Last day of January

This is the last day of January and finally the temperature outside is now a stable plus 5 or 7. Feels like summer.
Is a week ago that I have written something in the blog, but my time (free time) is always very limited. In the past two weeks i have been involve in the butchering of the pig, which it was for me a new experience and I did take my time to do it properly. I am happy with the results but I still have lots to learn.
Different cuts from the pig includes two big ham, pancettas, bacon,small ribs, fillets, stakes, chops,loin fillets, loin roast,salami and few sausages. As mentioned before, the pig head was also used for burgers and few jars of brawn. Christine made a wonderful black pudding from the blood ( already eaten). Hopefully the two ham this year will be better. last year ones were a bit too salty, but putting the slices or a all piece in cold water will solve the problem.

Yesterday Lesley and me we were working in the wooden house, installing the interior walls with some insulation, plus we bottled some beer and I started the use of the smoker for the first time.
I have also put some order in the small new shed to see how much food was still there left. This morning I have done the same with the two freezers and I am astonished about the amount of food is still there.
This is an account ( not accurate) of it:
4 rabbits / 2 pheasants / 2 chickens / 20 rabbit burgers / 8 pig burgers / 12 pike burgers / three pack of ravioli / 2 big sausages and 2 medium ones / 4 bags of peas / 8 bags of beetroot leaves, stems etc / a variety of 10 bags of other vegetables / 4 bottles of wild berry juice for the tea / three small bottles of milk / 5 jars of chutney  / 5 jars of jam / 5 jars of other mixed meat in olive oil / 3 jars of soft cheese / three plum cakes / about 5 kg of flour, about 12 kg of potato a green pumpkin and a onion. Plus few parts of the pig in various pieces.
I have far more food that I need it for the rest of February.
I have been eating the most strange dishes, using all parts of every thing I had available. I recently had broth for the all week, and soups and made 5 meals from a single cabbage and so on. I have been eating this way to try to save as much as I could in order to maintain the good stuff still in stock.
There are still 5 leeks in the frozen garden and still 2 plants of Brussels sprouts.
Considering that most of the time (during the Christmas holidays )all the family was eating from the storage food, I can say that we could have done this experiment together for at lest three months.
The all experience tells me that we can survive with little money if you are prepare to be organise properly and do the job of cooking and preserving food. We have ( I surely have ) been eating well and happily a variety of food, and I think with the exception of the fruit, it was a balance diet. The only fruit I had so far  was apples. I suppose the drinks made from the fruits from the garden ( pear, apple, raspberry,damson,plums ) gave me a different choice.
As we were bottling the beer we calculated how much money we can save doing it ourselves.
We made 40 bottles and buying them it would cost about £60. Instead we spend £11.50 for the 1 kg sugar and the concentrated
The wine costs us about 25 pence per bottle insted of £4.99 or more. But drinks were not in the agenda for this protest / experiment. Surely with a bigger freezer and another small piece of land you could be 80% self sufficient. Our chickens are potential;y the easiest and cheapest way of providing food, both in meat and eggs. The only food we buy for them is a bag of grains which cost about £9 and last two months, feeding 4 chickens and a cockerel. The rest of the food is scraps and rescued bread, rice ,pasta etc.
The chickens also provides our kitchen garden the manure and they attract many birds that feed themselves from what the chickens leave behind. Plus, they are a good company.
Anyhow, I have plenty of food and from now on I will invite the rest of the family to eat more often what is left in the freezer and in the jars, so both freezer can be emptied for the new stock to go in.
Here are some recent pictures.

Half of the pig

My lunch today. Liver and boiled cabbage

Salami and bacon cured and drying

The Ham in salt

Smoking the ham

Some smoked salami and bacon..They were smoking overnight. Looks good but we need to wait for the taste....

read this

24 January 2011 Last updated at 11:32

 

Report: Urgent action needed to avert global hunger

By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News

The report calls for an urgent change to food production in order to feed future generations

Continue reading the main story

Related stories

• World food prices 'at fresh high'
• Green ham with your eggs?   Read this!!
• Index shows global hunger growing

A UK government-commissioned study into food security has called for urgent action to avert global hunger.

The Foresight Report on Food and Farming Futures says the current system is unsustainable and will fail to end hunger unless radically redesigned.
It is the first study across a range of disciplines deemed to have put such fears on a firm analytical footing.
The report is the culmination of a two-year study, involving 400 experts from 35 countries.
According to the government's chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington, the study provides compelling evidence for governments to act now.
The report emphasises changes to farming, to ensure that increasing yields does not come at the expense of sustainability and to provide incentives to the agricultural sector that address malnutrition.
It also recommends that the most resource-intensive types of food are curbed and that waste is minimised in food production.
"We know in the next 20 years the world population will increase to something like 8.3 billion people," he told BBC News.
"We know that urbanisation is going to be a driver and that something of the order of 65-70% of the world's population will be living in cities at that time.
"We know that the world is getting more prosperous and that the demand for basic commodities - food, water and energy - will be rising as that prosperity increases, increasing at the same time as the population."
He warned: "We have 20 years to arguably deliver something of the order of 40% more food; 30% more available fresh water and of the order of 50% more energy.
"We can't wait 20 years or 10 years indeed - this is really urgent."
Radical changes Professor Beddington commissioned the study and was among the first to warn of "a perfect storm" of a growing population, climate change and diminishing resources for food production.
The Foresight report says that the food production system will need to be radically changed, not just to produce more food but to produce it sustainably.
"There is an urgency in taking what may be very difficult policy decisions," the authors say.
"(But) 925 million people suffer hunger and perhaps a further billion lack micronutrients. The task is difficult because the food system is working for the majority of people but those at risk of hunger have least influence on decision-making."

Professor Beddington also said he viewed the billion people who overeat and are therefore obese are another symptom of the failure of the food production system to deliver good health and well-being to the world's growing population.
The report says that "piecemeal" changes are not an option: "Nothing less is required than a redesign of the whole food system to bring sustainability to the fore."
The authors are calling for food and agriculture to move up the political agenda and be co-ordinated with efforts to tackle the impact of climate change, water and energy supplies and the loss of farm land.
They also warn that there is no "silver bullet" that will solve the problem but concerted action is needed on many fronts.
Facing reality Professor Beddington said: "We've got to actually face up to the fact that this is a complicated problem which involves vastly different levels of society and we need to be persuading policy makers not to think about food in isolation, not to think about climate change in isolation, not to think about water in isolation, not to think about energy in isolation. All of them are intimately related."

The report adds that new research can play an important role. It also says that the use of any particular technology, such as genetic modification, cloning and nanotechnology should not be ruled out. But it acknowledges that there is resistance to the application of controversial technologies.
"Achieving a strong evidence base (of the safety or otherwise) in controversial areas is not enough. Genuine public debate needs to play a crucial role," the report says.
However, by assessing 40 success stories from Africa the report authors say the spread of existing best-practice could treble food production.
"Ending hunger is one of the greatest challenges to be considered by this project," the report observes.
It calls for protection of the poorest from sharp price increases through government intervention and greater liberalisation of the trade in food in order to offset market volatility.
They also note that China has invested heavily in agricultural and consequently one of the few countries to have met the Millenium Development Goal (MDG) of halving hunger.
The report also calls for new measures to hold governments and food producers to account. This would involve developing objective measures on how well they are doing to reduce hunger, combat climate change and environmental degradation and boosting food production.

salsicce e salami

Well, this morning I was sorting more of the pig meat left from yesterday cuts. I decided not to do more cuts but use the meat from the bones and bits and pieces. I wanted to try to make some sausages and salamis, plus boil all the bones for a broth and try also to make some pancetta and bacon. It did take some time and by 12.00 I finished all after 2.5 hours work.
It was a bit of a first experiment with the sausage filler and did not know how long it would take. This was because I am planning to make lots of salamis and sausages on Sunday.
My lunch was a broth of the boiled bones with bread and pieces of meat left attached to the bones. I will be having broth for the all week, including tonight. better use it.The broth is very light and you can taste the flavour of the meat. I can make a north Sardinia dish which consist in  using layers of bread covered with broth and grated cheese on top. Normally you should use old hard bread as in the past it was a poor dish were people use to put together left over ingredients just not to waste anything.
below some pictures of today work.

The natural case for making salami. it needs to be washed in warm water prior use.

The meat was cut in small pieces. At the back is the fat in cubes as you need 30% of it every KG of meat.

I have divided the meat and fat in two parts. One for the sausages and one for the salami.

The ingredients I have use to be mixed with the meat.pepper and salt / cloves / oregano / garlic/ rosemary  parsley / thyme and sage plus red wine made from the worcesterberries. All the ingredients have to be mixed very well with the meat and fat.

The final product was a big long salami and six chunky sausages. The salami is now hanging to dry and the sausages can be eaten fresh grilled or fried, or you can freeze them for later use.

Three pieces of bacon with salt and pepper mixed together plus a pancetta on the background. The bacon will be in the fridge inside a plastic bag for a week, then it will be hang to dry or smoked.

The bones after been boiled. As you can see there is still a full plate of meat from them. The meat is now very tender and you can make risotto using the broth or add the meat to tomato sauce or add the meat to boiled potato etc etc. The variety of dishes you can make is infinite.

A strange soup

Today I took some vegetables out from the freezer and a container with green stuff in it...but did not remember what it was. I was sure it was a soup of some sort, but what kind of soup? Well I had to wait till it was defrosted in the pan.
This morning I started to do cuttings from the pig which was dispatched last Saturday. I managed to cut one of the carcasses in three pieces and then refined the cut of the back leg, ready to be put under salt for ham.
I hope to do all the cuttings by the end of this week.
With the pig head, like last year, I managed to make 15 burgers and seven jars of brawn (?), boiled meat and bones. The bones and the meat from the head produces a natural gelatin and preserves the meat for long time.
It is amazing how much meat can be saved from the head of a pig. You probably can feed with both the burgers and the jars 30 people if you add a dozen of boiled potatoes to it. The meat cooks for about three hours and it comes loose from the bones and is very very tender and tasty. I normally put some bay leaves and mashed peppercorns and and salt to the water, but in Sardinia we add some vinegar as well.
With Christine we are planning to make cured hams, cured bacon, some sausages and salamis and if I got time I might attempt some smoking meat as well.
Yesterday I defrost peas, beans and beetroots leaves and cooked last winter cabbage. Peas are very sweet and the beetroot leaves are as good as spinach.
I have boiled the cabbage and some potatoes to then mash the potato and chop the boiled cabbage and mix the all lot together with some milk and one egg. The dish went into the oven and it was a real good meal.
The mysterious green soup was for my lunch today and it was made with pea pods and potatoes. The taste of the pea pods was strong but edible. The only problem was caused by the pea pods filament ....but it did not bodered me as I am no fussy about it.
I am trying to use more stuff from the freezer and so I am trying to feed the rest of the family with my products. There is still lots of food in there...and still coming in. The goose, the pig, the cockerel ....and spring will not be long with new herbs starting to grow around.
Christopher juice cartoons are saved as we are planning to produce more juice next time, and certainly more concentrated ones that are fantastic for teas. Peter is the one whom has tried the cherry, damson and raspberry ones, saying that they were all very good. So, is not only me that likes them. I should one day offer a fruit tea around the school and see the result...
Here some recent pictures.

Some of the seven jars of the pig head and one of the two big jars of gelatin. This product is very similar to the old fashion SPAM.

The Spam product on the right is processed finely to give it a better appearance. Mine is made with pieces of meat but with no additives or else..

Above the burgers from the meat of the pig head.

Food price rises again

 

This article demonstrates how important is not to waste food . Natural disaster that are affecting the production of rice, wheat and other crops so essential to feed the world are happening more and more often.

The agricultural system based on  monoculture could collapses and leave half of the population in the world( or more ) with no food. this will put people on the brink of war around the planet. millions of people will start to move to find food and survive. This is not an apochalict vision but a potential reality. If a company like Monsanto is allowed to patent corn seeds ( controlling 90% of it) then the risk of a dictatorial system in agriculture will mean that freedom of cultivation will became a crime. If we look at the graphic about the wheat production and consumption, we should add a column to it. After the stock pile column we should add one about the waste. if 50 % of the food produced is wasted from the production line to the end line ( our personal fridge) then we can see that we could feed about half of the population in the entire world.

If the Consumption of wheat  in 2010 is going to be 665 million tons, and by the time the product is manufactured and transformed into food, and half of the food is wasted, then surely if we do not waste all this food we can feed half of the population that is starving.

I recommends to watch this documentary for a better insight of the problem about food production.

Extract from the BBC

"Food prices are at their highest level on record, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

It tracks the wholesale cost of major foods such as sugar, meat and cereals, and says that prices last month were higher than their peak in 2008, when a food crisis prompted riots and demonstrations around the world.
The FAO was keen to say that we are not in the midst of another emergency, but as recent demonstrations in Tunisia and Algeria have been linked to higher food prices, alarm bells are ringing once again.
What's more, oil prices are also edging up, reaching their highest level in two years.

Following the 2008 peaks, good harvests for most basic foods helped prices to fall back.
But in 2010, severe weather in some of the world's biggest food exporting countries damaged supplies.
That helped to push food prices almost 20% higher than a year earlier, according to the FAO. (The 2010 figure was slightly below the annual measure for 2008 as a whole.)
Flooding hit the planting season in Canada, and destroyed crops of wheat and sugar cane in Australia.
In addition, drought and fires devastated harvests of wheat and other grains in Russia and the surrounding region during the summer, prompting Russia to ban exports.
As a result, wheat production is expected to be lower this year than in the last two years, according to US government estimates.

Wheat Production and Consumption
Year	Global Production	Global Consumption	Stockpiles (end of period)
millions of tonnes Source: US Department of Agriculture
2006-07	596	616	131
2007-08	611	617	125
2008-09	683	643	166
2009-10	680	652	187
2010-11	646	665	175

It will still be the third largest on record.
But crucially, it is expected lag behind the growing demand for food, which is another key factor pushing up prices.
Have the prices of all foods gone up?
The picture is mixed.
Rice, which is a staple in many Asian countries, hasn't risen by as much as other commodities because a record harvest is expected this year.
In addition, some countries which don't rely on supplies from disaster-hit exporters haven't experienced the same price squeeze.
Prices of maize in East Africa, for example, where it is the most important food crop, have fallen by up to 50% following bumper harvests.

There have also been more localised weather problems. They have received less coverage - but are no less important to farmers and consumers in those areas.

In Central America, lack of rain has damaged bean crops and caused the biggest individual price rises, according to a recent FAO report.
The price of red beans, part of the staple diet in the region, has almost trebled in the past year in El Salvador and Honduras.
What about speculators?
The FAO says speculators who trade commodities on the financial markets are not to blame for the huge rise in prices, but they have made matters worse.
Take sugar for example. Production has failed to keep up with the growing demand coming from developing countries, pushing prices sharply higher.

But the Economist Intelligence Unit also points to the role of speculators, who spotted the situation as an investment opportunity and "helped exaggerate" the price rallies.
The World Development Movement (WDM) is keen to curb this betting on prices.
It wants greater regulation of the buying and selling of futures contracts - which are an agreement to sell a commodity at a certain price at a set time.
These were created to reduce uncertainty as the producer has a guaranteed price and the buyer secures the goods they need. It is effectively a way for both sides to reduce the risk of doing business.
But the WDM and others think that trading these contracts like stocks and shares is pushing food prices even higher to the detriment of the poorest people".

back to my protest now.

I have been eating soup all week at lunch time and tonight I will finish the broth made from the goose carcass.
The brown trout kept in the jar from last year was edible but with a very strong flavour. The roast lamb was better. I suppose that the two products were tiny bit disappointing, but I am not wasting them. I will finish them this week. I am not eating stuff that is not edible or dangerous, simply some preserved food did not turn out to be as tasty as I expected. This is part of a process of learning and mistakes are always likely to happen. Generally I am more than satisfy of my preserved food. Last night we had goose breast made into steaks ( really good) and boiled beetroots leaves plus some  beans from freezer. The beetroot leaves are a good success and I will keep them again. I have recently made two more loafs of bread and one was made with rescued double cream and cheese.This one is particularly good. Crunchy outside and soft inside.
When bread is good I will be happy eating it on its one or with some sliced of the ham or cheese. Toasting it will be good to make bruschetta with oil,garlic and fresh tomato on top. Typical simple italian dish. Talking about tomatoes, we have not bought tomatoe for long time as we decided that to eat tasteless food is a waste of money. When we go back to Sardinia and we eat our cultivated ones then is difficult to try a variety that of the tomato has only the name and the colour. Fruits are in the same spectrum. In the past we tried to buy different varieties of fruits for fruit salads to find out that 2 thirds of them have no taste at all. So the fruit we buy in the family is limited to apples, tangarines, occasional peneaple or oranges.
Some of our apples are starting to go bad so I am going to proces them into jam as I did with our pears.
I have only four jam jars left so it wil be usefull to make some more. The best jam produced so far is the raspberries one. Hopefully next time the damson tree will be more generous than last year. The last jam we bought in the shop was probably three years ago or more.

back to school

Holidays are over and the snow is still here. I think we are going to have another long winter like the one before. yesterday was the hunger day event but did not here anything on the BBC news at 22.30. Hope the event was advertised on radio and other programs. If we do no talk about the problems we will never get over them.Information is vital to let people know what is going on around the world and why. some paper did published articles but I think the main media ( the television ) should give more space to this events, but not in the early morning or other strange hours. Here is an extract from the time with links for more information.

A Sari State of Affairs: India’s Barefoot Revolution – Today’s Times

What would it be like if women ran the world?
India? Revolutions begin in unlikely locations.
Karen Bartlett from The Times went to The Hunger Project, India to meet Sangita Naika, Leader of her village council (Panchayat) in Borda, one of the million women across India at the forefront of a ”barefoot revolution”.
The Times article also features an interview with Rita Sarin described by Karen as ’an architect of the barefoot revolution and perhaps the person most responsible for its success’ . Of course, for us at The Hunger Project, Rita Sarin is our incredible Vice President and Country Director of The Hunger Project – India.
Rita Sarin will be speaking at the World Hunger Day Briefing in London on Sunday 9 January 2010. Some Tickets are still available for this event and also the World Hunger Day Gala Concert featuring Dionne Warwick & Friends.
Learn about our Programmes in India and Rita Sarin, Read about our work Strengthening Elected Women Leaders. More about President Obama’s recent visit to The Hunger Project – India.
Learn about our work Empowering Women around the World.
With your help we can do more. Support World Hunger Day | GIVE NOW

In these 18 days of school closure for the holidays I have been cooking for the all family with our natural products and games. Finally the freezer is now going down a bit. I still have lots of vegetables and meat and this demonstrate that the all family could be fed if we are organised enough when collecting food from the wild, cultivating it more and preserving it more. When spring will came again I will be trying to preserve more dandelions, wild garlic and nettles leaves as they were superb in taste from the jars I kept. plus the ones I have boiled and kept in the freezer were good for making ravioli. When the big wooden house will be ready It will be the ideal space for preserving more wild food. Space was always a problem. i am very happy with the breads I am making, mixing poppy seeds, sesame seeds, caraway seeds to it. The roasted lamb preserved in a jar from last year Xmas meal left over was very good, and yesterday I have taken a jar of wild brown trout to be tried tonight. All the preserved food that has given a positive result is going to be noted in my  notebook and the experiment repeated again.
During the holidays we were eating a variety of food. Soups were very easy to make and good for the cold weather. Broth from pheasant and sheep neck bones was also very good. The day before yesterday I was given from Bruce a goose and yesterday I cooked the hart, the liver and the lungs with red wine adding a tbsp of oats and made a type of haggis. This is the first thing you should always eat of an animal.The big bird is now in the freezer all cleaned and ready for at least three more meals.

This is me getting the Small pieces of meat from the sheep neck after it has been roasted and served a full meal for all the family.After that I have boiled the neck bones for making a broth and more meat was carved out.It is incredible how much meat can you get from a single sheep neck and how many people can eat a meal from it.
Today I have harvested four remaining cabbages from the school garden as they were getting damaged. I have boiled them and I am waiting to get cool down before storing it in the freezer. It would be a shame to waste it. i will be probably using them with potato and filling for my pasta.Tonight I am having a broth made from the goose bones.It will be probably enough for three meals.just from bones and tiny bits of meat left attached to it.

new year resolution?

The snow is away and the rain is back, but we start to look forward as the days should start to get longer now...outside lots of birds are feeding in our garden, rotten apples and fat balls, plus the food the chickens leave around.tonight I am determined to make a fire outside and cook last neck from Donna's sheep.Some roast potato will go well together. I am thinking to roast the meat in the fire and hope that the rain stops.
At lunch time I had pheasant broth with some of my hard grissini bread. The all dish looked not interesting but I enjoyed as it was really tasty. Last night we all had potato cakes and scallops. The day before,at lunch time it was a interesting ravioli dishes.Christopher had ravioli with pesto and Lesley with Stilton cheese.M y one was ravioli with chestnut sauce made from my brother wife chestnuts, brought back from Sardinia in October. The ravioli were made last July with dandelion, nettles and sweet Cecily herbs. To make the sauce I boiled the chestnuts, then mash them into a pulp and mixed with double cream rescued from school.In the evening I roasted a pheasant although I was planning to cook a rabbit in a stew. I could not recognise the meat in the bag.

For the new year we went to visit Lesley's mum,her sister Elisabeth and husband Peter. Breakfasts, lunches and dinners were provided for us and I ate happily some food that was not prepared by myself. It was a nice break from our normal routine and luckily the weather was not to bad.
When we came back on Sunday night, the frozen fish cakes were just good for a quick dinner.
Finally the freezer seem to be going down a bit. It is difficult to take things out when is too full and sometime you need to empty the freezer half way down to get what you need.

In the garden we still have few leeks and few Brussels sprout. More winter cabbage is frozen in the school garden and considering the amount of beans and peas, plus the dozen of bags of beetroot in the house freezer, I must say that I have more food that I need. In fact during the holidays the all family is eating the food which was suppose to be mine only. This demonstrate that with a bit more organisation in cultivating the vegetables, and collecting the wild stuff we all could be doing this experiment for the winter and more. Did not take any pictures recently so I hope to post some later this week. the nine of January is the world hunger day, just to remind ourselves that people still die every day from hunger. It is estimated that about 20.000 people die every day  from hunger.Concerts are planned in London to raise money, which is a good thing but I still believe that different action should be taken by individuals as I have explained before in this blog.
Food waste is one of the causes of the hunger in the world. It is easier for us to give money as most of us have enough money to do so,but if we carry on wasting food we are not solving the problem.
Buy less, waste less and save money and most important save lives in other parts of the world. Remember that our surplus of food is  the food taken away from others. Information is now days available on the Internet so there is no excuse not to know what we should know...about it.
www.worldhungerday.org.uk
Happy new year to all.
my resolution will be to carry on my experiment as much as I can ad try my best to talk about this huge problem with anyone I Will meet.