Just had the world's most basic meal - ham salad and it was lovely. Why? .... because....
- it was home baked ham
- our first Charlotte potatoes,
- our own mixed leaves
- our own radishes
- our own land cress mixed in the leaves
- coleslaw, beetroot, cucumber, tomatoes, red pepper - all of which I shall be attaching the word 'own' to sometime soon
- not forgetting half a strawberry!
Coming from a person who decries salad this must carry some weight.
It got me thinking ... do you start growing your own (four years now for me) because you find you are returning to simple food or do you return to simple food because you grow your own? Probably for some folk neither of the above is true. Certainly for me though, I am getting more and more inclined to eat out less and eat simple food at home and enjoy it much, much more.
This week is a case in point. We had lunch out on Wednesday. I had duck in a peppercorn sauce - no, that sauce does not work with duck, indifferent new potatoes, scrap of mixed veg. To be fair, it was well cooked and nicely presented BUT...... not great. This was followed by an extremely good single portion of an expensive genuine gelato (raspberry panacotta) which would have stood up beautifully on its own but no, it had to be accompanied by a (cheap) chocolate syrup - I am sure they would describe it as 'sauce' - a biscuit and a strawberry... I am eating raspberry for goodness sake. It may even have been dusted in icing sugar - all very photogenic BUT ..... not great.
I am a bit of a 'foodie' and am known for trying anything. This has included such dishes as lard and chestnuts, little donkey and goat stew so I am not averse to trying anything and absolutely love it when you find someone who knows their stuff, BUT ...... they are very thin on the ground. Every day when I cook and eat at home I seem to be gravitating to simpler and simpler food. Nothing beats the best ingredients treated with love. This is what growing your own gives you a chance to do.
I completely agree. There's absolutely nothing that beats the flavour of fresh-picked veg, salads and fruit.
ReplyDeleteI got into GYO myself (about four years ago as well) as an after-effect of my missus and I switching to a mainly gluten-free diet for health reasons, a few years before that.
I think once we stopped being able to just buy and re-heat frozen convenience foods we really had to start thinking about what we were buying and cooking, and at that point we thought about trying to grow a bit of our own.
And of course we were bitten by the bug and have been at it ever since. Wouldn't have it any other way, either :)
I suspect it is getting folk started that's the problem... I don't see how it doesn't grab you for life once you've done it. I have a coeliac daughter so I hear the gluten free challenge. Just had five days away and the luxury of back to back restaurant meals and I did a cartwheel of joy (well, mentally that is) when I got back to my little plot and fresh, clean food.
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