Vikings!

Every year at about this time our city gets invaded by Vikings. Some of them are local, others come all the way from Norway, Denmark and suchlike places to join in the fun. They race their long-boats down the river, hoist huge sail-like banners painted with sagas in the square and set up stalls demonstrating bits of Viking workaday life in the shopping centre.

It can get quite surreal in the streets: like anybody else, seasonal Vikings need a break from life's stage from time to time, so you also see them, still in their huge woollen robes with metal helmets, leather wrist-straps and sacking gaiters, talking on mobile phones or getting cash out from a hole-in-the-wall.

It's noticeable how well-adapted the simplest of things can be: the Vikings looked much warmer in their woollen and fur kit than the shoppers in their skimpy little nylon coats. We sampled Viking bread (heavy and tasty), cheese (a bit like a solid version of condensed milk), and soup (savoury and filling). You could also have a go at grinding flour: the result, still with its full quota of protein and vitamins, obviously made for better bread than its modern equivalent. Lunchista fille was asked if she could make good cheese: apparently this was a crucial life skill for any Viking lass on the pull.

There was a slave auction in the guildhall. The Viking legal system (yes there was one!) recognised two types of slaves: captured slaves and debt slaves. Vikings facing the dark-age equivalent of not being able to use the hole-in-the-wall could work for their creditors for a set time or, if there was no work needing doing, they could be sold off to pay off the debt and go and work their time for someone else. A debt slave had various rights, including the right to finish their time unharmed and not pregnant (pregnancy by your boss counted as a type of harm).

This gave them more rights than many of their decendents until about, ooh, the 1920s.

Flippin' pancakes!

Incredibly there exists such a word as "Eatertainment". It was coined by the Advertising community to express the idea that in order to get "today's high-maintenance kids" to eat their food, there needed to be some entertainment value in it for them. Given the kind of guff that's been advertised as "food" for children over the years, Lunchista can only assume that "eatertainment" is necessary to distract children from the feeling in their guts that what it being proffered isn't, strictly speaking, food in the original and genuine sense of the word.

In 1930s America, in the depths of the last depression, some of the first and most interesting Nutrition findings were made. One series of experiments, for example, verified that a slimming diet in an otherwise healthy and sane person would inevitably lead to a slower metabolism and an unbeatable obsession with food. In a different set of experiments, toddlers in an orphanage were given exactly what they wanted to eat. An array of different foods, ranging from the sweet through the savoury all the way to quite strong stuff like cod-liver oil, was put before each child, and they were given any help they needed to eat whatever pleased them. Some of the rickety children chose the cod-liver oil, over and over again, until they recovered. Everybody's health improved over the course of the experiment. There were at the time no adverts in orphanages, and affordable television hadn't been invented yet.

But there is a time for Eatertainment: that time is Pancake Day!

Melt an ounce of butter slowly, and stir in 4 ounces of flour to make a smooth paste. Then, bit by bit, stir in two whisked eggs, followed by 10 ounces of milk. It should end up as a smooth liquid that will coat the back of a spoon. Now the fun starts...

Melt enough butter to just cover the bottom of a frying pan, then pour in enough of the batter mixture to just cover that, swirling it around until it covers the full circle. After a minute or so on the heat, it should start to peel away from the sides. A little later and you can test to see if it's free from the pan: if not, slide a spatula underneath to free it. Then, well, have a look at the footage at the top of this post (or its mirror-image if you are right-handed). Fry for another couple of minutes on the other side, and serve it to the first person who's got to the table!

There is a Russian proverb, "The first pancake never works out". So even if it doesn't look that promising, have another go: things can only get better! The mixture described here will do between 6 and 8 pancakes.

Army Catering

In reviving any neglected Orchard, there comes a time when you have to admit that some of the trees are leaning over, falling over, dead in parts or simply overshadowing themselves. For most fruit-trees (but not plums or almonds) that time is now, when they are fast asleep and no sap would get lost. So we had to take the bull by the horns (or at least the saw by the handle) and make a start on pruning the poor trees into shape. Our chief Orchardista had decided to make a day of it by inviting the local fruit-tree expert to give us an illustrated pep-talk in the morning (in the delightful and newly-redecorated Social Hall), after which we could all have a spot of lunch and then head out with our "implements of Destruction" and do our worst.

On finding out that the Social Hall kitchen would be at our disposal, Lunchista offered to make soup. Then it transpired that 30 people had expressed interest in coming along. Which meant Army Catering: my favourite kind! Especially when there's any kind of project in the offing as well.

At the back of the largest cupboard in Chateau Lunchista's kitchen there lurks a giant stainless-steel saucepan: I think it holds 10 litres but I've never bothered to measure it, because the inside kind of expands into the fourth dimension, and whatever gets made in it there always seems to be plenty to go round. It was originally bought for making Elderberry Syrup, but it has also been used for making puree and preserve with previous fruit from the Orchard.

Out it came. Into it went a scaled-up version of the following (adapted from the Cranks' Recipe Book):

A spud, an onion, a carrot, a cooking apple, 2 cloves of garlic, all diced as in the picture, then gently fried until the onion is transparent. A large spoon of curry powder, 2 pints of veggie stock (Vecon is good) and a tin of the ever-useful Italian tomatoes then go in on top. Then bring it all to the boil while stirring, turn it down and let it simmer for half an hour. I did all this (ably assisted by Lunchista fille) the previous day and left it overnight. In the morning I got out one of those hand-held blenders and whizzed it smooth.

Why Mulligatawny? The rationale was fairly straightforward: if it's vegetarian then anybody can drink it, and if it packs a bit of heat then each mugful will warm us up more. It also turned out, by a happy coincidence, to be our chief Orchardista's favourite soup.

Haggis, neeps and tatties

We see here the ingredients (well, the non-alcoholic ones at any rate) for Burns Supper here at Chateau Lunchista. The more eagle-eyed will have spotted the "V" mark on our haggis, it's a vegetarian piece made out of nuts, pulses and veggie oils. Very savoury, very healthy and (I'm reliably informed) goes well with the old Water-of-Life. It's one of the easiest meals there is to get ready, too: the haggis goes in that steamer (yes the one I bought for 20p at the car-booty, plus the lid I found in a leftover box at The Waste street-market in Dalston) for an hour or so, the spuds are boiled and mashed, as are the neeps. Simple.

Which is just as well because out of the blue there came a TV programme I really wanted to watch: mad* Geography professor Nick Middleton is investigating why we're having such a cold winter, and how to survive it. In the process he travels to Scotland and lets himself get exposed to hypothermia, and buried in the snow. It is of course against such eventualities that the original haggis was designed to protect the intrepid drover, crofter or infrastructure maintenance engineer.

It happens that Lunchista's first ever taste of Burns' Night took place in an unknown pub somewhere in a deeply-wooded area of the Home Counties, twenty years ago today. I was on a train coming back from a meeting in London to my cheap-and-cheerful flat on the coast, when our journey came to a complete halt. A tree had been blown down across our route by what turned out to be the UK's worst storm of the 20th century. The train then trundled backwards to a station we had just left, and the lights went out: they must have had to cut the power to the third rail for the sake of any maintenance crew. Our guard stepped off to make a call down the line. He then came along through each darkened carriage and explained that, given that the nearest suitable heavy-lifting gear was in Cardiff, this was going to be a long wait. Cue surreal twist:

"...but I'm told there's a pub a hundred yards down that road who are offering free tasters of Haggis and Whisky because it's Burns' Night. You won't miss the train, because when the engineers arrive I'll come along too". Beat that for service! He was as good as his word, and two hours later made sure we all found our way back to the train. Suitably warmed and fed, we proceeded on our way.

And what was this meeting that had caused Lunchista's part in all the drama? A meeting for Meteorologists, of course!


*editor's note: "mad", uttered by Lunchista, is a term of respect.

Winter Warmer: the veggie challenge

In Lunchista's early days of attempted vegetarian cookery, the same problem used to present itself over and over again: I just couldn't find a vegetarian dish that filled me with quite as much warmth, sleet-proof-ness and sheer alcohol tolerance as was offered by meat dishes. Given that wine appeared more often in my life than central heating (or indeed heating of any sort), this was a serious issue.

Now you know those old eejits who talk about "Things they wish they'd known at eighteen"? Well, here's mine. It is the recipe for the warmest veggie dish I know that doesn't actually involve weapons-grade curry powder. The only drawback is, it needs a bit of forward planning (unless you cheat), but it serves 4 hungry students, or one lazy student all week, even if they're vegan.

Soak 200 grammes of chick-peas overnight, then boil them for an hour (perhaps while you're reading some classic literature or tidying up after the last party). Alternatively cheat, and get 1 lb of already-cooked chick-peas.

Peel and slice into chunks 2 spuds, 3 carrots and 3 parsnips, cut up a celery or a fennel. Dice 2 red onions, a clove of garlic, a lump of ginger and some mint leaves. Make up 300g of veggie stock and drop in some threads of saffron. Grab a tin of the ever-useful Italian tomatoes and a large frying pan (or that wok, including a lid). Find 1/2 a teaspoon crushed chillies, or mild chilli powder.

Heat up a little vegetable oil in the wok, and cook all the vegetables slowly until they are soft, then lift them out of the oil and put them aside. Fry the garlic and ginger, then add the onions, mint and chillies/powder. When the onions are soft, tip the tomatoes in, simmer for a few minutes then add the chick-peas and some of the juice in which they've been cooked. Add the stock and the cooked vegetables, then simmer the lot for 25 minutes, and serve.

If there's any left over it will keep for days and days, because there is no meat and hardly any fat. This would have been extremely useful for the young Lunchista, who often came home from parties hungry. It's far cheaper and healthier than burgers or kebabs, and at 1 a.m. can of course be eaten in the relative safety and comfort of your own kitchen.

Rabbit, rabbit...

I found out last month that there exists a professional local rabbit-shooter, who's out and about protecting people's veg. and even goes to the allotments near the Orchard every now and then. Then he sells the rabbits (thank you Heart of England Raptors for the picture).

Lunchista is now on his list of buyers: free-range (and probably fully Organic) rabbit casserole for 4 for a measly two quid! Bon apétit!

Don't cheek yer Elders

As someone born towards the end of the school year, Lunchista got rather used to hearing this phrase in the playground, and always thought it might be put to better use elsewhere. So here it is, dusted off and re-purposed, as an offering to the readership of The Year-Long Lunch Break to add to your anti Swine Flu arsenel.

It all started three years ago, on the garage roof at our old house. Lunchista shinned up with a pair of loppers to take down some huge branches that were overshadowing our garden. On closer inspection (Lunchista's eyesight was never fantastic) the branches proved to be absolutely dripping with berries. Not wanting to waste them, we put them all in a bucket and then rang round the rels for ideas on how they might be used. Kudos to Lunchista's mum for knowing how to put them to good use. Here's what we did.

We sat outside with a bucket and pulled all the berries gently off the stalks. This is rather time-consuming, but if it's not done the result has a bitter taste which makes it useless for things like eating. It also happens to be the kind of job you can do while discussing the finer points of existentialism, listening to some nice home-made music (or joining in), or taking the occasional swig of wine. The advantage of working outside is obvious once you bear in mind that elderberries were used for dying clothes in days gone by. For the same reason it's a good idea to be wearing dark clothes (of course anyone discussing existentialism will already be in black, so no problems there), and not to be needed at some venue demanding clean-looking hands at any time in the near future.

Once this has all been done (except perhaps the conclusion of the existentialism argument, which can wait til another day), tip the berries into a pan, put in just enough water to cover them, then bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes or so. Then go and find an old muslin, or a pair of old tights (not fishnets!). I've found that the best way to set up the berries for straining through the cloth overnight is to spread the cloth across a sieve placed over a big bowl, pour the berries and juice in, then pick up the corners of the cloth to tie up to a sturdy fixing point.

The next day, just add some wine-mulling spices and sugar, then simmer the juice until it becomes a bit thicker like a syrup, then pour into a jar that can be sealed. We have found that it keeps in the fridge for years. We use it like Ribena (but with hot water) and it's a real pick-me-up to fight off the effects of colds and flu, especially with honey, or some port, brandy or whisky.

It's been pouring with rain since we picked our berries this year, so I have had to blag a picture for this post (thank you Felicity ThriftyLiving) instead of going out and taking my own. It has also been difficult to find many berries that haven't been eaten by birds as soon as they're ripe.

Hell's Kitchen (and how to avoid it)

I don't know if this happens to anyone else but hot weather kills my appetite stone dead. Then after eating next-to-nothing all day I wonder where all my energy has gone (well Duh!, as a passing American would say). If it's difficult to eat, it's even harder to cook, so what's been happening in the Lunchista kitchen of late, and more to the point where have all the lunch ideas gone? Some of us are getting quite hungry out here!

This is what we do in hot weather. In fact, in 2003 when it was ludicrously hot for a ridiculous length of time, we carried on like this for weeks. A family from the Continent were staying so there were eight of us altogether, which made for a great atmosphere.

We have an ancient wooden dining table (the sort that folds down so it hardly takes up any room when not in use) that we bought from somebody's garage for a tenner. We sanded it down and varnished it with "does exactly what it says on the tin", making it almost completely resistant to food stains, burns, and the English summer weather. If sanding isn't your bag, the alternative is a couple of yards of wipe-clean plastic to use as a tablecloth. Thus protected, the table stayed outside all summer, making every meal a delightful garden experience. Anything that fell off it onto the lawn neither broke nor needed sweeping up. Heaven.

We made salads. Not limp lettuce and quartered tomatoes with a bit of salad cream type salad: this is hard-core. First, for the meal's energy, salad spuds with parsley and chives from the garden, plus dill pickles and yoghurt. Then a dish for protein, bean salad (a cupful of blackeye beans tipped into the water in which you've just boiled your breakfast egg, and left there to soak, will only need cooking for 20 minutes or so before lunch), then add, well, anything: peppers, tomatoes, sweetcorn, nuts...

And one for colour: grated beetroot and feta cheese (half-and-half) with some walnuts.

We found lettuce tastes a lot less limp if it just has lemon juice on it. And Lunchista has discovered that strawberries go really well with Wensleydale.

Finally, glasses of wine, and a huge jug of lemonade (thank you, The Homely Year, because I didn't have the presence of mind to get a photo of ours...), or just water with lemon slices in it: Lunchista can't drink just wine in that heat. Some people keep boxes of sliced lemon in the freezer for emergencies.

It is a curious fact of life that people will have better apetites if presented with lots of different dishes and just left to get on with it while chatting, than if there's just one heavy course. Some of our lunches, with the addition of tea and cakes, lasted through until the early evening. By which time the weather had cooled down enough to get the barbeque out...

The Eco-Slob School of Design

The afternoon sun is glinting on freshly-fallen rain, Lunchista had a particularly successful slug-blitz a few nights ago (and none have been spotted since), and it's the last sliver before new moon. Perfect. So what better time to share with you Lunchista's delight on discovering that an awful lot of this seed-planting lark, together with the ensuing angst about whether they'll come up (and why they don't), is completely and utterly unnecessary?

Welcome to the wonderful world of Permaculture ("Permanent Agriculture"), a way of designing landscapes of all sizes (and by extension, anything else) in such a way that Nature does most of the work so you don't have to! I stumbled across the term quite some time ago, but it has to be said that since then the parts of Chateau Lunchista's garden given over to it are doing rather well.

Now Permaculture does assume that you have quite a lot of time on your hands, at least initially, because you are asked to walk around (or sit and watch) your landscape and notice what's going on. Where do some areas naturally start and finish (e.g. dry parts, shady parts, parts frequented by any local wildlife...), and within each of these, what kind of plant (or weed, if you haven't planted anything yet) does well, and what struggles, gives up the ghost or is completely absent?

It almost sounds like cheating, but really it's best to plant the kind of thing you know is going to do well, and forego the kind of plant that's going to struggle. We started off with herbs, planting them near the door so there are the nice scents as you come out, oh and so you don't have to pick your way across a soggy lawn in the rain just to get some thyme for the spag bol. Those nice scents scare off various pests, so you can borrow herb plants and put them next to things that would otherwise suffer: all the little roses in our garden have chives as companions, to keep off the greenfly. There are a lot of "things that grow like weeds" which are actually useful: mint, strawbs, hazel, lemon-balm...

There are tactics such as thinking "upwards" if there's not much room in your landscape, or mimicking the seven height layers of a forest (Canopy, trees, shrubs, herbacious, ground-cover, roots, and climbers as shown in the illustration nicked from Spiralseeds: thanks guys!) if there is. So the Lunchista garden now has trees and shrubs. For the dosh-conscious, I might add that the phrase "mature garden" looks good on estate-agents' blurb.

The real hard-core like to take things which would otherwise be rubbish and turn them into something useful: they earth-up spuds in neat towers of abandoned tyres, make paths out of old bricks and assemble cold-frames out of disused windows. The softer option is to just make sure all the waste that a garden makes goes back in as something useful: we have a compost dalek, out of which something vaguely approximating soil comes every spring and autumn. The ash from the woodburner can also be spread about as fertiliser, but apparently coal-ash is a no-no because of heavy metal which can harm your plants. Something called "Jack-by-the-hedge" has seeded itself in our garden, and I'm just letting it carry on because it's edible and, as the name implies, will grow next to hedges: a place where everything else struggles.

Getting back to the seed question, why bother digging up expired annuals and replanting every year, when you could find something perennial which would give you almost as much yield? Recently that very question turned up in a rather thought-provoking BBC programme about the future of farming. One of the interesting factoids that transpired was that you could get almost as good a yield (calories and protein per acre, for example) from nut trees with assorted things growing around them as you can with grain. And none of that messing about with ploughing, spray-on weed-killer, fertiliser and the like. Alternatively you can be like Bruce the "lazy Aussie Farmer" and make more cash, even with less yield, by simply not bothering with a lot of the "input costs".

But Permaculture fans don't want to limit their design principles to gardens and farming: there's also housing, transport, healthcare, learning... And there isn't necessarily a size limit to the area involved, as long as you adapt optimally to each different part, letting nature do as much of the work as possible. So you could, in theory, have a village, with all its surrounding farmland, designed "permaculturally". Or a county, even a whole country.

Donkey who?

Lunchista has been tilting at windmills. Obviously the first thing you need to do in this case is to find a nearby windmill at which to tilt. I happened upon one while perusing a website about general local goings-on, and lo and behold it has a "Friends of" (well, Preservation Society actually) who are busy restoring it to its former glory, including the ability to mill grain. Lunchista paid them a visit today.

It's interesting to look back on the history of this kind of endeavour: a timeline forming part of the display showed two previous attempts at raising a restoration effort, both of which had come to very little. These happened in the 1950s and the 1980s. Lunchista can't remember the 1950s, but from what I can gather people weren't really into older things at the time: wanting to forget stuff like two world wars, they were more into new culture and technology at the Festival of Britain (1951), a brand new Queen (1953), and energy that would be "too cheap to meter" (ongoing, still metered). In the 1980s I guess most people would either have demolished it to make way for a supermarket car-park, or bunged a mobile phone mast on the top. Now, however, it seems we're a bit more clued-up.

The present effort started in 2001 and initially proceeded at glacial pace (I have just been reminded that this remark is unfair to Glaciers, some of whom move quite fast these days). It took til 2005 to raise their first £10,000. Then, though, things began to take off. It's that "everybody loves a winner" thing I suppose. A lottery grant (ironically funded entirely by people who weren't winners) is paying for the restoration, and a lot of the mechanism is already in place. The sails are in kit form in somebody's garage, and they (now hopefully "we") are starting to put them together next week.
Here is the result being aimed for (except it is now painted white, instead of being covered in black tar like a ship). And guess what? Unlike the case with a lot of other wind-powered enterprises, nobody is going to complain that "It doesn't look nice"!