A tale of two mushrooms: Eating local?

Mushroom photo by orchidgalore (I forgot to take a shot of mine :(

It is better to eat local. That’s a no brainer. Forget about foodmiles, carbon footprints and the like, just remember the tale of two mushrooms. The first was actually several small buttons, used by the cafe to garnish my lamb’s fry (liver) and bacon. They were anonymous and almost tasteless, the sort every supermarket sells. Who knows where they came from, and apart from presentation1 they added nothing to the dish. The second mushroom was a fat giant, bought from the mushroom man at the Tauranga Farmers’ Market. We hadn’t been kind to it, kept it several days sitting in its paper bag in the bottom of the fridge forgotten, till I grilled it for lunch. Fat, juicy and bursting with mushroom flavour, despite the delay and despite cooking it merely by shoving it under the grill with a slosh of olive oil while my bacon toasted.

The local mushroom beat the supermarket thing hands down (I do wonder why some cafes seek to save cents by serving tasteless mushrooms, but that’s another story).

Much of the produce from the Farmers’ Market is organic or spray free for much the same price as the mass market produce. Almost all of it tastes better, usually fresher, often with a story2 and sometimes just like in a Kongo market with a “matabiche”.3

You may think that eating local is a luxury for country folk, not so, there are markets all over NZ. So, as the guy on the TV advert says “Eat fresh!”

  1. My chef son will remind me here that presentation is nine tenths of the flavour, but that’s not quite true. [↩]
  2. The tale of the people who produced it, or at least the look of them if the stall was too busy for a chat. [↩]
  3. The same idea as a baker’s dozen, a little extra to keep a customer returning to your stall by thanking them for their custom. Like the packet of bacon Frank, of Frank’s Sausages, gave us on Saturday. [↩]

A repentant carnivore looks forward to a visit from the home-kill guy

...and you must admit they are looking good :)

I’ve been busy this evening taking photos of the steers and gleefully posting them to Facebook. All this because Barbara wanted photos before the home-kill butcher visits on Tuesday. Because after hisd visit there will be three steers not four.

All of which, at least when I read some of my comments and replies on Facebook raises questions like: What’s a repentant carnivore doing slavering over the thought of juicy roasts and tender pastramis? Does this meat frenzy fit at all?

I think so, let’s conside where the meat will go:

  • The lion’s share (pun intended?) will go into our freezers to be enjoyed over coming months. It will have avoided the journey’s to the slaughter house and from there to the retail butcher or supermarket. Loads of carbon that won’t become dioxide.
  • Quite a bit will go to our children and friends. The same carbon dioxide savings (nearly).
  • Some will go to the church foodbank, and/or other places that will allow people on tighter budgets than us enjoy some prime beef.
  • Some will be roast or BBQed for parties.

Basically in all these cases the “food miles” will be way less than an equivalent commercial “product”. But what about the land? It could have produced veges instead of feeding beef… Well, yes and no, it can produce veges, we plan to increase the vege patch every year for a while. But before our house was built it didn’t it produced lambs, which made expensive trips to the slaughter house and then to the cities of NZ and the world… and no one would try to produce veges here commercially at 450m we are too high, too dry and too cold.

QED as part of a balanced diet home-kill beef is suitable for even a repentant carnivore.

Only, I now have to try harder to ensure that I am eating less meaty meals than I have over the last few months. Cooking to eat with others, who seem less repentant (or at least resistant to the delights of the bean), makes real repenting difficult.