Tasting Tassie

I'm a little bit obsessed by the idea of food with a sense of place. Not just local, organic and seasonal, but tastes that may be unique to where you are when you eat them. Tassie talks itself up on loads of fantastic produce that it'd be hard to live without. Olives, truffles, cheese, wine, saffron.....but, with the exception of seafood, perhaps mountain pepper and the odd bit of wallaby, I doubt that many native foods have made it past the lips of most Tasmanians.

There are quite a few wild food plants that are easy to use in any conventional kitchen. Flavours that are unique, but not challenging to the inexperienced palate. These are some of my favourites.

Sea Celery, Apium prostratum. This one is my very favourite at the moment! It's closely related to celery from a botanical perspective, but in the kitchen, and to the eye, it is more reminiscent of parsley. It has a strong parsley-like flavour, but is a little more earthy. I've had it growing, both in the outside garden here at Neika, where it's been waterlogged, frozen and rabbit nibbled, but still grows enough to gather, and in the polytunnel where it is more protected and grew well all winter. I've got lovely plants in tubes that are coming to market this Sunday.

Kunzea, Kunzea ambigua. This is an East Coast native from the Myrtaceae family, along with eucalypts, guavas, lemon myrtle and clove. Its probably the first Tasmanian plant that has come into regular use in my kitchen. It has a sweet, floral, mentholy aroma when fresh, when dried the menthol notes disapate. I first used it for cups of tea when bushwalking, and during tea breaks at Plants of Tasmania Nursery. I use it along with thyme, lemon zest and garlic to season roast chicken and spuds (or maybe one of Richard's Bruny bunnies..), or on its own with fish. It also adds a nice floral kick to cheese crackers. I'll have this available as a cut herb ready for use in your kitchen.

Round leafed mint, Prostanthera rotundifolia. This one is as pretty as it is tasty, although I use it in tiny quantities. A small teaspoon of leaves blitzed with the sugar used to make chocolate chip cookies, gives a clean, minty sweetness. In the garden the plant gets to about 1.5m tall and is covered in gorgeous purple flowers through Spring. It can be short lived in the garden, but regular pruning will stay it at its best for longer. It is listed as vulnerable in the wild in Tasmania. I have some lovely plants in flower that I'll bring down to market.

I'll also have the usual array of plants, some mixed bundles of herbs ready for you to throw in the pot, eggs, purple sprouting broccoli for the early birds, and whatever lovely Spring greens look best tomorrow when I'm gathering!

So rock on down to the Farm Gate on Sunday from 9am!! And watch this space for a list of our 19 awesome varieties of tomato seedlings that will start appearing at the market soon.

Heidi, the Mountain and me.

This post is about nothing to do with gardening, food or soil. Just a great afternoon with a special person, a reminder of what we're here for.

Summit girl

Planocarpa sp

Planocarpa sulcata 

Rock face

Astelia alpina, Pineapple grass. Has sweet, red, edible berries in Summer.

Ozothamnus ledifolius, Fragrant plant with culinary potential???

Rubus gunnianus. Native mountain raspberry.
Said to be delicious, but I'm yet to see a ripe berry.

Exocarpos humifusus, Alpine native cherry.

Making a witches brew.

Maybe it's the easy way...

I'm buzzing. Our soil biology expert Letetia has just left and my mind is awash with the possibilities, planning how to harness the potential of what I've heard. When I wrote this morning's post I was expecting some new ideas, but it was far more than that. It was a lesson in holistic thinking, in taking care of the soil by doing less. Introduce the innoculants, change cultural practices to enable them to thrive, and watch your garden grow over time as soil structure improves and a healthy balance between pests, predators and beneficials is restored.

There's no way I can explain it here, (and please don't take my inexpert summary of what I've learned too seriously!) but it all made sense. Nutrients are tiny right? Plant roots that absorb them are tiny too. So it makes sense that to enable plants to take up the nutrients they need for optimum growth that these nutrients need to be in a tiny form, and what could be tinier than nematode or amoeba poo?

Plants have evolved in the presence of bacteria, fungi and the nematodes and protozoa that eat them, then expel the waste in a form that is available to the plants. Different types of plants are adapted to living in the presence of different balances of soil organisms.

My unloved soil, waiting to have its potential unleashed!

We looked at my soil, temperature, pH, profile etc, then took samples inside to look at under a microscope. Compared to a healthy soil mine is a bit barren, perhaps to be expected from a former cow paddock that has had very little love.

But Letetia makes brews, careful cultures of organisms that should be present in a healthy soil. She analyses soil samples and prescribes the correct inoculations to restore balanced soil life to suit specific crops. Together with organic matter, preferably grown, collected and composted on site, these inoculants will colonise my soil and make nutrient available to plants. When plants have the full spectrum of nutrients available to them, they are more resistant to pests and diseases, they produce higher yields, are more nutrient dense and taste better. This method works with plants and soils, so rather than digging endlessly to make soil friable, fighting pests, buying and applying fertilisers and weeding, you foster the right soil biology balance to favour the desired crop, and in doing so you achieve all of those things without the effort and expense. We also discussed the questionable impacts of many inputs in common use. Many conventional fertilisers, all herbicides and pesticides can have a negative impact on soil biology. Many manures and mulches produced through conventional agricultural techniques will have some form of chemical residue present. And many come in plastic packaging and are moved around the countryside to get to your garden.

This is a bit like a toddler teaching tightrope walking, so I won't say much more. I am a naturally cynical person, but Letetia's scientific approach and demonstration, together with the fact that everything she said ran in parallel with my theories about soil fertility and ethical land use, has made me want to master this method and create a truly wholesome patch.

Letetia does soil analysis and offers great advice and also runs workshops through NRM South (sign up to their newsletter to hear about great learning opportunities, I'm going to their 'Farm Insects, Pests or Guests? workshop on Bruny in November).

I'm truly excited to begin this journey, innoculate my soils and take another peek through that microscope in 6 months and see who's living down there! But most of all I can't wait to taste what comes out of our healthy garden this Summer.

Doing things the hard way

This 'organic' thing ain't easy. Slugs are presently ruining my life. During this unseasonably warm weather we sowed madly. But where young artichokes and radishes should be flourishing only tiny stumps remain.

I've tried beer traps, iron chelates (which I'm not that comfortable using), 6 year old slug hunters paid at the rate of 1c per slug, sheets of plastic laid overnight and slugs wiped from underneath each morning, but none of it seems to help. Imagine my dismay at potting up 200 tiny lovage plants, only to find the lot eaten to nothing the next morning.

Fertility is also an issue. In my tiny plot I seem to have several different soils. One spot is double depth topsoil where soil salvaged from the nursery area is mounded up, another is the old chook run where there is a thin layer of fertile black stuff on top of our native clay. The rest is mostly our 5 inches of soil, atop rocky, mudstone clay. Soil that looks great when it is damp and has something growing in it, but dries out and grows twitch and yellow dock like thatch if you look away for a moment.



We also make our own potting mix. I figure if I only want to use organic methods in my plot, why should my pots be any different. I use Tassie composted pine bark, sand, blood and bone, kelp meal, rock dust and dolomite, as well as a couple of certified organic fertiliser blends to provide other nutrients. This isn't working as well as a mix containing artificial fertilisers does, but if I'm growing food plants, this is the way I want to do it.

So, today, we have a compost tea expert coming to look at our soil biology, and hopefully help us find a holistic, low input way to deal with our challenges and put tasty, healthy food on our tables, and produce healthy plants with out the need for artificial fertilisers in the potting mix. From the little I understand, compost teas, tailored to the soil type you have, can increase biological activity in the soil, making the nutrients, that are already there, more available to plants. It also makes a broader range of nutrients available, increasing the nutritional value of foods and letting plants develop a full spectrum of flavour.

So I'll be off now to fill the bikkie tin, make room for her microscope on the table, and cross my fingers that this will be part of the answer to a more successful plot.

Finding food on Bruny

I know it might be hard to believe, but every now and again I have an urge to escape this idyllic life a I'm living and get away from it all. Last weekend I did just that, not so far away that I couldn't still see Mount Wellington from my window, but far enough that my mind was free to wander as it wished.

And, as always, it wandered to plants and food, often to both at the same time. I'd decided to try doing some proper cooking with wild edible plants, rather than my usual curious nibble on a walk. It was a perfect weekend, still and sunny with incredible views of Hartz and Adamson's Peak covered in a stunning helping of snow.

I caught myself a cod and some kindhearted fishermen must've taken me for a hopeless fisherperson and gave me a couple of fish from their catch. I gathered a little Seablite, Suaedea australis, from near the jetty. Then I wandered back to the shack (thanks so much Peter and family!) pulled some Sagg, Lomandra longifolia, stems and tried cooking with these plants that I'd only eaten raw in the out doors before. I blanched the Seablite for a few seconds, it is seriously salty, and finished it in the pan with my fish. I broke up the bases of the Lomandra stems and squashed them hard onto the base of the pan where I was frying up the tail of my rock cod. And, if I do say so myself, it was damn fine! The salty Seablite was spot on with the sweet cod, and the Lomandra, well that was a mixed success. The flavour of the pieces that were crisp or tender enough to eat, was fantastic! However it was lucky I was eating alone, as much of it was too fibrous to swallow. I reckon the right method of preparation could get this great flavour onto plates without the need for spitting...

Seablite, Suaeda australis.

Rock cod, Sagg and Seablite.

When my weekend of solitude was almost over I went for a ramble on the beach at Great Bay. Below you'll find photos of some of the wonderful wild edible plants that have been sustaining Tasmanians for thousands of years, but which many of us are yet to experience, oh and perhaps one more modern food, unique to Bruny Island, that any forager would be hard pressed to resist......

As always, when collecting plants from the wild, especially on the shore, remember that these plants are often habitat for breeding sea birds, and are vitally important for slowing coastal erosion, so gather only a little and watch your step. And always ensure you've correctly identified any wild plant before eating it. Please take a look at the warnings on this post before venturing out for a forage.

Sagg, Lomandra longifolia. Edible leaf bases, nectar and apparently seed can be ground for flour.

Sea celery, Apium prostratum.

Samphire, Sarcocornia sp. Most of this had recently died,
perhaps from inundation in a recent storm.

Coast wattle/Boobyalla, Acacia sophorae. Edible seeds, roasted while green.

Dianella brevicaulis, edible blue berries.

Carpobrotus rossii. When you find the right patch, the fruit are delicious, leaves are edible too.

Coast saltbush, Atriplex cinerea. Edible foliage, and a rather gorgeous plant.

Ice plant, Tetragonia implexicoma. Use as a green vegetable.

Oen, from Bruny Island Cheese Factory. With foraged Damson paste and rat tailed radishes.

We'll be at Tas Farm Gate this Sunday, the 24th of July. Hope to see you there!

Meat: Part 2

This post comes with a warning, it contains graphic pictures, perhaps I've spent too much time at MONA....

Sensitive vegetarian types, please look away now.

Scalding pot

Preparing tools

After I wrote my last post I promptly got sick so the roosters got a reprieve. Last weekend they met their end.

When I thought about writing this, I imagined writing apologetic things like, 'This is not a celebration of death', but the more I think about it, it is a celebration of death. Every enjoyable bite of meat is, by definition, a celebration of death, and the flavour of the meat we harvested on this day is all the more delicious as we know almost everything about its provenance. That is not to say the killing and cleaning of the birds is enjoyable, it isn't. I had damp eyes while stroking the gorgeous feathers of a bird as I carried him ready for slaughter. The biggest garden fairy was fine with it until she recognised one of the birds she'd fed from when it was a chick. But, as with any job, there is satisfaction in work and learning, and when we cooked our bird, with our vegetables and herbs, and took a pot of this delicious goodness to a friend who has just had a new baby, the satisfaction was complete.

The birds were all raised with mother hens. One of the breeds is Rhode Island Red, ours are a rare rosecombed variety we picked up at the Southern Tasmanian Poultry Club's rare breed show a few years ago. We got a trio, two hens and a rooster, from a breeder who said, when I asked him how he dealt with disease in his flock, 'I've only got one treatment for that' as he made a neck wringing motion with his hands. This may come across as brutal, particularly if you've got a backyard bird you're fond of, but I think it is more humane than treating diseased birds that you later breed from. If you cull birds that are susceptible to disease you encourage a hardier bloodline, thereby reducing the incidence of disease in the future. This was the selling point for me, so we took them home, hoping to continue the rose combed 'Reds' breeding at our place. Unfortunately the male bird was incredibly aggressive, as was his first born son, so they are long since in the pot. The females are quite the opposite, hardy, calm birds and great broodies and mothers.

Our other birds are Barnervelders, sourced as fertile eggs from Paul Healy. I've read his work, heard him on the radio, and seen his farm. He selectively breeds his birds with care, seeks desirable traits, other than the obvious egg laying capacity and dressed weight, such as roosters that protect their hens, hens that lay well coloured eggs and well feathered birds, among others. These hens are hardy, don't go broody, their eggs are lovely to eat and hatch well. He charges appropriately for his fertile eggs, and for his birds, so while you might find a cheaper bird in the paper, for the long term benefit of your flock, and for the benefit of birds held by breeders, I look for humanely raised, well bred birds.

The birds we culled were fed a diet rich in weeds and leafy greens, and roamed the paddocks, perhaps a little too freely. This you could see in the glorious yellow fat they carried (which made for pretty awesome roast veg last night!). The part that I'm not that happy with is the grain. We feed our birds a warm mash laced with kelp meal, garlic and herbs and a mixed grain blend. These are both conventionally grown, from our local feed store. I would really love to find a good source of local, organic grain.

Below is what happened to our male birds, and those of a few of our friends last weekend. Much thought and debate was put into methods of dispatch, children were well informed, and chose to witness what happened, and we learnt a lot about how to prepare a bird for the kitchen, while wishing for a grandmother with capable hands to guide us. We did it together with our friends and neighbours, we are lucky to be part of such wonderful community.

Please heed the warning above before looking at our pictures, some may find them confronting.

Children who know where their food comes from

Plucking

Drawing

I may be a little peverse, but I see beauty here. A wise father said to a tearful garden fairy
 that the spirits of the roosters were free. I think I can see that.

Tasty bits; hearts are delicious!

These I've never eaten before, but they are common in Asian kitchens,
so they're in the freezer until I have some game dinner guests.

We still have much to learn. Cleaning the birds too too long, and we need a thermometer if we decide to scald the birds for plucking next time. But we have a freezer with many dinners in it, and peace has returned to the chook run.

Meat

We are a family that enjoys protein. And tomorrow we shall harvest some. Tonight I am about to don the head torch and catch three slumbering, young roosters. We've had the good fortune of two late Summer clutches of chicks, all hatched under broody mothers, all with access to plenty of pasture, warm mash on cold mornings and plenty of tasty weeds. With a life like this we don't lose chicks to disease. Of our 11 chicks, 4 are boys, 3 of whom are destined for the chopping block tomorrow. The lucky one will be moving down the road to our friends place, where he will look after a whole new harem of lovely chook ladies. At this stage we're not eating any female birds while we build up our laying flock.

After breakfast we'll head to another lovely neighbour's place to do the deed. They have a few roosters as well. The kids will come along, and I'm quite sure there will be tears, but last time the tears at the demise of Sunny the Evil Rooster were replaced by shouts of "Yummy!" when his plucked body made its way back inside. In some ancient pattern of labour distribution the blokes will dispatch the birds while we light a fire and boil a big pot of water ready for plucking, and prepare a pot of icy cold water for chilling them. I'll line up bowls, this time I intend to try and cook every edible part, one bowl each for livers, hearts, gizzards, feet and combs. We'll dig a hole where a Winter planted fruit tree is to go, ready for the bits we can't eat.

We've been completely responsible for the quality of life these birds have enjoyed. We know exactly what has been consumed by them. We will be responsible for their end. We will take care to use every scrap of their flesh, and make stocks from their delicious bones.

Our aim is to build up a flock that can supply us with at least one bird for the pot a fortnight. Free range birds available commercially are from heavy, industrially bred meat birds that are slaughtered at 6 weeks, if they are left any longer they can develop stress fractures as they grow too fast to support their own bulk. Our birds are 16 weeks old and have had a wonderful mixed diet. They have run on their legs, scratched with their claws, so their bones will be strong, muscles lean and full of flavour. And if we're to eat eggs we need to hatch chicks, and half of what we hatch will be male birds.There are loads of feral roosters in the forests around Hobart, doing untold damage to the bush by digging up young plants and disturbing the soil. And too many roosters with not enough hens is cruel to the whole flock.

So, for me it's off into the cold night to catch our dinner. I'm feeling an odd mix of emotions, the birds are beautiful, we watched them hatch and grow, but now they're beginning to fight. Killing is hard, as is plucking and gutting a creature you've raised. But I've got some bread dough rising so that we can have livers and hearts fried in sagey butter on toast after our work is done. I've got some tips on how to prepare chicken feet from a fantastic chef friend. And is it wrong that I gave them their last meal of warm mash tonight laced with loads of garlic and thyme....?

Mum

Now, it might be trendy and all that, to dismiss chances of expressing love and thankfulness. Valentines Day, Christmas, Mothers Day and others of that ilk, get wrapped up in commercial bubbles, storms of disposable junk, purchased because we feel we have to. And that is a shame. I think in this busy life we lead, that any reminder to slow down for a moment, and show others what you feel for them, should be shared and savoured. 

So this is for you Mum.

We can all safely say that we wouldn't be here without our Mums. They bore and nurtured us, raised us and did what they could to set us on the path to a good life. But, my Mum is special.

Mum on the right, looking very fetching in her white socks!

I have a Mum who grew up in another time. When she was a little girl at South Arm it was a remote, old fashioned community. Dirt roads, that only her mother could drive on. Boys at the bus stop who tied dead snakes on pieces of string to drag across the road in front of the school bus and frighten the driver. Her bookmaker Dad would go wading for flounder from the beach, and, living on a chicken farm, chicken necks and parsons noses were on the menu. Massive pots of curried scallops would make their way along the dirt roads to race day at Bothwell.

A childhood like this taught my Mum to be self sufficient. To make the best of little and to enjoy the gifts that nature brings. She taught me that frugality and generosity are not mutually exclusive. To value what you have, and treat food with respect. We never ate a packaged muesli bar, there were always fresh, home made cakes and slices for after school snacks. We learnt how to make a fantastic gravy from pan juices and veggie water by being in charge of stirring as soon as we were tall enough to reach the stove. We shopped, baked and washed up beside her. There was always a veggie garden of some kind in the back yard, we scavenged quinces from neglected trees on the way to beach picnics and scoured roadside stalls for the best produce. Washing baskets full of fruit sat on the washing machine in the Summer months, to be turned into jams, or put aside for crumbles and cakes in Winter. Long trips to Plenty to pick Morrello cherries, or to the Central Highlands for trout were on the agenda most weekends. Morning tea was served on pretty plates with a sense of ceremony. We ate dinner at the table together every night. I really think that this respect for food, and care in its preparation lead me to where I am now.

A huge part of our childhood was spent in a tent. But no tinned food for us! Mum would freeze home made meals in milk cartons and pack them into an eski like bricks. We'd roast potatoes in coals and feast on mussels, abalone and fish. We never cooked on a gas cooker, all was done in the fire. Without being trendy, Mum had a true sense of place. Camping food was meant to be primal, toast smelling of smoke, or a leg of lamb, dug from the sand after roasting on hot stones all day was allowed to have grit from the beach on it. And have you ever had the ecstasy of sharing a surf crab, boiled in a billy after a long afternoon spent coaxing it from its granite rockpool with a chunk of bait? My Mum gave me that pleasure and thousands like it. Remembering these gems from childhood informs my parenting, and inspires me to find joys like these for my little ones.

Every Sunday when I go to market, despite the fact that she has a long, overnight shift coming up that night, my Mum is there with a basket of goodies from her garden to share. She keeps me company, dishes out quality advice, and even better banter, and keeps a close watch on our caffiene and blood sugar levels. To one such market she bought along some finger limes, a native Australian citrus that thrives in her back yard. These limes were spied by Hugh, the chef at Saffire who then proceeded to inspire me with talk of his kitchen garden and the rare herbs and edible flowers he likes to use, opening my mind to the idea of cultivating these treasures for chefs and adventurous cooks, and leading to a most amazing year of adventure in the garden. 

Mum by a lake. Rambles, cups of tea, fruitless fishing. Bliss!

Mum has inspired, guided, motivated, praised, encouraged and occasionally, when I needed it, chastised me. She teaches my family and I generosity, resilience, the value of work, and most importantly, unconditional love. Which, of course, is the most important ingredient of all.

So, like all of us, but perhaps even a little bit more, I wouldn't be where I am without my Mum.

Love you Mum. Happy mother's day. xxx