Buying Local

I won a muffin contest the other day. Not a phrase I often utter as I have never entered one before. The competition was organised by the local environmental types to showcase the general deliciousness of local seasonal ingredients. Don’t you find that all of a sudden localness is everywhere? From supermarkets to tourist information everyone is touting it as better, tastier and, above all more morally sound than the alternatives. Our ancestors had to wear hair shirts and flog themselves to get into heaven. All we have to do is re-style beetroot as dessert (see the winning entry here), and we’re laughing. As the glory of victory fades, though, I’m left with this thought: is our current obsession with buying local all it’s cracked up to be?

It depends on what you mean by local. Buying food from Tesco (in Lewes) is one kind of local. Does that sound ludicrous? There are clearly all sorts of reasons to dislike supermarkets but, along with their cheapness and convenience, they keep you or your neighbour in a job. Of course you might do better going to Waitrose; it’s a few quid more but the employees also own the store and are in on the profits.
Businesses owned by people in town are what spring to mind when thinking about buying local. Going to Skylark or Bag of Books instead of Amazon. No hyperlink for the faceless multinational, but they do offer a range and prices that the local shops can’t possibly compete with. The local ones have advantages of their own though: browsing (never as good online), bantering with the owners, and events with authors. You (literally) pays your money and takes your choice. The stock of businesses like these is, of course, not particularly local. Though Lewes is obviously a town of infinite creativity, only local stock would mean they’d be bankrupt by tomorrow.

The real piety du jour (and the raison d’etre for a lot of the Town’s environmental activity) is eating local food. The less food travels, goes the argument, the less the impact on the environment. It’s just common sense, no? Unfortunately the notion of 'food miles' is an area where common sense is misleading. Sure, you can probably be confident that those air-freighted blueberries you had in January aren’t the best emissions-wise; but what about other commodities? Loads of basic stuff comes by ship where the carbon footprint is a lot smaller, while growing things locally on inappropriate land or with extra heating, or whatever, can mean a far higher environmental cost. While the whole issue is really mind-bendingly complicated it’s nice to feel good even if we’re not having much practical effect.

I can hear the teeth gnashing at that last sally already. Of course if it’s a completely different sort of life we’re after (living with the seasons, getting our hands dirty and eating seasonal veg all winter), then local food is clearly the way forward. The thing is people who do live this kind of life, usually as a result of economic collapse or sanctions, never seem all that happy with it. Funny that. To be honest, much as I liked my beetroot muffins I’m not expecting them to storm the world any time soon. Show me someone in rural Ukraine who wouldn’t prefer a Nero’s chocolate chip one and I’ll show you an empty branch of Tesco. And now, if you’ll excuse me I think I have a few muffins left.


John McGowan

Beetroot and Chocolate Muffins Recipe

Beetroot and chocolate is a well established combo in cakes and also works in a sweet muffin. Normally though the beetroot is mixed with either melted chocolate or cocoa powder and the distinctive taste, texture and colour get a bit lost. These muffins are an attempt to retain some of the qualities of the beetroot by keeping the chocolate separate in the form of chocolate chips. They don’t come together till you bite into it.

Ingredients/Materials 8-12 muffin cases depending on how large you want them. A muffin/fairy cake tray 150g unsalted butter 200g self-raising flour 25g semolina ¼-½ teaspoon baking powder 175g light muscovado sugar Small pinch of salt  2 eggs ( beaten) 100g beetroot peeled and (grated)  100g bar of chocolate cut up into small pieces

Directions  Preheat oven to 180C (fan 160C) or gas 4.   Melt the butter and leave to cool.  Line the sections of the muffin tray with paper cases  Mix together the dry ingredients ensuring you get the lumps out of the sugar .   Add butter and eggs and gently mix in.  Stir in beetroot and chocolate chips  Spoon into muffin cases making between 8 and 12 according to how big you want them.   Bake for 25 - 35 minutes depending on the size of the muffins.  Check by sliding in a knife and seeing if it comes out clean.  Let them cool in the tin for a few minutes and then on a rack.

Perfect Porridge

For my Scottish ancestors it would be tantamount to blasphemy to suggest that porridge tastes better when made in a microwave. However, though I’m not sure why, it really does. It also has the advantage of allowing you get on with other things instead of standing there wielding a spurtle. With the oatmeal used below (as opposed to rolled oats) you do have to stop and stir every 2-3 minutes to avoid it going lumpy though. In this version you make the porridge quite thick and add milk just before serving.

Makes one generous portion. For more than one person add the same quantities again per portion and increase the cooking time proportionately. Remember to use a bigger bowl as the porridge bubbles up excitingly in the later stages.

Ingredients

A handful of sultanas

2-4 tablespoons of apple juice

60g Oatmeal (rather than rolled oats)

300ml water

Salt (for its moral value rather than its taste)

A handful of mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower etc.)

Sugar or honey or mashed banana to taste

Full-cream milk

1. The night before soak the sultanas in the apple juice in a covered bowl.
2. Mix the oatmeal, water and salt in a large microwavable bowl.
3. Cook in a microwave for 2 minutes at 800W (vary the time according to the power of the microwave). Stir it and do the same again. Leave for a minute or so before taking out.
4. While the porridge is cooking roast the seeds by stirring them in a dry pan over heat. Keep stirring them or they will burn.
5. When you take the porridge out mix in the sultanas, seeds, sugar/honey/banana and (last so it doesn’t go cold) the milk.
6. Soak the bowls you’ve used in cold water (no need for anything else) and by evening they’ll pretty much clean themselves.

You may be hungry again before you’ve even left the house but it’s good while it lasts.