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Fish fraud, winter veg and a bit of poetry
Long Ago In Italy… we had a splendidly mind-blowing talk from a veterinarian on the subject of fish fraud: how consumers were being sold cheap or endangered fish under the name of popular varieties. The reason was much the same as the one that has plagued most of our food problems nowadays: we are out of touch with our food sources. In the case of fish, we buy fillets and portions instead of the whole, head-on creature, so we are forced to trust commercial interests to tell us the truth.
Which we have been learning over and over is not the actual intention of commercial interests, who exist to make money at any cost. So, whoever’s reaping the rewards of this deceit, here’s an interesting article about fish fraud in Canada. Buyer beware.
The weekend’s entertainments were totally fish-free, although there was enough water falling from the skies to drown a few.
Sunday we had the Winter Vegetable Potluck, generously hosted by Don & Ramona, which featured buckets of colour and flavour. Below, I diligently compare the tint of mulled wine with that of magenta bread (made with roasted beets).
Here’s a healthy sampling of what people brought, including (clockwise from lower left): rutabaga chips; winter veg samosa; winter veg curry; magenta bread; leek, potato & everything tart; kale & beet; winter salad with pears, blue cheese and candied hazelnuts; roasted squash & chickpea salad with tahini; coleslaw; in the middle of the plate is a squash and feta bake with sunflower seeds, and a Japanese-inspired carrot & parsnip appetiser with soya sauce and sesame.
That appetiser was, in fact, the handiwork of Bill Jones, who demonstrated the Japanese mandolin on which his interns ritually lose bits of their fingers (but not he, luckily)
and then whipped up his treat, which he says can be made with burdock root instead of parsnip.
There were about 20 in attendance, which was pretty good considering the rain and fog that those of us from Victoria had braved on our way to Cobble Hill. But some of us will go a long way for a rutabaga chip, especially now that we’ve tried them…
On the poetry side, I was able to spend my Friday 13th doing a star turn – well, a mezzo-star turn – sharing the stage of Planet Earth Poetry with Wendy Donawa and airing a few more poems. Very pleasant time and a lovely crowd, nice to catch up with a few people I managed to persuade out into the literary realm for a couple of hours.
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Food & drink down the drain; food choices; BC meat regulations
In all the talk about food – its price, its value, our disconnection from it – more needs to be said about how much we waste in the Western world. We’re all bad: Canada, the US (a 2004 study found about half its food was wasted), but the UK is being studied more closely than others, thanks to WRAP which released an updated report this month that details food and drink wastage in Britain.
We’ve heard a lot about how our expenditures on food have declined over the past forty years; little has been said about the scale of our waste, which according to Statistics Canada’s latest figures currently amounts to just about 30% in this country:
Canadians are not only spending more on food, but they are also buying more calories. Between 1976 and 2007 the number of calories available per person increased 9% from 3,118 to 3,384 kilocalories. Some of this food however is wasted, and it is estimated that in 2007 only 71% of the calories purchased were consumed. Food that was not consumed includes waste or spoilage in stores, households, institutions and restaurants, and losses during preparation.
Some interesting figures from elsewhere in this chart of per capita expenditure on food worldwide.
Here’s a good piece on salvaging the dregs of liquids.
And another that explains how to make better food choices by understanding the fertilizer and pesticide load required by the produce you use. For example, compare bananas and beans – even before you get into transportation, bananas require 427 pounds of environmentally hazardous fertilizers per acre, compared with just 35 pounds for peas or beans.
Meanwhile, the Farm Food Freedom Fighters are asking British Columbians to write letters to try to change provincial regulations that are crippling small producers; the focus is meat production but the FFFF are battling other issues, like Monsantism of our food supply. Here’s the pitch:
Please ask that farmers be permitted to sell healthy animals from their farm gates, without trauma, fossil fuels, time and extra cost, and without the increased threat of contamination that a visit to a government inspected facility can bring. Point out the lack of legal slaughter options for many farmers, and the cascading impacts (farm supply stores, feed sales including hay, impacts on farm tax status, food security, local jobs) this has on rural communities.
Please write to our Premier Hon. Gordon Campbell premier@gov.bc.ca
or Room 156, Parliament Buildings, Victoria BC V8V 1X4or Ida Chong, who is holding the meat regulation potato right now –
Hon. Ida Chong
Minister of Healthy Living and Sport
P.O. Box 9062 Stn. Prov. Govt.
Victoria, BC V8W 9E2
250-387-3504
HLS.Minister@gov.bc.caor our Agriculture man,
Hon. Steve Thomson
Minister of Agriculture and Lands
P.O. Box 9043 Stn. Prov. Govt.
Victoria, BC V8W 9E2
250-387-1023
steve.thomson.mla@leg.bc.ca -
Jolly good kick at bad food
Enjoyed this article about British comedian Alex Riley who gives food companies a kick in the pants about misleading labelling and unhealthy food practices.
In other news, anyone in the area is invited to Slow Food Vancouver Island’s winter veg potluck next weekend (Sunday 15th); details on the website. And Facebook. And Twitter. (We are wired!)
Also invited you are to my Friday 13th reading at the Black Stilt, reading with Wendy Donawa:
Friday November 13 starting at 7:30 PM, admission $3 at the door.
Planet Earth Poetry series
The Black Stilt Coffee House
#103-1633 Hillside Avenue
Victoria, BC V8T 2C4
250-370-2077And moving along the diary a bit further, on Saturday 21st Joel Salatin (as seen in Food, Inc. and described in the Omnivore’s Dilemma) will be paying a visit to Duncan, courtesy the Cowichan Agricultural Society.
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In her latest collection, Rhona McAdam navigates the dark places of human movement through the earth and the exquisite intricacies lingering in backyard gardens and farmlands populated by insects and pollinators, all the while returning to the body, to the tune of staccato beats and the newly discovered symmetries within the human heart.
“…A beautiful, filling collection, Larder is a set of poems to read at the change of the seasons, to appreciate alongside a good meal, and to remind yourself of the beauty in everything, even the things you may not appreciate before opening McAdam’s collection….”
Rhona McAdam is a writer, poet, editor, and Registered Holistic Nutritionist with a Master’s in Food Culture from Italy and a deep-rooted passion for ecology and urban agriculture. Her work spans corporate and technical writing to poetry and creative nonfiction, often exploring the vital links between what we eat and how we live. Based in Victoria, BC, and available via Zoom, Rhona is always open to new writing commissions, readings, or workshops on nutrition and the culinary arts.
