Winter foods

I haven't posted for a while - sorry! :-) But, things have been fairly busy. Despite this, I haven't been neglecting my Eating British project. Last week passed smoothly and there are still plenty of British vegetables for sale in my local supermarket - even tomatoes! I do wonder how much longer this will last though, so far my predictions of things getting more difficult haven't come true.

I think there will be a change, but by switching to more traditionally 'winter' meals I should be able to accommodate this. So, I shall be buying more parsnips, turnips, carrots and that kind of thing from now on. This is a different style of cooking to what I am used to, but I made a lamb casserole last week and it was really good, so that's encouraging! Although my knowledge of history is weak at the best of times, I'm fairly confident that in the past people would have been used to changing their diet between the seasons, where as today we tend to eat what ever we want, whenever we want it. I think that the important question to ask is whether this modern lifestyle is really sustainable in the long term?

Curiously, I was talking to someone last weekend and I got to telling him about this project. He thought it was very interesting and wished me luck, but he said that whilst he thought it would relatively possible for me, as one person, to do this, he didn't think it would be sustainable for all 60 million people living in the UK. I wonder if this is really true? I shall have to do some more homework on this one, but it's a big question and I wonder if anyone really knows the answer. I suppose that this was very effectively tested during the second world war when rationing was introduced because we were unable to import as much food as we needed. The fact that people had to really 'go without' during those times suggests to me that the answer was certainly no then. But, will it have changed now? Have modern methods of agriculture made food production more efficient, implying that we would be able to cope better now?

The tomato chutney that I made a little while ago has been fixed, I think. I re-boiled it once I had the time, without the lid on the saucepan, and it thickened up nicely. So that's good.