Aug 07 2008
About
The Tracing Paper reflects Nick Saltmarsh’s interest in the origins of the food we eat, from ocean, field and hedgerow to supermarket, shop and kitchen.
Why does it matter where our food is from?
Good food has always been an important part of my life. At school, equipped with Richard Mabey’s Food for Free, I foraged for sheep’s sorrel, cherry plums and samphire to supplement unsatisfactory school meals. Working on organic farms during university holidays, I developed a firm belief that the enjoyment of food and its production are inextricably linked - experientially, culturally and ethically.
After college, I spent a year on farms in Italy and Ireland, curing wild boar prosciutto, picking wild asparagus and fungi, weeding onions by the field and milking 40 goats by hand. Settling in London for a few years, I worked for an organic produce wholesaler, as a forager of wild mushrooms, and for a supplier of wild and specialist food to top London restaurants from Le Gavroche to Aubergine.
A short spell in the mountains of North Wales convinced me of a deep yearning to return to my native East Anglia. Working seasonally as a tour manager for educational trips to Italy, I started to write on the history and production of food in East Anglia.
I now work for East Anglia Food Link, an organisation working to develop and promote more local and sustainable food supply chains. Having joined EAFL to work on the creation of the Eostre Organics producers’ co-operative, I’ve since worked on a wide range of projects, involving producers, distributors, retailers and caterers.
This is, undeniably, an excellent blog. If you can keep this up, you’ve won a fan for life. Highlighting these issues is something we should all do on occasion, and to see a blog do it full time is inspiring.
Thanks Scott. It means a lot to hear that my early attempts at blogging are appreciated. There’s a lot of food out there - good and bad - and it all comes from somewhere, so I hope my continuing investigation of it remains informative.
Fantastic stuff. I’ve just linked to you on my blog under your very own heading ‘Where does our food come from?’!
Hi
I have just discovered this website and the Google search you created. I am very impressed that someone is highlighting this issue and also, providing such a great resource! I enjoy hearing about the organisations such as Tastes of Anglia, who’s events I try to attend. Thanks for a great website.
Wow, this is fantastic Nick! I look forward to seeing it develop and grow…
Excellent!
Hello Nick!
We have read your blog and we think that it is very interesting because we liked very much your article about the origin of food and the organic agriculture. We write this e-mail because your blog has to do a lot with our web page.
As an expert person in healthy food and cooking, we would like to recommend you to visit our web spanishflavours.com to know us better.
Spanishflavours.com is a web about Spanish food.Here you can find our typical Spanish products, recipes, articles about the Spanish culture and so on. We would like to be an open web where people could participate in our blog, send us recipes and discover the gastronomy in our country.
It would be great if you could leave your comments and add any suggestion to improve and enrich our web.
Finally, we would like to propose you to interchange our links to know better our web page and our items.
Thank you very much!
Our best regards for you, Nick!
Spanishflavours.com
Hi
I hope you are well? I just came across your foodie blog, I work for talkback Thames on a new cookery show called ‘Cooking The Books’ and I would love to get you on the show with your favourite dish! Below is the programme outline (the section highlighted in bold is the part of the show you would be involved in)…………
COOKING THE BOOKS
Cooking the Books is a new early evening stripped cookery/entertainment series playing weekdays on Five.
This is the show where we invite some of Britain’s top chefs to whip up a mouth-watering dish from their recipes books.The recipe book will be shown during the programme and references will be made to the specific recipe the chef has chosen to cook.
Jamie Oliver may cook us “hot smoked salmon with an amazing chilli salsa” from his new book “Jamie at Home”, Rick Stein might cook his exquisite Spinach, Mint and Feta Pastries from his Mediterranean Escapes book. Whatever it is it will not only look fantastic, it will taste amazing too – we’ll ask a lucky member of our audience to tuck in.
On each show we invite very special food fanatics and food related groups or societies to join us (15-20 people). They play an integral part of the show; each of them will bring along a dish they have prepared from their favourite cookery book (preferably a dish with a photo), along with the cookery book . Our presenter and star chef may have a taste of your creations and also ask members of the audience to judge some of the dishes that we make in the studio. A spokesperson from your group will have a brief chat to our presenter about what you do and what delicious food you have brought along with you. Our presenter may also ask another member of your group to assist our second celebrity chef in the kitchen when he/she challenges our main celebrity Chef; this will be a 5 minute challenge and the member of your group chosen to assist the chef may be asked to chop or whisk, but don’t worry nothing too challenging!
This is a fantastic opportunity to raise awareness, whilst being a great day out!
There will also be a mystery celebrity having a go at another of our star chef’s recipes. We see a short film of them whisking, baking or boiling up the dish in their own kitchen. Shot to obscure their face, our celebrity’s identity will not revealed until they join us in the studio. Having watched their efforts our star chef will give them a quick masterclass on special tips or techniques relating to that recipe (eg. filleting a fish).
The final item involves a ‘Five Minute Cook-Off’ between our star chef and a second chef or well-known foodie. One of them will pick a quick recipe from their cook book – the other will make their own version of the same dish. We watch and compare as they cook. When the time is up the audience is invited to taste them and choose their favourite.
The commission is for 35 episodes. We will be recording in Stephen Street Studio off Tottenham Court Road from 31st October for 5 weeks. The series is set to tx between November and Christmas.
The recording dates are:
Wednesday 31 October Record 1 show
Friday 2 November Record 2 shows
Monday 5 November Record 3 shows
Tuesday 6 November Record 2 shows
Thursday 8 November Record 2 shows
Tuesday 13 November Record 3 shows
Thursday 15 November Record 2 shows
Tuesday 20 November Record 3 shows
Thursday 22 November Record 2 shows
Friday 23 November Record 2 shows
Tuesday 27 November Record 3 shows
Thursday 29 November Record 3 shows
Friday 30 November Record 2 shows
Tuesday 4 December Record 3 shows
Thursday 6 December Record 3 shows
When we record 2 shows per day the times will be:
Show 1: 12:00-13:00
Show 2: 15:45-:16:45
When we record 3 shows per day the times will be:
Show 1: 11:00-12:00
Show 2: 14:15-15:15
Show 3: 17:15-18:00
We would need you about 45 minutes before filming begins and you would be free to leave as soon as filming finishes.
I am trying to fill the 31st Oct - so if that works for you please let me know asap! Many Thanks.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Helen
Hi Nick
Couldn’t agree more with your philosophy on food. If you get the time have a browse of my newish food blog - yumblog.co.uk
Cheers, R.
Hi Nick,
I work for a digital marketing company, and I’m contacting you today on behalf of Cravendale™.
Having taken a look at your site I thought you and your readers might be interested in some of the projects we’re currently working on. We think you are exactly the kind of people Cravendale want to talk to (& hear from) and we’d really like to work with you over the next 6 months on these projects. I’m hoping we can build up a relationship which would prove useful to all involved.
I don’t want to spam your site at all but couldn’t find an alternate means for contacting you, so please drop me an email if this is something you would like to discuss.
I look forward to hearing from you and hope we can work together on this.
Kind regards,
Helen
Hello,
I am the webmaster of http://www.buy-absinthe-alcohol.com
I was just going through your blog, I like the way you write about things and I was wondering if you would be interested in doing a review for my website. I’m interested in an unbiased paid review of my site in your site blog
http://www.tracingpaper.org.uk
Please contact me if you are interested.
Thank you.
Sara
Hello,
I am the webmaster of http://www.buy-absinthe-alcohol.com
I was just going through your blog, I like the way you write about things and I was wondering if you would be interested in doing a review for my website. I’m interested in an unbiased paid review of my site in your site blog
http://www.tracingpaper.org.uk/
Please contact me if you are interested.
Thank you.
Sara
You did some excellent collage of different WordPress themes [including mine] into this one. I like it.
Thanks
Sadish
Just wanted to say what a fantastic blog - beautifully written and designed…