Discovery is the earliest commercial apple variety, ripe in mid-August. For a few weeks, Discovery apples are the best around, juicy, crunchy and aromatic.
The welfare of chickens has received long overdue attention this year. Most prominent has been Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Chicken Out! campaign, which may not have succeeded in changing Tesco’s welfare policy (for now) but has evidently shifted some demand from conventional to the higher welfare Freedom Food, free range and organic chicken.
Rising demand, rising prices
Earlier this [...]
My answers to the Fantastic Four blog meme questions
Early August and the harvest of the winter sown oilseed rape (Brassica napus, its edible varieties also known as canola) is well underway in the UK. Rape is combine harvested to yield its tiny black seeds, destined to be crushed to produce oil for food, industrial uses and, increasingly, biofuels. A growing number of farmers are cold pressing the seeds themselves to produce extra-virgin rapeseed oil.
Cherry plums are back in season, ripening on hedgerow and garden trees across Britain. The fruit are versatile and delicious. Taste and texture, like the colour, vary between trees, but most of the fruit are excellent eaten raw. They can be substituted for plums in jams, chutneys and other recipes, or pressed for their sweet juice.
Hedge Garlic (Alliara petiola) is one of the earliest fresh spring greens of the hedgerow, its bright green garlicky leaves appearing from February and at their best as the plant flowers in April and May.
Otherwise known as garlic mustard or Jack-by-the-hedge, it has a more delicate, but nonetheless distinctly oniony, aroma and flavour than the [...]
Less well known than ceps or morels, St George’s are amongst the finest wild mushrooms, with a firm texture, appealing mealy smell and distinctive flavour.
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The Rising Price of Milk
Two weeks ago, Tesco was widely praised in the media for announcing two initiatives: To increase the price UK dairy farmers receive for milk, while not raising the price of standard milk to [...]
One of England’s forgotten vegetables, Alexanders are at their most magnificent in April, their stately stems thick and tall on verges and grassy banks. Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) love the coast and often grow within a few miles of the sea, though isolated patches thrive even far inland. Cut and steam the stems and buds, ideally just before the flowers have opened, for an absolutely distinctive, even peculiar, vegetable, a little like celery or parsley.
The intense gold of cold-pressed rapeseed oil (otherwise known as canola oil) reflects the yellowing spring fields of oilseed rape. A few farmers are now producing distinctive cold-pressed rapeseed oil, with clear provenance, from their oilseed crops, but the oil itself deserves more attention.
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