Food and other sundry stuff
Asking my son last year where he thought various items of food came from and getting the half joking reply-’Tesco or Sainsburys !’ made me decide to make growing food a bigger part of our HE. We have only been HE for 14 months so fairly new still.
We had the usual conversation about packaging and how harmful that was to the enviroment. He seemed to know quite a bit about that already-don’t know where from. We discussed buying fruit and veg from the local market, as they supported local farms and the produce was more seasonal.
‘Apart from the bananas.’
‘What ?’
‘You can’t grow bananas in England, it’s too cold.’ he explained kindly to his dim witted mother.
‘No alright apart from bananas.;
‘Or oranges, or lemons, or melons either.’ he added gleefully.
We then had an in depth conversation on where the expression ’smart alec’ came from. You see how one thing leads to another with HE.
Apart from all the things you CAN’T grow in your back garden in England, we set about sewing what would grow. Only ever having done tomatos in pots and the odd cucumber before, I was a novice at this. So we stuck with the easy things, potatos, carrots, leeks and salad crops. It has been enormously satisfying watching things grow, healthy exercise in the fresh air. Food tech , science and ecology all in one. You never know I may ever get him to actually eat some of the veggies !
A also decided that he wanted to follow a World Cookery course that I had found. After all his friend’s at school were doing food tech and learning how to make fruit salad, soup and fairy cakes. The course was very good and each lesson themed around a different country. It was ‘proper’ meal time food as well so we could all eat in the evening.
However the theory and the practical do not always go hand-in-hand. The other evening we ate Morrocan. A having made a chicken tagine. I dished up and asked for the verdict. It had smelt lovely whilst cooking, a delicate infusion of herbs and spices and gently simmering fruit.
‘Mm’ said number one son thoughtfully, ‘I don’t like it-all those aprricots spoil the taste of the chicken.’
And my husband….’ Well doesn’t do anything me for dear.’ he said reaching across and liberally dousing his plate in soy sauce !!!
Well you can lead a horse to water…..