On air on Byron Bay community radio bayfm 99.9 on May 14, 2012

Today belly was all about bio-diversity, about getting down and dirty and protecting our food supplies, and sharing our knowledge. And enjoying the delicious fruits of our labours of course. Shortly Jude Fanton, director of Seedsavers, told us about food networks they recently visited in New Zealand, Europe and Malaysia. Portuguese cabbage forests and monkeys that help make our fruit more delicious, among other stories. Then Suveran Dewsnap, head gardener at Starseed, talked about his dream of edible food forests, eating weeds, and adapting to our environment. To finish the show, two more wonderful artists from the very tasty food themed exhibitions at the Ballina Community Gallery.

 

FRESH REPORT : persimmons finishing, strawberries starting, lots of mandarins, dragonfruit, passionfruit
mint & fresh young ginger -maybe time for healthy  cold busting juices.  Week 3 markets include Mullumbimby this Saturday, Uki and Nimbin on Sunday.

 

SEEDSAVERS ON TOUR

Jude Fanton  is director with husband Michel of Seedsavers, founded in Byron Bay in 1986 to protect non-hybrid,traditional seeds and plant varieties, and to set up and assist non-profit seed networks and exchanges, here and abroad. These days they travel a lot, learning and teaching ways to protect biodiversity with like minded people all over the world. Their latest journey was to New Zealand, and last summer they travelled in Portugal, Spain, France and Malaysia. There are more than 700 videos of their travels, and lots of seedsaving advice, on the Seedsavers YouTube channel here.

 

Listen to the Seedsavers travels in Europe and Malaysia

 

listen to Jude Fanton’s New Zealand travels

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CALDO VERDE RECIPE

 

Jude spoke about caldo verde, the Portuguese national soup, or even national dish.  It means green soup, and is based on cabbage, preferably kale (or Portuguese tree cabbages).   Even if you can’t get hold of any tree cabbages, kale is pretty easy to get now (at least if you are lucky enough to live around here).  Just soften some chopped onion in olive oil, then add chopped garlic.  Then potatoes and stock or water.  If you like meat, traditionally some chorizo sausage goes in now, and some towards the end.  Cook until the potatoes are almost ready and falling apart, whizz the soup smooth if you prefer, then add lots of finely shredded kale and more chorizo.  The kale should still keep a bit of texture, not be really soft.  You can also add herbs like mint and parsley towards the end of cooking.

 

FOOD FORESTS

 

Suveran Dewsnap is head gardener at Starseed Gardens , a non profit organisation with all sorts of interesting projects, on among others, bio-char, aquaculture, hemp, and his passion for many years now, food forests.

 

Listen to Suveran on belly

 

Starseed Gardens will have workshops on planting a food forest , in Byron Bay in June.  This is what Suveran says about the importance of food forests.

“The beauty of food forests, in my view, is not just that they provide a variety of produce on an ongoing basis, when established, but, more importantly, as a permanent resource ( as opposed to annual cropping ). They are an ongoing propagation resource base that would be so vital in the event of a food supply crisis, with most tropical and subtropical perennial staples being easily reproduced by cuttings and tubers (sweet potato, cassava, Taro, Arrowroot and yam ) or abundant seed (as in the case of perennial legumes such as Lima beans ) Thus with some collaboration and a local knowledge base communities around the shire would be able to provide themselves with abundant food, relatively quickly. This, in my view, is the essence of food security. In the event of a natural disaster or disruption to the transport system there is probably no more than 2-3 days food on the supermarket shelves, and so, in an increasingly uncertain world, I now feel a sense of urgency to share the knowledge I have accumulated, and will be running a series of workshops around the country over the next 12 months, starting at Starseed gardens on the 1st-3rd of June. This workshop will cover various strategies for achieving a secure locally produced food supply including perennial food crops, the development of a food forest network across the shire, edible weeds, community collaboration, planting hardy plants for winter and preparing the ground for spring planting, followed by a comprehensive food forest planting workshop from August 31st to Sep 2nd which will include a range of seeds and cuttings to begin creating other food forests throughout the district.”

 

RECIPE – TARO WITH MISO AND TOFU, from Suvi

adapted from a recipe on www.justhungry.com

 

Suveran brought a bag of taro roots – some to plant, some to eat.  Lucky subscriber Bridget, who won them, is attempting to goat-proof a spot for the taro patch.  He suggests this recipe.  You can buy taro easily in local shops and markets.

 

5 or 6 smallish peeled taro roots

1/2 block firm tofu, crumbled

1 cup Japanese dashi stock or water

2 tbs white miso paste

1 tbs soy sauce

1/2  tbs raw sugar

 

Cut the taro into chunks.  Bring to a boil taro, dashi or water, tofu and sugar.  Cook on medium heat until almost all liquid is gone, then add the soy sauce and the miso (thinned to liquid consistency with a little water).  Simmer on low heat for a few minutes.  Serve hot or cold.

 

BELLY BULLETIN

 

Coming up this Thursday 17th & all weekend, the Noosa International Food Festival, chefs from all over Australia, Hong Kong and Turin, lots of good music.    On the June long weekend ABC Delicious magazine is organising a Byron Bay gourmet extravaganza, lots of visits to local producers and restaurants. ( See here) They both sound good if you have a fair bit of cash to spare.

On in Ballina right now and  free :

From Wednesday 2 May – 27 May 2012  (from the Gallery website)

“Table Manners: a spectacular installation of handmade ceramic dinnerware by ceramic artists Suvira McDonald, Malcolm Greenwood and Sue Fraser; textile artist Kirsten Ingemar; Ikebana artist Di Morison and food stylist Monique Guterres-Harrison (Seaweed Cuisine). Curated by Suvira McDonald.

Short and Sweet: exquisite pastel drawings depicting kitchenware and high tea treats by Katka Adams.

Produce-d: watercolours of farmers market produce by Karena Wynn-Moylan. Each Saturday for one year the artist visited her local farmers market (the Bangalow Farmers Market) and photographed her basket of produce. These were then translated as beautiful watercolour paintings and published in a recipe book, with recipes from market stall holders.

Food for Thought: still life paintings and mixed media by Barbara Zarletti and Peter Mortimore. Their contrasting styles offer exquisite views of quiet arrangements of food and kitchenware.”

 

Last week on belly we talked about food and painting with the presenter of the Bayfm arts show, Karena Wynn-Moylan. I hope you have a chance to check out last week’s post here with karena’s beautiful paintings and lots of seasonal recipes from her artistst’s cookbook.  Today I  played  interviews I recorded at the exhibition opening night with 2 other artists, Kirsten who works with fabric,and sound, and Peter who made great collages in honour of his mother’s old cookbooks.

 

Listen to Kirsten

 

Listen to Peter

 

MUSIC

 

Apart from the fado track, all the music today was thanks to the great community radio resource, airit,  maintained by Amrap, which supports Australian musicians, and community radio stations.   No money at all from the Federal government in this year’s budget, very disappointing, but they say they will keep the music coming. Senator Conroy is the one to contact if you want to support amrap.

 

Foreign Language by Flight Facilities, from Foreign Language Remixes

Fado Curvo by Mariza, from Nu Europe

Maybe When The Sun Comes Down,  XTREMIX By Cloud Control Richard In Your Mind

Forest Eyes  by Jinja Safari , from the Jinja Safari EP

Words and images by  Great Earthquake, from  Drawings

 

 

love and chocolate covered cabbages,  sister tess