RosieBell

Blackberrying

Often in Edinburgh a wet, grey summer is followed by a bright September.  The days are sunny and the wind drops.  But the days are also getting shorter and there is a chill in the air.  I ascribe it to a miserable Presbyterian God who, if you get two days of sunshine together in July, says, That’s enough, you miserable sinners, and then brings on the haar or rain, and if you have sunshine and gentle breezes in the here and now, in the very near future are the 5 months or so of long dark nights, gales and the cold.

However, it has been lovely weather for cycling.  I was off work on Wednesday and in the afternoon went out to look for blackberries at the edge of the city.  A steep path where I had found a lot last year had been cleared of brambles, and now giant hogweed, which is as rampant as brambles, but doesn’t bear fruit, was growing there instead.  Other patches I found were picked over or growing in the shade and had miserable little berries.  But on a hidden path off another hidden path I found a flourishing plant in the light with stems thicker than my thumb, and which had big sweet fruit.  It was intertwined with a sloe, and was growing on a steep slope, so a lot of the fruit was out of my reach.  The thorny stems tried to grab me.  I found that wearing a bicycle helmet protected me from having my hair pulled out, which normally happens when you gather blackberries.  Having got what I could, I continued along the path and then to some unfamiliar and attractive country roads, which took me back to the city.

I remembered blackberrying when I was a child.  We lived in the country in the Waikato, New Zealand, near the end of a no exit unsealed road.  We used to go to school by cycling along this road for a mile or two, leaving our bicycles (unlocked those days) at the junction and picking up the school bus.  This road was lined with blackberries and in the early autumn on the way home I’d pick them and eat them, until they were sprayed.  Blackberries in New Zealand are like gorse and ragwort, imports that went rampant and take over swathes of land, and so farmers declared chemical warfare on them.  But my father must have left a patch because I do remember going out blackberrying as a family, my mother in a straw hat and cotton frock, everyone carrying buckets, except me, who as the youngest, was given an enamel mug, and added my blackberries to other people’s bucketfuls.  I think I fell in a bush once, and probably howling, had to be pulled out.  We had blackberry and apple pie, and we made blackberry wine one time, which was very successful.  I imagine it would have been too sweet for a wine drinker’s taste, but my parents’ idea of wine was port or sherry at Christmas. 

I only got a handful of blackberries on this trip but I stewed them with some cooking apples the guy next door gave me and they came out a beautiful rich colour and taste delicious. 

Frugal Food

Last weekend was wet and chill and autumnal.  Exit the salads, enter the casseroles.  I found three pieces of stewing lamb in the freezer.  A couple of bits were neck of lamb, the other was a fatty offcut.  Lean meat is an abomination as it has no flavour.   Cost, about £1.   So, in the way of cultures that use meat as flavouring rather than tucking into large slabs of the stuff I used those three pieces of lamb as follows:-

Sunday

Browned the lamb, browned carrots, onions and turnips, added thyme, rosemary, garlic, pepper and bay leaves.  A dash of Lea & Perrins, a dash of Shoyu sauce, a glass of red wine.  Covered with water.  Simmered on a low heat for about four hours.  Added a tin of cannelloni beans.  Result:- herby and hearty stew which I had with a baked potatoe.

Monday

A few ladlefuls of the juices from the stew into a microwave proof casserole mixed with red lentils and a teaspoon of curry powder.   Microwaved for about 20 minutes, adding liquid now and then.  Then added a bit of the meat and veg from the stew.  Result:- excellent curry to have with rice.  The lentils thickened it beautifully.  I sometimes grind down cumin, coriander etc to make something more authentic but the teaspoon of curry powder seemed to do the trick fairly well.

By the way, a dish from my youth was beef sausages boiled with onions and curry powder, the juices thickened with flour.  My grandmother was a dreadful cook and gave it to us every time we visited her.  

Tuesday

I put some of the stew into the microwave dish and added mushrooms, red peppers and paprika.  Thickened by mashing up the root vegetables.  Added yoghurt to make a kind of Hungarian goulash, which I had with pasta.  Result:-  a little powdery as I’d overdone the paprika.

I soaked some Scotch broth mix – barley, split peas, lentils, oats - chopped up more carrots, turnips and onions, added a lot of water and boiled for a couple of hours.  Result:- Scotch broth.

Wednesday

I had the Scotch broth for dinner with some bread, and it was excellent.

Thursday

Took the Scotch broth into work for lunch.

Friday

Ate fish, as I was sick of lamb.

Saturday

Chopped up a couple of stalks of celery and added that to the sludge that was all that was left of the Scotch broth.  Added more water and boiled for about 30 minutes.  Grated in some Stilton cheese.  It was delicious, I thought, but I had been for a long cycle so was very hungry.

Still, 6 meals out of three pieces of lamb was pretty good, I thought.

Pie Carts

The Great New Zealand Pie Cart ed by Lindsay Neill, Claudia Bell & Ted Bryant has just been published. 

Pie cart is the New Zealand name for the take away wagon and in the days before the brilliant cafes you now get in New Zealand towns and cities it would be the only place where you could eat out. 

“In the 1950s and 1960s, in the day of the six o’clock swill, [i.e. pubs closed at 6pm] and long before the advent of swanky café culture, where else could you be assured of a hot feed and a warm welcome, in any New Zealand town or city?  Pubs could sell beer, but not food, nor could they provide entertainment.  The only eating-out venues, apart from fish-and-chip shops and pie carts, were the expensive hotel dining rooms serving the inevitable steaks and roast dinners, and exclusive private clubs with a similarly predictable menu.  Even at the flashest hotels, guests who might want a meal after 8 p.m. would be told, “Sorry, the kitchen is closed”.

One South Island pie-cart fan remembers in the 1950s his older brothers nagging their parents to borrow their car to go into town (Gore) on a Friday night, about 35 kilometres away.  The attraction?  There might be a fight at the pie cart!

Claudia Bell is my sister and I have some verse called “Pie Cart Doggerel” published in the book. 

New Zealand fish-and-chips were absolutely delicious – freshly cooked, juicy chunks of “lemon fish” (actually shark) and fat chips that weren’t soggy or tired.  Also you could get scallops, oysters or paua (abalone) as well deep fried in batter – bite through the batter and taste that oyster exploding on your tongue.  This food was a gourmet treat wrapped in newspaper.

Women and Beer

In the Canonsgait pub the other night, I asked the barmaid if there was only one cask ale on tap.

“Yes,” she said.  “I’m not allowed to change the casks.  It’s a man’s job.  As if your boobs got in the way.”

“I was a barmaid years ago, and I had that problem too,” I said.

When it came to my third drink, they had run out of the one cask ale.  The other barmaid offered me either bottled Chimay or Innis & Gunn and she sounded as if she had sampled them at one time.

Both barmaids were young, with straightened blonde hair and tattoos and were very pretty.  If I was a CAMRA male I would be in love with them.

They were native English speakers.  I’ve been served by barmaids at the Canonsgait who not only did not know words like “Laphroaig” or “IPA” but also “beer” or “whisky”.  A pair of excellent young women.  I bet the poor things were harrassed by the middle-aged bloke who was hanging round the bar and said to me twenty times “nice jacket” (meaning my fluorescent yellow cycling jacket – functional it is, nice it is not, drunk and annoying he was).

There are good jobs and bad jobs

Fast-food giant McDonald's has launched a petition to get the dictionary definition of a McJob changed.

The Oxford English Dictionary currently describes a McJob as "an unstimulating low-paid job with few prospects".

McDonald's says this definition is now "out of date and insulting", and claims a survey found that 69% of the UK population agree it needs updating.

And I bet they were the fattest 69% of the population. 

"The current definition is extremely insulting to the 67,000 people who work for us within the UK," said McDonald's senior vice president David Fairhurst.

"It is also insulting for everyone else who works in the wider restaurant and tourism sectors.

"It is time for us now to make a stand and get the Oxford English Dictionary to change the definition."

Serving food is a perfectly respectable job.  But serving food that tastes horrible is a lousy job. 

I've just finished a song on unpleasant jobs, and yes, I thought of the obvious ones first:-

Some are in McDonalds serving fat and fries,
Some are in call centres, getting rude replies.
Some in supermarkets, checking out their brains,
Some are cleaning toilets, some unblocking drains.

I can't find the quotation but I remember reading that Oxford teaches you never to be afraid of the obvious.  So whatever pressure is brought on them I hope the gatekeepers to the Oxford dictionary are properly disdainful of the efforts of McDonald's PR machine and can continue to reflect the common use of this word.  They can quote my song if they like.