Summer is coming on towards us - hot foot. Well, yesterday, today winter popped back. But yesterday we had 27 C. A good day for being in the water, not at my desk. Desk won. Barely. Still we're eating spring food - artichokes - we must have had a good 25 and still have 7 or so on the plants. My daydream is to get to enough to make them ingredients of pasta sauce and preserve some, instead of just special treats. Still, we're dramatically up on last year. Strawberries - not quite enough for jam but real big bowlfuls for dessert. The Zucchini is flowering and soon the time of 'oh no not another disguise for yet another zucchini' will be upon us. I got to feeling that our training to be a wasteful consumer society goes back a loooooong way -- I dried a load of beetroot, and pickled 7 jars yesterday - it had to come out was going to seed - a fair amount of the veg is doing that, we just don't eat it/ preserve it/ have something to feed it to. And the waste galls me, but... we HAVE to. Growing just enough is a freaking disaster area looking for a place to happen. Something always goes wrong, if not with every crop at least some of it. The last 4 winters -3 have been good for broccoli. Not last winter. Carrots and beets and leeks did well, however. So we overkill and spread our risks and by the time we know that we're safe, it's usually too late to give it away or to preserve it. And um we pick a lot of stuff either too late (after rats/caterpillars/slugs/birds discover it) or as a fear reaction to this too early.
Still... the past. I've been making Biltong (South African cured dried meat -like jerky but far nicer IMO)this last week. And Bobotie (cape malay slave dish, with mince/leftover meat and an egg custard topping), and boerebeskuit - rusks. My son was talking about melktert (milk tart) and I thought, yes I should do that. Now we eat 10 times the amount of biltong we ever did back in the old country. Sure meat is cheap, but making bobotie? I don't think I ever made it back in South Africa.
I could not bear to go back to live there. I did love the place and there are people I miss, badly. But I have made wonderful friends here, and to be honest, more of them, because we set out to do so. And I love the security, community and the island life. There has been nothing like it South Africa for 40 or more years (small country districts - which I loved then, had this feel to them , then.) Flinders Island has the highest proportion of volunteerism in Australia, which actually explains a lot. It's a little country in the best part of the past, itself, where fast-food doesn't really exist, where the hunting and fishing are good, and you still help (and know) your neighbours.
I don't want to carry the past we left to this spot. Troubles will come, but not from us, I hope. But the food, now, that is a different matter. I wonder what muttonbird biltong would taste like? ;-)
We had 27 today, too! Only ours was F, not C, and not (I hope) the high. Theoretically, that was above freezing; I believe, however, someone forgot to tell the fallen leaves acting as ground cover on my garden.
ReplyDeleteLisa S. in Seattle
Towards your garden - I found that there can be cold pockets of air in some places, when it is quite still - so I've had frost when the forecast temperature said 'no frost', and frost in one area of the garden, not others.
DeleteLate reply, but wanted to let you know that, alas, I was not mistaken. On Saturday, December 7th, the temperature on my front porch was 10F. I traveled (starting Saturday afternoon) and returned home to a house that was 49F inside. A wee bit cold. Long story (involving a frozen furnace condensate line), but everything is fine, now.
DeleteLisa S. in Seattle
I mentioned your cooking to my Calmer Half, and he started looking very homesick in response. And then I asked him what rusks were, and he looked as dumbfounded as if I'd asked what chocolate or coffee was. "Ye gods, I'm in a cultural desert!"
ReplyDeleteHe swears he'd never go back to South Africa, and that he loves America, but moments like this... well, I won't be surprised if I'm served bobotie or boerewors for dinner.
Well... um yes. I'm a bit like a stunned mullet meself at that :-). Do say 'Mrs Balls Homemade Peach Chutney, Ina Paarman Rosemary and olive salt, Koo Melon-and-Ginger Jam' to him. Those are the tastes I just have not quite managed to duplicate, but I have taken the good out of SA cooking and tried to add it to my Australian recipes. As a point of reference - if he or you are interested in making rusks similar to the commercial 'Ouma' - I have found a sweet yeast dough, baked and broken up, and then dried in a dehydrator makes a superior version :-) I don't know his part-of-the-country background, but I miss waterblommetjie Breedie and bokkoms and Jerepigo and know I can't ever really make the same thing, but I going to try. And no, I don't want to go back, and yes, I love our piece of Australia dearly (don't know the rest very well).
DeleteTwo weeks ago, he came practically dancing in the door, because one grocery store had gotten some Mrs. Balls in their tiny import section. (I must confess a serious liking for digestive biscuits, often fed from the same tiny import section.) He also brought home pickled onions and HP sauce, which apparently go a long way toward making for a lack of waterblommetjie breedie. We did find a source for miliepap, but the african import store proudly proclaimed they offered bush meat, and the "cleanliness?" ...suggested they might actually be doing so.
DeleteWe have the dehydrator freshly cleaned from a round of venison jerky - not quite the same as biltong - so we just might try making rusks. :-)
You made him whimper with the Koo Melon & Ginger jam, though. And he's trying to remind me that next year we need to plant spanspek - which I call cantaloupe - along with honeydew, which might be close enough to try making replacement melon & ginger jam.
Aha. Can help. My Ouma (granny) used to make it from water-melon rinds - cut the nice red stuff out, and use the white and green for jam - Wasn't quite the same, but was still passable. The melon used is specifically for jam, and isn't really edible, except as jam (I gre some one year, and was really very disappointed.) I made mini- milk-tarts for church today, to the shock of our little congregation.
DeleteJust at the moment I'm very envious of your antipodean summer. Canada sent us an Arctic present two days ago; there's 2'' of sleet on the ground, and we'll probably have no temps over freezing till Tuesday at least. Last Wednesday it was 78°F! Just now it is 18°. I and my water pipes are however thankful that it didn't actually go down to th forecast 9°F (-13°C) last night. Our houses aren't built for this!
ReplyDeleteI understand the 'not built for it' part perfectly. South African houses were mostly either built for summer and you nearly died in them if it got near freezing (which it did in lots of places). Which State are you in?
DeleteNorth Texas, 40-50 miles from the Oklahoma border. Old cowboy saying when a frigid north gale was blowing like on Thursday, "ain't nuthin' atween me and Canada but a barbwire fence!"
ReplyDeleteMuttonbird biltong could only taste good
ReplyDeleteJared