection of wine, beer, cider and apple juice. There’s definitely no problem on that front with Herefordshire’s offer!

Homegrown salad success

2008-05-05T02:55:00.000-07:00

Major excitement!
Had delicious salad yesterday totally made of freshly picked home-grown ingredients: a dizzying 8 sorts of leaf, including 4 sorts of lettuce, 2 mustards, coriander and miniscule (but recognisable) radish. 3 are grown in pots, window box & sprouters so it doesn’t take a lot of room - or skill (we are definitely vegetable novices).
Am also ridiculously thrilled because
• some beans are coming through - in that extraordinary crooked arm way with the stem coming up first and then the huge head following: quite foetal.
• I lashed out 25p yesterday at the car boot sale and got about 20 very healthy pea seedlings and found them a small bare patch (just weeded) and some suitable sticks.

Enjoyed the article on guerrilla gardening in last week’s Guardian - http://www.guerrillagardening.org/ : it’s mainly about flowers and London but am sure it has merit elsewhere. We’ve tried putting a few spare guerrilla onions in a patch of nearby wasteland but the thistles are coming through so fast I’m not over hopeful. It is however a large expanse of ground that could usefully be Growing Something. I’m also trying to work out how to introduce damson and nut trees into a rather boring monoculture of local tree planting. Of course as I know who that belongs to there is also the more conventional approach of actually checking with the owners…

I’m reading ‘The Food Maze’ by Rob Elliott, who runs Aspen House B&B at Hoarwithy with Sally, who I met last week. They aim to buy all their produce within an exemplary 10 mile radius – and meet all the producers. I’m increasingly struck by how food is one of the rarer areas where we really can make a choice – certainly in Herefordshire. We can hardly choose to make our own TV, or IPod or washing machine - or even buy one made in the UK. Yet we can all support local producers and shops and even go one step further to put seeds in a pot and see that extraordinary miracle of soil plus light plus seed equals growth you can actually eat. Explosive growth at this time of year you can almost watch changing.

We much enjoyed a lovely meal out this week with L&M, with 4 sorts of sausages from the ever-friendly Neil Powell in Widemarsh Street (Hereford) and vegetables from Capler Farm, conveniently available every Thursday evening at the Volunteer pub in Harold Street. Happily L shares my conviction that even mediocre cooks (such as me) can do wonders with fine ingredients.

On fish, pigs and mills

2008-04-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

Enjoyed weekend in Dorset - unsurprisingly strong on fresh sea fish and mussels. Fishmonger had interesting choice between wild local sea bass and farmed sea bass - from Greece. Would like to find a fish here but haven't got far with that yet. Seems that as a resolute non-fisher I either need to make some new friends or go for a farmed trout. Any suggestions welcome. Herefordshire used to be big on eels but have no idea if they are still caught or how the populations are now. Or indeed what to do with one if I had it.

While away I also fitted in trip to a traditional bakery in a scenic location at Long Crichel. It was further improved by being yards from 2 whole fields of gloriously happy young piglets frolicking and chasing about with their large white mothers. An idyllic scene - I could have watched them for ages. Wish all pigs got the chance to enjoy such freedom. Naturally we have our own fine pigs here too, eg the Tudges at Orleton.

Long Crichel had lovely bread (didn't check the flour provenance) and their salad leaves were good - though £2 a bag against Grove Farm's bargain £1 for an equally tasty bag here. We have a fine baker who goes to the Farmers Market in Hereford - but they can’t currently use Herefordshire flour as there is none produced commercially in the county. One of the Sustainable Masters degree students at Holme Lacy is doing a short feasibility study on getting a flour mill up and running again - which would be great. Will update you as more info is out.

After making a particularly rubbish regular loaf (I have been doing quite well) I'm meaning to try sourdough bread but lack faith that just leaving the dough around is going to do the trick. Quick burst of internet research reveals bewildering array of cunning tips with raisins, http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-wild-sourdough-starter, potatoes or just air and time…

Coming back home I was driving round Herefordshire backroads today getting another bag of wheat and taking it to be ground and – with my visitor’s eyes still on from the weekend away – was struck by how beautiful it is. It’s a lovely time of year.

Autumn planning - & Middlesbrough

2008-04-07T06:43:00.000-07:00

Bizarrely - for me at least - I've been thinking about autumn provisions. Maybe something to do with starting to grasp that growing food takes longer than picking it up off a supermarket shelf...

The first prompt was Melody’s fine veggie stew served at last week’s Transition Towns Herefoodshire meeting. This contained a mix of local dried beans, which was news to me because I hadn't realised you could grow them here - and there are no Fairtrade ones. So I’m having plans to grow - or even better persuade someone else to grow - some borlotti beans and some Italian red ones called Tongues of Fire ... who could fail to be stirred by the prospect!

The whole free food thing continues to appeal - just tried some excellent some wild garlic leaves in an omelette. I've been visiting some favourite autumn free food haunts for maintenance checks. There is a fine though underappreciated bramble round the corner from work which is incredibly spiky - and has wonderful blackberries for months. That was covering most of the pavement so I gave that a trim. And someone dumped a load of garden waste all over the trunks of our local hedge damson near the river, which provided us with pounds of delicious fruit last autumn, so did some clearing on that too.

I'm really appreciating the damson blossom in the hedges. It looked particularly pretty combined with snow yesterday! Our fruit trees deliver both aesthetically and with their produce and it seems sad that more of the fruit is not used and enjoyed. Thinking of blossom instantly reminded me of David Marshall’s apple orchard project for the Bulmer Foundation. This set out to understand the real importance of orchards to Herefordshire and has now prepared triple bottom line impact accounts for the six orchards in the project. The accounts assess the environmental, social and economic impacts of the orchards and found they totalled 8 times the direct profit to the owner. Although a mere handful of more than three thousand orchards in the County, these orchards were selected to represent the different types and characteristics of orchard that can be found here. The flora and fauna survey found an extraordinary 785 species in the 6 orchards - including a lichen thought to be extinct in the UK! See their latest update report (3 pages) at http://www.bulmerfoundation.org.uk/fls/research.htm - first item.

I was also excited to read about Middlesbrough's urban food growing initiative and have started eyeing up various promising plots... Could it be possible that Herefordshire might have even more natural strengths than Middlesbrough in getting people growing stuff?

"All over the town, disused urban spaces were turned into fertile corners bursting with freshly grown fruit and vegetables as more than 1,000 residents took part in a project aimed at changing the way they think about food. This year, the results could be even more spectacular.
The idea of the urban farming project was to make people more aware of food miles, improve health and aid regeneration of the borough, which contains the ninth most deprived area in the UK. Groundwork South Tees advised schools, mental health hospitals, residential care homes and retailers on planting and growing many varieties of herbs, vegetables and fruit. Containers of different sizes were used so people could cultivate whatever space they had.
Middlesbrough borough council turned over parkland, town-centre planters and other landholdings for fruit and vegetable growing. The eight-month project culminated in a town meal outside the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, where up to 8,000 people shared meals from the food that had been grown."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/26/
cityfood

Brunch at Bircher

2008-03-31T10:05:00.000-07:00

The Herefoodshire brunch at Bircher - the first day of British Summer time - was blessed with glorious sunshine – in complete contrast to the dreadful weather the previous day.

Nancy produced a feast of crispy potato cakes (see recipe below), Tamworth sausages, eggs from the Glyn-Jones'on half-Herefordshire flour rolls – not to mention the home made mushroom sauce, stewed fruits and Dairy House yoghurt. It was a very convivial gathering and raised well over £100 for the Yarpole Community shop project - which also sells lots of local food.

Gilly suggested we make a feature of the many opportunities for using more damsons: they fruit freely in the hedgerows, have a gloriously sophisticated taste and are severely underused. Volunteers wanted for a ‘Damsons in Distress’ festival this autumn!

And good news - the first pledge is up on the myherefordshire site: http://www.myherefordshire.com/contribute.aspx Feel free to add your own!

There is a book out on the Aberdaron diet (North Wales) - and the author only did it for 3 months. Apparently it’s full of recipes so we are fighting back with this tasty, good looking and stunningly economical recipe!

Nancy’s potato cakes

Coarsely grate 4 medium potatoes
Add one finely chopped onion
Sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt, mix and leave for ½ hour
Drain in a colander to remove excess juice
Season to taste
Add 1 egg
Grease baking sheet
Put tablespoon size dollops on sheet
Cook on hot - round 200 degrees - for about 20 minutes or until brown

Serve to delighted audience.
Even good cold!

A trip away from home and the consequences

2008-03-28T05:46:00.000-07:00

There was always a bit of a debate about how the Herefoodshire Challenge would apply when out of the county of Herefordshire. Ms H said that she would try her best to eat local produce from wherever she was, but Mr H really thought it all sounded too complicated to make a hard and fast commitment when outside the house.

Last weekend we went up to Snowdonia with our son and some friends to a self catering cottage in a mountain area. We took quite a lot of Herefordshire produce with us, and also managed to buy local milk. Another Herefordshire based friend who came produced a delicious casserole made with Herefordshire pork, cider and celeriac. We also enjoyed the first taste of the Tamworth pig sausages (see earlier blog)

Inevitably, however, there were several other food items brought by other people. This only really became an issue when packing up to leave. In the end we left a delicious looking ham from Cheshire for the lucky next inhabitants. However, some cake from the Local Produce Market (but not made with Herefordshire flour because no-one is making anything with Herefordshire flour because no-one can buy it yet) managed to arrive back home - and some delicious jasmine pearls (for tea) have also been sneaked into the home. Ms H's view is that things are going downhill fast!

On a positive Herefoodshire note, we have now enjoyed the first rhubarb of the season, and Grove Farm has just got a supply of mushrooms again. Amazing how wonderful mushrooms taste when you haven't had them for a month.

Another special moment was when Mr H arrived home yesterday to find five dozen Herefordshire eggs had all been laid - in boxes - right by the front door! (I think they are for the brunch on Sunday!)

On the planting front, there has been a period of inaction. The weather has been very cold and there is no sign of anything germinating as yet. Radishes should go in soon, and Ms H is keen to get hold of some rhubarb plants. We are improving at growing mustard in our sprouter. And Ms H excited to track down some cider vinegar at Newton's farm, just a mile from Leominster.

The honeymoon period and the initial rush of excitement is over, but we now know this challenge is genuinely possible without superhuman effort, asceticism or skill. Which is great. The project remains engaging and we will do our best to not let a whole two weeks go by again without any blogs for our devoted readers.

If any local readers fancy joining us for a Herefoodshire brunch this Sunday at Gate House Farm, Bircher, at 11.30, please let us know by emailing herefoodshire@hotmail.co.uk.

Encounter wit the Bromyard Diet

2008-03-13T14:53:00.000-07:00

Happy visit on way home from work to Handley Organics Farm shop who celebrated their first birthday today. This is also the workplace of Mary, the woman behind the Bromyard Diet.

Mary has challenged herself and the Bromyard community to support their local producers and fine range of independent shops by experimenting with living on food and drink from within a 25 mile radius of the town centre - one day’s ride by stagecoach. She will be charting her progress in Off the Record, the monthly community magazine for Bromyard and district, which she edits. Bromyard has so many independent shops it may even sell as much local produce as Leominster: all we need is someone to do a survey and find out! I also met Bromyard’s Mayor and town crier in full fig. The Mayor has a great slogan – “Bromyard is a super Market Town” (rather than the sadly much more common Supermarket Town).

Handley Organics is certainly a good place to know about for locavores. They currently have fennel, beetroot, chard, red onions and red /green cabbage from Herefordshire – much of it grown on their own farm, as well as their own frozen berries and lots of Worcestershire lines. Impressively they are already offering this season’s garlic, due to cunning use of traditional hot beds. Other ingenious local growers are producing very fetching bunches of new carrots through judicious use of plastic and there are rumours that beans will soon be available, boosted by spare heat from an anaerobic digester. I’m deeply impressed by the ingenuity of our growers in squeezing weeks ahead. We’ve only just started putting the seeds in…

We’ve been having a go at being vegan for the first week of Orthodox Lent. We thought it would be dreadful- but remarkably (and happily) actually the veg is so good is has been a pleasure.

In praise of pigs - especially on Bircher Common

2008-03-12T14:48:00.000-07:00

When my son was small nearly 20 years ago one of his favourite outings was to Bircher Common to see the pigs. There were 2 sties you could lean over and chat to the black spotted pigs and their piglets and maybe even give them a pat. We really missed them when they went.

A few years later we went up to the Oaker Coppice in autumn and there was a sow rootling round for acorns and beech mast. After a hard summer in a sty rearing piglets it seemed only fair that she should get an autumn break and some well deserved “me time”. It was a scene of immense contentment. I found it profoundly satisfying to see a pig in her element, peacefully at home in the woods eating free food as her ancestors have done for centuries. The ancient right of pannage like all the best things in life is a win-win situation: it allows pigs to fatten up before the winter and protects ponies and cattle, who are poisoned by eating green acorns. In 2006 the Verderers appealed for extra pigs to forage in the New Forest because 43 ponies had died of poisoning due to an unusually heavy acorn crop.*

Three years ago on New Years’ Day we went for a walk on the common with a London friend on a bright chilly day. We were nearly back at the car when we saw a sow and her piglets walking past - some Bircher commoners have the right to run pigs all year round. It was a delightful experience. One of the pigs come up and investigated Harriet’s shoe. They were interested in us, they weren’t remotely aggressive and it made our day.

Nowadays there are far fewer animals on the common - 20 years ago there were ducks, goats, chickens everywhere - and for me the place, though still lovely, is the poorer for it. I thought the era of pigs had gone forever. But on February 9th – the day of the Herefoodshire launch - I went up to the common with an Oxford friend and glimpsed a delightful Tamworth pig. The Tamworth is not any old pig. It is Britain’s purest native pig, the “Pig of the woods”. The Rare Breeds Survival Trust estimate there are only 300 or so of these handsome long lean ginger pigs left**, making them considerably rarer than tigers, so we were thrilled. But better was to come; the pig ambled slowly towards us and wanted to have her nose patted and say hello. It was a companionable moment. And a perfect start to my own challenge to eat entirely Herefordshire food for a year.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that these encounters with pigs are some of my happiest recollections of walking in Herefordshire. Brief moments where we meet the animals that have formed a loved landscape and kept it stable. It gives us non-farmers a direct link to an unbroken, centuries old tradition of animal husbandry.

A few weeks later I was offered some sausages. We must celebrate our rare breeds and support those who put their time and skill into keeping them. Paradoxically this is achieved - unlike tiger conservation - by eating these endangered animals. So we have some of the extraordinary half ton of sausages produced from the delightful Thelma in our freezer. I can cope with her going as long as she has successors on the common. There has been some suggestion that she formed a hazard; I dispute this. It is up to us all to understand what a common is and familiarise ourselves with sensible precautions we should take in regard to animals who have a long established legal right to be on it. We have learned to live with cars; I’m sure we can cope with a few pigs.

I hope there will always be a chance of seeing a pig on Bircher common – and other commons in the county. I fully support commoners’ rights to use commons for their ancient and still important purpose of grazing and I’m sure many others would agree that this adds enormously to exploring Herefordshire.

*http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/news/article.php?aid=104084
** http://www.rbst.org.uk/watch-list/main.php

One month of Herefoodshire

2008-03-08T14:06:00.000-08:00

One month on from the Herefoodshire launch we are not losing weight. Far from it in fact - so much delicious Herefordshire food to enjoy. Ms H will be appearing on Radio Hereford & Worcester early on Monday morning to tell everyone about a day's eating. Well if it is today (Saturday) that she decides to talk about, there would have to be mention of Fairtrade muesli for breakfast, leek and potato soup with home made bread (all Herefordshire ingredients) for lunch, apple cake for tea, Tyrells crisps while watching the football before supper, and venison burgers, parsnips, onions, greens and salad (all Herefordshire again) with a bottle of Fairtrade wine for supper. What a feast!

One of the best things about Herefoodshire says Mr H is not going into a supermarket - just think a whole month without going into a supermarket. Liberating indeed.

Paul Wright has now put the 5 minute film he made about Herefoodshire onto a DVD. We are hoping to get it shown as a short before some of the films in the forthcoming Borderlines Film Festival here in Herefordshire. You can still download it from the myherefordshire.com site to view on your own computer if you want to.

Ready for planting

2008-03-05T12:11:00.000-08:00

We now have two raised beds in the garden ready for planting and Mr H has bought some broad beans, onions and salad seeds ready to plant. Manure was purchased from Rory, c/o Grove Farm Kimbolton + bags of soil conditioner from the Leominster waste site. Mixed with some really local soil we're all ready to go.

By the way, Mr H reckons that he is definitely in the lead for the amount of Herefoodshire time spent at home. Ms H was swanning round going to storytelling courses and Birmingham last week, and is suspected of eating non-Herefordshire food! Mr H on the other hand has been known to sacrifice himself by drinking Herefordshire cider because of the lack of soft drinks available. What heroism!

Ms Herefoodshire would like to point out that she never promised to eat entirely local - or Herefordshire food - when out of the county. It would just be too complicated and clunky. She has nobly promised not to go out of the county purely to eat other stuff - and to try her best when away to eat local to where she is/ Herefordshire/ Fairtrade food. And the mass produced food at the pub wasn't even nice! So pleased to get back home!

Herefoodshire hospitality

2008-03-03T12:26:00.000-08:00

We've been meaning to be more hospitable for ages - and all this thinking about food seemed the ideal reason to ask people round - even though we aren’t very good cooks.
So we invited a few people round on Sunday for bread and soup plus any small something they might like to bring.

7.00 start and no-one around by 7.15 didn't look entirely promising. Then Paul came bearing a fine quiche, made yesterday by the local butcher. Followed by J&C bearing an impressive looking slender choc cake. She had carefully omitted the baking powder in case it caused offence as a non-county product. Followed by N&B brandishing 2 Spanish, whoops Bircher, omelettes still warm in their frying pans, a large carton of lambs lettuce straight from the garden, some pickled beetroot and a bottle of sparking elderflower. With our stalwart veg soup, a bottle of Broadfield white wine and our first sprouted mustard crop to throw into the salad it was a real feast! Maybe a 5 mile radius would answer!

It was a happy realisation of what amazing food there is around in Herefordshire. And how lovely it is to share it. We plan to continue with informal monthly meetings, maybe alternating bring and share and finding local caterers/venues who would be like to host a meeting. The next one will be on Sunday March 30th - time & venue to be arranged.

vegetables everywhere - except in the garden

2008-02-25T11:56:00.001-08:00

Attempts to grow veg here are tentative to date: so far I have indoors some deformed cress (which I thought 4 year olds could grow) - and some quite respectable baby mustard, lambs lettuce and regular lettuce seedlings ready to put somewhere suitable. And we've now got mustard seeds sprouting - comparing performance of pampered seeds on cotton wool with those slumming it on bare plastic of a sprouter that's been resting at the back of the cupboards for the last 15 years...

Outside heroic efforts to clear the proposed veg patch continue. Maybe the raised bed idea has flaws ... like finding stuff to put in the beds and then working out how to get in into beds without collapsing. The idea of Actually Planting anything outside still seems some way off. Though actually garlic is in and chives are looking chirpy.

But progress is being made - including a short but inspirational burst from my 84 year old dad yesterday demonstrating soil levelling techniques. Manure is on order! I have had fun banging the frames together with monster nails. Great to do some bad carpentry again!

We've a good range of vegetables to eat: bags of carrots (huge & tasty), onions parsnips. Plus leeks, potatoes, cabbage ,cauliflower, purple sprouting broccoli - plus bags of baby spinach, mixed leaves (grown in a small local polytunnel) and mung beans (Aconbury sprouts) for salad.

Yesterdays' surprise triumph was a dish of champ - mashed potato with nettle tops & onions. Nettles were not announced till everyone had tried it. In my opinion there are excessive numbers of nettles round here and they are apparently powerful detox agents - so this seems a neat win-win freebie on several counts. There were some other dishes! It goes almost without saying that there is loads of great meat. Also eggs, & cheese.

Since starting this diet what now seems months ago but is actually 2 weeks we've only been to the supermarket once - for cat food and loo rolls. It is difficult to find this a loss- except to our rate of collection of plastic bags.

Sunny days and frosty nights

2008-02-18T10:01:00.000-08:00

The weather has been wonderfully Germanic since the launch of Herefoodshire, thus proving the value of local eating. The bread is very successful, and we have that extra frisson of enjoyment which comes from thinking that we are the only people eating bread made from Herefordshire flour - why not write in if you reckon we are not the only ones!

We now have lots of parsnips, carrots and onions courtesy of Grove Farm shop, and we are doing well with leeks, sprouts, broccoli and purple sprouting. We have lots of different Herefordshire cheeses, and butter, milk and yogurt from The Dairy House in Weobley. On the Traidcraft front, we are enjoying different mueslis, teas, Basmati rice, pasta, cashew nuts, sultanas, apricots and stem ginger cookies. And as for meat, we have enjoyed high quality Herefordshire lamb and pork. So far so good!

In the garden Ms H has been very busy cutting down trees so that Mr H can plant some vegetables. At the moment he is concentrating on painting the new planks of wood which are going to be turned into raised beds.
So why not sign up for the Herefoodshire challenge all you ardent blog readers! We await with bated breath..............

Sibling trade war breaks out

2008-02-13T13:47:00.000-08:00

My brother In New Zealand and I are conducting a spirited disagreement about world trade via text message. It is possible that this may be cutting out some subtle distinctions and polarising our positions unecessarily.... He says he's in favour of trade. I thnk I'm in favour of it too - and also doubt tht the entire capitalist system (or even one supermarket) will collapse because I'm eating local food for a year.

He is a lecturer in Economics and so efficiently cites a study (Food Miles – Comparative Energy/Emissions Performance of New Zealand’s Agriculture Industry:Caroline Saunders, Research Report No. 285 July 2006) that shows NZ lamb has a carbon footprint no larger than UK lamb, even after its food miles. I'm quite preapred to believe him but still feel that NZ lambs could be even better deployed in Asia or somewhere handier to NZ rather than a destination as lamb friendly as Herefordshire.

We both agree this would make a splendid stereotype-free debate for the BBC - stern economist versus fuzzy environmentalist - so maybe that is an appropriate place to stop.

Smallholder dream

2008-02-13T13:24:00.002-08:00

Carried away by a visiting friend's tales of the chickens in his back yard and the cheerful water feature noises they make- as well as their eggs - we felt moved to live the good life. Overcome by veglust I tore down two trees at the edge of an ivy infested patch of garden so Mr H could grow beautiful edible things - and leave my flower beds alone.
My mother says it will never work because it's too near the trees - but in a rush of blood to the head in the surprisingly warm Feb sun it seemed worth a try. And I like sawing.
So M H has spent the past two days taking the enourmous pile of resulting debris to the tip, whoops, composting facility.
Now that all that stands between us and our goal of planting a lot of yummy stuff for slugs to get their 5 a day portions from is just removing the stumps, digging up the ivy, enriching the soil and maybe creating some sort of raised beds so we're not wallowing in clay.
Maybe at that point we'll get round to moving on the chickens. Our friends in New Zealand were very complimentary about their guinea fowl, which don't dig up the garden and eat loads of pests - but we suspect that their calls might not go down well in a suburban location.

Day 4

2008-02-12T14:26:00.000-08:00

All a mixture of going fine and Still Distinctly Odd. We are doing well and have enjoyed lots of excellent food - but the cupboards and fridge do look distinctly different and, to be truthful, considerably emptier. Much more fresh food and much less reassuring store cupboard stuff. Am much relieved we have some Fairtrade back up items!
We had an excellent breakfast out at Grove Farm, Kimbolton, on Sunday - everything from Herefordshire except the bread. I rather wished I'd brought a couple of slices with me - but rallied when the sausages arrived. Great to be watch the hens pottering around the paddock from the cafe window while enjoying their eggs and a cosy fire.
Realise vegetarian rations woul be a bit short - unless you're a better cook than we are. Did whip up a fine omelette for a veggie friend but realised we couldn't think of many other options. Suggestions welcome.
The bread is definitely sustaining - though the bread machine shape loaf is all wrong aesthetically.
Enjoying looking at a book of potato recipes from around the world (thankyou Oxfam). It says you can make practically everything with potatos including chocolate cake... The pancakes sound less disconcerting to me.
Delighted that Paul's film is now up on myherefordshire.com - we're already plotting another one on '5 small steps to more local eating'. At the moment we're hotly debating what are the easiest products to switch.

The great launch

2008-02-09T22:24:00.000-08:00

Mr H up at 5am yesterday to prepare the rest of the votive offering items for the Grand Tombola in Corn Square. One hundred and fifty items altogether in five appropriately named Shared Harvest boxes. These ranged from small offerings of chicken oxo cubes and toasted breadcrumbs through medium offerings of raspberry jam and Scottish marmelade to a bottle of champagne.

At 10am the launch of Herefoodshire began. At first things didn't look too promising - there is nothing quite like offering something for nothing to turn some people very suspicious and scurrying away in the opposite direction as quickly as possible. However once two able and willing volunteers (thank you Jane & Joan) arrived to hand out the new Herefoodshire publicity cards and encourage people along, progress was swift.

Memorable moments included the ecstatic look from one girl on winning a plastic bottle of tomato ketchup to the, well it would have to be said, less-than-ecstatic look on the face of the winner of item 78, the Tikka Masala curry paste. The winners of the motley assortment of herbal teabags didn't look too thrilled either to be fair.

By 11.30am all 150 items had gone. The home cupboards had been successfully cleared and the 'old' contents given away. £37 had been raised for Oxfam. Mr and Ms H went off to the Fairtrade cafe - a monthly event - to celebrate with their guest and chief helper. Back at home we enjoyed the first loaf of bread made with the Herefordshire flour along with some very fine oak smoked cheddar from Weobley, some Herefordshire butter, chutney and coleslaw (home made)washed down with a fine organic cider.
Not a bad start.

Later in the day Mr H gave the fridge an opening day clean, and the house at the centre of the Herefoodshire Challenge is ready for business.

Oh yes, two questions arose on the very first day. Question one related to yeast - Ms H decided that the yeast was allowed to stay. (But is it Herefordshire yeast? Is is Fairtrade? Why doesn't it matter in the case of yeast?) Question 2 related to salt - Ms H purchased a Khoisan seaweed salt mill from Oxfam - but is it a Fairtrade approved item??

Doubtless more questions will arise as we proceed. Watch this space - and add your comments!

Media frenzy

2008-02-08T06:20:00.000-08:00

Ms Herefoodshire was up well before dawn to drive into Hereford for a radio interview. Then soon after her return to Leominster a BBC film crew arrived to make a piece for Midlands Today. Ms H took the crew round the town to interview the W.I.market, Nitty Gritty wholefood shop and some Leominster butchers. Then back at home Ms H was filmed taking 'old' food out of the cupboards and replacing it with some 'new' from the local shopping trip and from the Fairtrade packs.
Mr H has been given the afternoon task of preparing the offerings for tomorrow's grand tombola. Do come along to Corn Square in Leominster from 10am tomorrow to see what you might win - half a packet of biscuits or a bottle of champagne. C u there............

Wheat's in the bag!

2008-02-04T17:31:00.001-08:00

Stung into action by a phone call from my mother, worried that we might faint from lack of bread, I turned my attention to grainy matters.
You can buy flour from Shropshire, and Wales, and doubtless everywehere else... but you can't currently buy any from Herefordshire -despite the fact we grow well over 20,000 hectares of the stuff.
Nevertheless, thanks to a network of skilled contacts I soon tracked down bags of wheat for sale at Batchely Mill near Bredenbury - organic to boot.
Armed with this I set off for Canon Frome, where Jenny F had kindly offered to mill my flour in the mill they use for their own grains, grown on the farm.
40 minutes later (many thanks Mike) I was the proud owner of 56 lbs of flour. Looks brilliant and am looking forward to trying it out soon.
While there I had a look at the oats rolled oats ready for feeding their animals and was forced to admit there did seem to be a lot of husk, both loose and clinging on tenancioulsy to every grain. Apparently something called a gleaner might do the trick in getting rid of all the inedible bits. If anyone has anything that can make oats edible for humans I would be thrilled to hear from them.
Timetable getting a tad tight for Saturday's launch (Corn Square 10 am). Still have survey to complete and publicity to order. And normal life to fit in. But this project is certainly a way of making the familiar interesting.

Traidcraft parcels arrive

2008-02-01T11:31:00.000-08:00

Food parcels have arrived for the soon-to-be starving residents of the great Herefoodshire experiment. On the last day of January parcel 1 of the mercy mission from Traidcraft was delivered. On the first day of February three more parcels arrived including several bottles of Chilean wine to drown the hunger pangs from imagining not having bread or oats.
Also today Mr H (who has been told not to impersonate Ms H any more on this site) collected a colourful banner (created by the talented team at the Echo craft shop in School Lane) with the soon-to-be-famous word Herefoodshire embriodered in red gingham. A photograph of this will be uploaded when either of the chief participants masters the technology and has a moment free from opening rescue food parcels.
Two days ago a splendid piece was published in the local paper. Mr H was referred to as having had a hang-dog expression when first told about the delights of Herefoodshire. Ms H says this is not an expression that she used to the reporter. Mr H says he will become Mr HD in protest. He is now fleeing the county for the weekend to gather some strength before the rigours begin.
Ms H will spend the weekend continuing to survey the shops and restaurants of Leominster.

Survey of local shops

2008-01-28T10:01:00.000-08:00

Today was the day of the survey.
Lots of trouble with the computer printer, so couldn't print out my exciting survey at home. But then rescued by some talented youngsters - and away I went. A tour around the shops of Leominster asking them to fill in answers to the following questions :

1) What food/drink grown/produced/made in Herefordshire from all Herefordshire ingredients do you sell/serve?
(Yes it is an ugly sentence isn't it but never mind - my husband says we've got to find out what is available so he doesn't starve to death!)

2) What other food/drink produc ed/made in Herefordshire (not necessarily from local ingredients, eg bread) do you sell/serve
(Wow that's even uglier than the first sentence - hope they understand it!)

3) What food/drink with a Fairtrade mark do you sell/serve?

4) If your stocks change, would you be able to tell a customer which items come from Herefordshire?

(The last two questions definitely get better marks for readability.......)

Results to follow on this very site in due course............................

Now another thing that happened was that our cat is really getting into the spirit of local food by bringing a local Herefordshire bird into the house and dropping its feathers all over the place. I told her that there was nothing else to eat for her until she took the hoover round - but in the end Tyger said that that was cruel and took the hoover round himself.
That's my husband - he says he should have a name even if he remains anonymous. After all he reminds me that this wasn't his idea and he is being relatively cooperative so far................

Clearing the cupboards

2008-01-27T08:44:00.000-08:00

Today is the day when we start the work of clearing out our food cupboards for the Herefoodshire Challenge. The Challenge begins in two weekends time. From that time on, the only food and drink allowed in the house here will be

either:

1) Grown or made in Herefordshire entirely of Herefordshire sourced ingredients

2) products with Fairtrade certification

So that means that there is a lot of stuff to clear out of the cupboards. All will be taken along to the Farmers Market in Leominster on Saturday February 9th and given away!

Yes, given away! There is not a catch.

Do come along for an absolute bargain - you might get half a packet of spaghetti - or even a bottle of French wine if you're lucky.

Oh well, must get back to the cupboards!