Here are some of the presentations offered at the local food conference at Dunbar last month. Special thanks to all contributors for sharing their knowledge and expertise. Please acknowledge them if referencing their research. These were uploaded using Scribd. If anyone has additional presentations they want to add just email them to me.
Local Food Conference, Dunbar
Posted in Research with tags Carole Inglis, Jan Bebbington, Jim Mullan, Local food Conference, Osbert Lancaster on November 11, 2009 by fifedietBasil
Posted in Fife Food with tags Basil on November 9, 2009 by fifedietWhat do do with a large bag of lovely basil? Too much to be eaten in one sitting. Suggestions please…
Apple Days
Posted in Fruit with tags Apple Day 2009, Monimail, North Queensferry on November 4, 2009 by fifediet
This October saw apple days across Scotland and loads in Fife. We couldnt attend all of them but the Monimail Tower Apple Day and North Queensferry were busy and popular despite wildly varying weather conditions.
Pictured (left) is Mare de Manage a huge tree by the house at Monimail which produces infeasibly large apples, cookers which store well and become eaters after Christmas. Over the next year Monimail will be monitoring their orchard to catalogue each of the varieties, their qualities etc. They started to identify what they have at the moment with the great help of Willie Duncan, and list the following varieties: Mare de Manage, Greensleeves, Charles Ross, Adams Peerman, Fiesta, Anne Elizabeth, Ellisons Orange, Howgate, Bramleys, Egremont Russett, Princess, & James Greve.
The Fife Diet is keen to hear about other fruit growing in the region and exploring ways to get access to apples and pears, currently difficult to access. Leave a comment below or email us at fifediet (at) yahoo.co.uk
Congratulations to North Queensferry for a great day on the Sunday.
Weekly Recipe 2
Posted in Recipes, Uncategorized with tags Apple Days, Competition, Prizes, Weekly Recipes on November 2, 2009 by fifediet
Many thanks and congtarulations to the organisers of the apple days at Monimail and North Queensferry this weekend. Monimail got sunshine while North Queensferry coped with the storms and floods – but both were a great success. We have put some new apple recipes in our Real Time Recipe section, and await your additions.
You could win our monthly recipe prize, this week a copy of ‘From Petticoat Tails to Arbroath Smokies: Traditional Foods of Scotland’ by Laura Mason and Catherine Brown. Just send us your seasonal recipe ideas to: fifediet@yahoo.co.uk
See also our weekly recipe links from:
Apples *** Leeks *** Pumpkin *** Celery *** Potatoes *** Red Cabbage *** Squash *** Kohlrabi *** Wild Mushrooms *** Sweetcorn *** Pears
Fife Diet & GM
Posted in GM, Global Food Culture, Land / Ownership with tags Feeding Factory Farms, GM, Monsanto on October 22, 2009 by fifediet
Today FoE Europe, Food and Water Watch and the European Via Campesina launched a new film on the devastating impact of growing GM soy in Latin America. This is a part of the Feeding and Fuelling Europe project which aims to raise public awareness of the impacts of Europe’s factory farms and meat consumption in developing countries.
Many food commentators and activists are full of equivocal noises on GM – often repeating the same bits of propaganda drip fed through the media and industry. The Fife Diet (for what its worth) remains resolutely against GM and wholly unconvinced by any arguments in favour. The world food crisis is a social crisis it is not to be solved by a technical fix, especially one which puts more power and control in the hands of agri-business.
Soy, grown mostly to feed chickens, cows and pigs in Europe, now covers nearly 11 million hectares in South America – an area equivalent to all the arable farmland in Germany. The film shows that to make way for soy plantations, thousands of people are being forced from their land and with it, losing their ability to grow their own food. Indigenous people are being evicted and forests are being cleared.
Many of the soybeans are genetically modified by the multi-national Monsanto and massively increase the use of pesticides – poisoning rural communities, water sources and the natural environment. Download and view the film here. See more on GM at GM watch here.
Building the Local Food Movement
Posted in Events with tags Dunbar, Scotland's first annual Local Food Conference, Soil Association Scotland, Transition Scotland on October 14, 2009 by fifediet
Scotland’s First Annual Local Food Gathering – Dunbar, Scotland
Saturday and Sunday 24 & 25 October 2009 – Dunbar, Scotland
An event organised by One Planet Food, Sustaining Dunbar, Soil Association Scotland and Transition Scotland Support. Local food is on everyone’s agenda, from Transition initiatives to government policy makers. More and more people are aware that we need to develop a much more local, non-oil and chemical reliant food infrastructure as a matter of urgency.
The aim of this gathering is to help a Scottish food re-localisation movement cohere and develop strategic plans for taking the next steps, which will be revisited in another gathering in a year.
For further information contact: lesley@centreforstewardship.org.uk T. 01337 858838 or sign up direct from this link here…Dunbar Sign-Up or see the poster here.
Weekly Recipe Links 1
Posted in Recipes with tags Weekly Recipe Ideas on October 13, 2009 by fifediet
So what do you eat? We have lots of new members and lots of requests for recipes. So if you are an existing member with good recipes to share please send them in and we’ll add them to the Real Time Recipes section. In the meantime we are posting each week through the winter a recipe link for each item from fifteen in the veg box weekly delivery. The recipe guide assumes you can get hold of cheese, bacon, chicken, white fish, pork and organic beef as you can readily in Fife.
This week from:
Red Cabbage ** Beetroot ** Turnip ** Leeks ** Butternut Squash
Celery ** Celeriac ** Carrots ** Potatoes ** Ruby Chard
Eggs ** Roman Broccoli ** Pumpkin ** Cucumbers ** G Cabbage
Carbon Friendly Food
Posted in Research, Resilience, Sustainability with tags Carbon Friendly Food on October 13, 2009 by fifediet
This was received from friends and colleagues in England about an exciting new project: “It gives me great pleasure to announce the launch on 12th October of an exciting new organisation: Climate Friendly Food. I have been working with CFF over the last six months to develop the first on-line farm carbon calculator that fully takes into account soil processes, and the world’s first low carbon food certification programme. The exciting discovery is that correct farm practice – we term it “rich soil farming” – has a potential to absorb carbon dioxide that is so powerful it could play a major role in bringing down atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. CFF is dedicated to developing and promoting best practice for maximum carbon sequestration on farms in the UK and internationally to make real the vast potential of agriculture in the move to avert climate change.
You can get more information, follow the project, give your support or arrange certification on our website www.climatefriendlyfood.org.uk (a simple site is currently in place and the new full website will be go on line with the launch). The carbon calculator is free to use, is for farms and gardens and can even be used for home gardens, so you can find out how much CO2 your own garden absorbs every year!”
Saturday
Posted in Events, Fife Food with tags Dunfermline, Elspeth Killin, Fife Diet Public Meetings on October 10, 2009 by fifediet
Many thanks to everyone for coming along to our Dunfermline meeting, what a great turnout (!) It was great to see old members but mostly new, and special thanks to our guest speaker Elspeth Killin for a great talk on local, seasonal herbs, and how to use them as food and food as medicine.
The recipes from todays event are all in the Real Time Recipes section, you can try the Pumpkin Risotto or the Plum Crumble. Remember also you can still win a copy of our monthly giveaway cookery book as a prize if you submit recipe to us. See here for more details. Today’s beautiful vanilla ice cream was supplied by Nelsons of Culross and the cheese for the risottos was supplied by Ansther cheese straight from Dunfermline Farmers Market…
Many thanks also the Co-op members who invited us to speak at Cupar in the afternoon.
Dunfermline Meeting
Posted in Events on September 29, 2009 by fifediet
Our next event is a public meeting, lunch & talk about the Fife Diet, Saturday 10th October, Holy Trinity Church Hall, East Port, Dunfermline 12.30pm (prompt) – 2.30pm (See directions on Multimap here).
Speakers Mike Small: co-founder, introducing the Fife Diet
Guest speaker: Elspeth Killin on local, seasonal herbs
We will be serving a taste of a locally sourced, seasonal lunch and offering a fully supervised area for children to play in. If you live in Dunfermline or West Fife and want to get involved and help us run the day, please get in touch, we are looking for volunteers. You can also help us by printing out and putting up this poster: DUNFERMLINE POSTER
THIS EVENT IS FREE! – ALL WELCOME
Directions: Parking is available in Viewfield Terrace car park, which is just south of the Church and accessed from Viewfield Terrace alongside. Read more »
Carousel…
Posted in Beers/Wine, Events, Seasonable Eating, Sustainability with tags Clean Green Kinghorn, Ecology Centre, SCI on September 24, 2009 by fifediet
Come & celebrate the launch of “Clean Green Kinghorn” the new climate change campaign and enjoy sampling free local food & wine – Monday, September 28th, 7pm at the Carousel, Pettycur Road, Kinghorn
We are joining up with our chums the Sustainable Communities Initiative and the Ecology Centre to promote local food and have a nice relaxed evening…
GO HERE FOR YOUR POSTER AND MORE DETAILS
Top 50 Foods in the World!
Posted in Fife Food, Global Food Culture with tags Top 50 Foods in the World on September 21, 2009 by fifedietThis top 50 is nice ‘cos it links place to food (and Fife is listed!) “From cake, steak and tapas, to oysters, chicken and burgers, Killian Fox roamed the world to find the 50 best things to eat and the best places to eat them in, with a little help from professionals like Raymond Blanc, Michel Roux, Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray…”more here.
Food Resilience
Posted in Resilience on September 16, 2009 by fifediet
This is a transcript from Thought for the Day the other day (15 Sept 2009 – Good Morning Scotland BBC Radio Scotland). It’s a talk on food and resilience by Alastair McIntosh, a Quaker, author and Fellow of the Centre for Human Ecology:
“Good Morning, It’s a year ago today since our banking systems were very nearly engulfed following the collapse of the Lehman Brothers in America. And I bet I’m not alone in wondering what if our own government’s financial bail-out had not happened and succeeded.
Not only might the hole-in-the-wall have stopped talking to us. But our globalised food supply system could also have been thrown into chaos, because without the banks doing their bit you don’t get the deliveries coming through.
I’ve thought a lot about this recently while working with an Edinburgh University student seconded to my supervision. She went up to Stornoway and interviewed people about what happens when the Ullapool ferry fails to sail because of bad weather.
She learned that the supermarket shelves quickly go bare, and it’s not just panic buying. It’s also because restocking is on a just-in-time basis, and so there’s no slack to make up for any disruption in the system.
For the sake of comparison she then went on to interview people who could remember the six week long seamen’s strike in 1966, that forced Harold Wilson to declare a national state of emergency.
Most people said they’d avoided hardship because crofting was still vibrant. They had their own potatoes, hens, sheep, and maybe a cow for milk or a fishing boat moored in the loch. But above all, they had an ethos of sharing.
This gave the local economy the resilience by which it could stand up to knocks. But in contrast, today we have greater efficiency, but it’s also a more brittle system – like the banking crisis could very nearly have taught us.
The lesson is that economic efficiency is vital, but only if matched by the community resilience that makes for true security.
That’s why such principles as Fair Trade, farmers’ markets and local entrepreneurship are all so important.
They remind us that the economy should be not just about money, but also about the human handshakes that reflect right relationships … for they’re what counts when the ferry fails to sail.
Love Beetroot?
Posted in Recipes, Seasonable Eating on September 15, 2009 by fifediet
There are still prizes to give away for this months recipe competition.
We’re thinking what’s in season now: marrow, brambles, apples, runner beans, plums, cauliflowers, leeks, squash, spinach and beetroot…
Take a look at Love Beetroot for inspiration or check out this weeks recipe Beetroot Muffins in the Real Time Recipes section.
Send us your recipes to fifediet@yahoo.co.uk and you could win a copy of Sue Lawrence’s ‘Scottish Kitchen’.
Your Not from Round Here Are You?
Posted in Global Food Culture with tags Grist, Hellmans, Localwashing on September 8, 2009 by fifediet
This from Grist. With thanks to Claire for the tipoff…
“Local food, local goods, local everything is in, as you’ve no doubt heard. Local is fresher. Local burns less shipping fuel. Local keeps the wealth nearby. Naturally, there’s money to be made off local, so big businesses are muscling into the game. The emerging term is localwashing—a variation on greenwashing wherein businesses claim to be local when actually … you get it. “The ingenuity of the food manufacturers and marketers never ceases to amaze me,” said author Michael Pollan, who’s done more to articulate the need for local in the food realm than maybe anyone else. “They can turn any critique into a new way to sell food. You’ve got to hand it to them.”
Here’s a look at some prime examples of that ingenuity / absurdity / deception…Ever heard of that great advocate of eating local: Unilever or Pepsico?
