Countryman Diary - November 2011
I’ve never been able to eat meat of any kind; fish and seafood bring me out in a rash.
It’s more of a medical condition than any strict vegetarian beliefs, although I am also concerned about animal welfare. I feel many animals are slaughtered unnecessarily and that some deserve a better quality of life. But I also see the need to feed the nation, making sure everyone receives a balanced diet at a price they can afford.
In my working-class youth, growing up in the 1950s, you weren’t vegetarian, just an oddball.
In my earliest days of school dinners at primary school I would always leave the meat or fish and eat stacks of vegetables and mash (no matter how lumpy). One day a particularly domineering ‘dinner lady’ decided she was having none of this namby-pamby attitude from a six-year-old Jackson and tried to force me into eating some gristly stewing steak. Maybe I “would have been grateful for such luxuries during the war” but after rolling it around in my mouth for what seemed like an hour, I spat it out and ran like a hare for the exit. I didn’t stop until I reached home, where I climbed inside through a window and hid in the pantry until Mum arrived home from work.
I don’t remember the consequences of my actions but, despite trying on many occasions throughout my life, I’ve never taken up animal eating.
I can now feel the draught from arms being thrown skywards in horror by some of my farming aquaintances and good old meat-and-two-veg country types at this revelation.
As those with any kind of eating disorder or preference will testify, there are often awkward moments. During my recent visit to East Cheshire for our ‘Know Your Countryside’ feature (see page 12) I turned up for dinner at a farm where they are proud of their home-reared beef, and I felt somewhat embarrassed to turn it down.
Many vegetarians will say that there’s no need to feel apologetic for not eating meat and indeed, preparing a superb vegetarian meal for me and the hosts proved no problem for a very talented daughter/cook.
(I’ve a feeling, though, that the farmer might well have sneaked a look into the fridge a little later on to see if there was something ‘proper’ to eat.)
What prompted all this nostalgia and guilt was a recent flood of press releases from organisers of food festivals, farmers’ markets and organic producers, all of whom deserve to thrive in these days of supermarket dominance.
I know it’s been said many times but local fresh food — whether veg or meat — really does taste better than the much-travelled supermarket varieties.
Setting the organic standards
While work on promoting good food is being done on a local level, the Soil Association, the charity that campaigns for organic food and farming, is thinking on a global scale.
The association has recently outlined how it aims to address the twin challenges of rising food prices and a changing planet in its new corporate strategy, ‘Road to 2020’. Sticking to the ‘organic principles’ of health, ecology, care and fairness, the manifesto promises to focus on innovation and contains two major themes: ‘facing the future’ and ‘good food for all’.
“We want to find the right balance between setting organic standards and other ways of improving the performance of our farming, food and land-use systems,” says Helen Browning, director of the association.
The association advocates a food and farming system that is diverse and characterised by low inputs and more jobs.
The organic industry is facing a fall in sales and the number of farmers using its practices is reducing.
In 2010, organic sales fell 5.9 per cent in the UK, according to the association. That continued a decline from record sales of £2.1 billion in 2008, and came amid rising food prices.
The amount of land being converted to organic cultivation across the UK has dropped by two-thirds since 2007, according to statistics released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
In a bid to reverse these trends, the association suggests ways to advance sustainable farming, food and land use in the UK. These include influencing farming and food agendas through projects such as low-carbon farming and climate change programmes.
“There is no room for complacency. We must ensure that the solutions we advocate will genuinely meet the needs of the predicted population of nine billion people by 2050.
“We need to innovate, to encourage and support new models, to test novel technologies against our values, and demonstrate that we really can deliver optimal production of food, timber and textiles,” the report argues.
Sinned against or sinning?
A young lad had just been confirmed by his diocesan bishop and was asked:
“Before you were confirmed my son, what were you?”
“A sinner, my lord,” replied the lad.
“And now you have been confirmed, my child, what are you?”
“A confirmed sinner, my lord.”
Competition winners
Shoreline smocks (September): David Breese, Norwich; Taylor Smith-Brown, Huddersfield; Liz Tubby, Bergh Apton, Norfolk; Mrs J Bewick, Hailsham; Mrs M Riddell, Coventry; Rosemary Woodford, Winslow; Mrs Y Dallaway, Idle; David Longson, Skegness; Jean Sharples, Eardisley; P W Smith, Stoke; Miss W P Hughes, Wrexham; G M Smith, Newark; Mrs A M Docherty, Fife; Mrs P March, Weymouth; Lia Turner-Instance, Barrow-in-Furness.
Indian summer provokes unusual sights
It is rare enough to see a Deptford pink in bloom as these nationally scarce plants are hard to find, but to discover one blossoming into October is unheard of. These delicate pink flowers (pictured right) usually come out in June until August but at WWT London Wetland Centre they enjoyed a second burst during early October.
The unusually hot autumnal weather also confused the marsh frogs which should be sitting at the bottom of a pond preparing to hibernate. Instead, their cackling croak was heard ringing across the water, normally indicating that they were seeking a mate or staking out their territory.
Other unusual sightings included the thermophilic wasp spider (a species which enjoys warm temperatures, pictured right) and long-winged cone-head bush crickets, plus large numbers of shield bugs, caddis flies and grasshoppers. And the electric buzz of the Roesel’s bush cricket is a sound that normally resonates across the grasslands in high summer … until this year.
Paul Jackson
Editor
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