Beth Eats Local

…asked my housemates yesterday as they tucked into a curry and swigged tea. “Umm, Ok” I answered. The truth is, they’ve been pretty tough. This, I find, is a mental challenge, not just a culinary one.

On the 30th May, the night before my first day of local eating, I found myself in a tent in Newton-Ferrers, near Plymouth in Devon. My friend Ollie and I had gone to walk the South West Coast Path. Walk we did, at a military pace on the first day as we only managed to start walking at four and needed to get to the campsite before nightfall. I was expecting the night before the challenge to involve relaxing with friends around a meal comprised entirely of chocolate, tea and sugar, all the things that I wouldn’t be able to have for the next year. There would be pats on the back and general warm glow of appreciation for my bravery and single-mindedness. Instead, we cooked pasta and pesto on a camping stove (according to Ollie the most complex meal ever cooked on that stove ) and dropped into bed early because we were so exhausted from walking. I woke up the next day and cooked my first local meal - local to Newton-Ferrers that is. I had asparagus and scrambled eggs from Riverford Farm, a shop that I had found on the internet before the holiday and rerouted the walk to include.

This picture of my first local meal makes it look pretty nice - a romantic and slightly decadent breakfast in a field. The truth is that while the asparagus was great, tender and gently seasoned with posh salt, the eggs were completely rubbery. The gas ran out half way through the cooking procedure and I had to nuke them in the campsite microwave. I hate microwaves, but it was either nuke the eggs or go hungry, so nuke them I duly did.

The past few days have made me utterly fearful of being hungry, even though there isn’t really much likelyhood of that happening. I’ve started having psychosomatic hunger pangs

at times when I cannot possibly be hungry. I thought that I had cut down a lot on ‘non-local’ produce before I started this, but didn’t add in all the snack items that I ate. I didn’t realise how much I snacked during the day until I could no longer do so. No more biscuits on tap at work, no slice of bread when I get in from where ever I’ve been (I’m hoping this situation is going to be different in a week when I have successfully made my own sourdough bread - there’s definitely a blogpost in that particular journey). No quick handful of crisps, no… need I go on? What I am missing isn’t food, it’s time.

Leaving for Plymouth, I felt like I had things completely under control. I had prepared a bunch of snacks in case I couldn’t find any local food in Devon, the first day of my challenge went fine, apart from the rubber eggs. It was arriving back from camping late on Sunday, dog-tired from walking, that I realised the flaw in my micro-managed food plan. While I had prepared food to take with me to Devon in case I couldn’t get any there (the rule is I eat within 100 miles of the place that I am, or take food sourced from within 100 miles of Brighton with me), I hadn’t prepared any for when I got back.

When I arrived home, my vegetable box had arrived and I decided to roast some tomatoes and asparagus (there’s a theme developing here - do you think it’s asparagus season?) and make something involving gluten to wrap around them. Pancakes would have been great but my milk had gone off while I was away, so I ended up making some ‘tortillas’ which rather than the soft, malleable circular bread I am used to, became mishapen and cracker-like. In actual fact, they weren’t bad - kind of like oatcakes - but I wish I had had more time to make something better. This theme of not having time continued throughout the next day. I woke, not knowing what I was going to have for breakfast and opted to make some more of the same cracker-cakes and spread them with butter and honey. At lunchtime, I came home from work as usual, but instead of going back there in the afternoon, I was going to the Houses of Parliament to talk to Lib Dem Environment spokesperson Steve Webb about how bloggers can encourage the government to set higher targets for reducing carbon emissions (more on this later). This left me about two hours to make some food for the evening. I cobbled together a quiche (not a very good one), some honey tarts and honey biscuits all of which were ok but suffered from a) the lack of time involved in their making and b) the fact that they were made with bread flour as I don’t yet have any normal flour. So, a series of hurried and disappointing meals characterised the first few days of the diet, but yesterday I stuck some potatoes in the oven to bake and had them for lunch and dinner today with shallow-fried pepper and asparagus (the theme continues). They were gorgeous, both hot and cold, so I learnt a lesson, two lessons really. Firstly that I always need to be a meal or two ahead if I want to fit this in around my already busy schedule, and secondly that I shouldn’t attempt things I’m not very good at (pastry) at speed and in a bad mood.

So, I’m feeling more positive now, but then I have breakfast and lunch in the fridge and lots of time to cook the next meal tomorrow evening. At the moment, this is what it comes down to, it seems. Half of my brain is living my life (organising conferences, twittering, organising trips to Paris), and the other half is performing complex culinary equations - ‘What am I going to have for lunch?’ Could I also have this for dinner tomorrow?’ ‘Do I have the right ingredient in the house to make this?’

My final taste of chocolate for a year - pear and chocolate tart at Riverford Farm Cafe…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 10:37 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.