Reading Time: 10 minutesAs I drove up the track, I saw Helen. She waved at me from behind a full-sized skip bag of, what could be, the softest British wool – Ryeland wool. Fifteen Ryeland fleeces in a big sack. We exchanged talk about the journey over, then she said ‘I decided I might as well add in […]
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Charcuterie in the Pantry: The Meat Cure
Reading Time: 5 minutesCharcuterie in the pantry or larder. That’s what charcuterie has always been made for. For thousands of years we’ve been dry-curing and smoking meat (before we could import food from all around the world) because we needed to keep going in lean times. And lean times they were, as we had to produce from the […]
Store Cheese in the Pantry – Ditch the Fridge
Reading Time: 7 minutesCheese: take the milk, skim off the curds (solids) from the whey (liquids), press, ferment and age. Hey presto, you have a solid form of milk. We’ve long used this to extend its life and get us through lean times. A tradition thousands of years old. Store cheese in the pantry, and it’ll taste and […]
Bury Your Root Vegetables: Overwinter Storage In Sand and Compost Pots
Reading Time: 5 minutesI bury my root vegetables in sand and compost. No longer do they wilt and wrinkle in a basket in the cupboard, or in the fridge, if I can’t use them quick enough. Would you bury your root vegetables? You may know that you can keep root vegetables in sand or peat (or compost) over […]
Traditional Food Storage – Fridge Freezer Free
Reading Time: 7 minutesLove Your Larder, Pep up Your Pantry – get into traditional food storage, and you’ll think twice about the fridge freezer. Fancy something salted, pickled, fermented, dried, smoked, potted, cellared, and stored in olive oil or honey? You can find this food all around the world. You can sample all kinds of distinctive foods that […]
Animals and Ancestors: A Life Lived With Animals
Reading Time: 2 minutesCould a life lived with animals be in our DNA? We’ve evolved from hunter-gathers, into farmers looking out onto pasture, cornfield, hedgerow and wildwood beyond. Today the wildwood has retreated, and for most of us even farms too. We live in an increasingly artificial environment, and few of us live off the land. Yet we […]