Friends
of the Earth Falkirk held a “LOAF” meal as part of our AGM on
Saturday
10th
September. LOAF stands for Local, Organic, and Fairtrade, and once
you try to put together a dish that satisfies those criteria, you
realise how tricky it can be. I fell at the first hurdle and
sheepishly handed over a packet of organic shortbread from The Engine
Shed, a social enterprise cafe and organic bakery in Edinburgh.
Ethical and tasty but a bit of a cop-out!The other members of our
group outclassed themselves with their delicious and imaginative
contributions, which you can see illustrated in the photograph below.
We drank mint
tea with mint that Norman had grown in his window box, and ate our
(local) rolls with organic spreads he provided.
Corrie
made a salad from her own garden and
allotment produce; the ingredients list is pure poetry! Good King
Henry, red amaranth, salad burnet, rocket, radish, spinach and
sorrel, the leaves and flowers from borage and nasturtium, all on a
bed of three sorts of lettuce. It looked and tasted gorgeous. She
also provided a bramble cake and bramble jam as well as a spicy
runner-bean chutney. The brambles were foraged from secret Falkirk
locations, but she is willing to reveal that the apples were foraged
from trees at the new Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert! The
eggs were free range, from Larbert, and the oil was from a
Mid-Lothian producer who has a stand at Falkirk Farmers' market. The
honey came from Stirling.
Jean
brought
an absolute feast: salad, green beans, quiche, plum tart, tomatoes
and pickled beetroot. The quiche was made using eggs kindly given by
Mr and Mrs R Murray of Camelon, and the vegetables were from Jean's
own landshare plot. Her salad leaves, herbs, garlic and raspberries
were also all home-grown. The flour, oils, vinegar, salt and
peppercorns were all Fairtrade. Mr and Mrs Murray also provided plums
from their bountiful tree which went into the gorgeous
plum-and-marzipan tart, using milk and butter from our nearest Dairy,
Graham's at Bridge of Allan. Jean used “Silver Spoon” sugar made
from Bristish Sugar Beet. The marzipan was left over from decorating
a child's birthday cake.
Gerard
and Carole provided a lovely
courgette quiche which was made with their home-grown courgettes and
some from Fife. They used butter from Graham's, eggs from Angus,
herbs from their garden and organic flour which came from England.
Carole also provided one of the highlights of the meal, a great big
bowl of Cranachan. This was made with double cream from Graham's,
honey from Larbert, Perthshire raspberries and oatmeal from
Aberdeenshire.
Friends of the
Earth envisions a future where eating local food is not an eccentric
pursuit; in the meantime we always enjoy our LOAF meals. They are fun
but they are also the starting point for useful conversations about
the nurturing of local food systems. There are so many benefits,
including: food security for all people; fair prices for producers;
shorter food chains and
fewer food
miles; and increased links between producers and consumers.
During
the meal, each contributor spoke about the experience of harvesting,
foraging or shopping for their “LOAF” ingredients and we
discussed
how much of a challenge it had been. Gerard lamented how hard it is
to find genuine Scottish flour, and then Corrie regaled us with the
story of how she cycled 50 miles to Blair Atholl to buy the flour for
her Bramble cake – bona fide Scottish flour, from stone-ground
wheat produced in a 16th
century water-powered mill! You don't get much more authentic than
that.
Jessica Paterson
