Food Passion or Food Fashion?

pockmarked and disregarded; an apple in a world of glossy food photographs.

Food passion or food fashion?..In a week of focusing on the 2013 Zero Food Waste Week, there will be many angles from which to see the way our ingrained appetites affect our impacting waste environment; and enlarging waists.

Tradition rides on the back of hunger, and as historical observers can attest, waves of famines have carried poor nutritional habits to perdition. The most notable in the last centuries being Ireland and Darfur, passing by Biaffra. For every mother who has ever invoked the sight of bony starvelings to induce her children to happily taste their fare, there is a larger truth behind the despair of food waste.

Those reading from a conveniently located screen may have to use imagination to feel the full weight of near starvation. Several agricultural movements have imbalanced food production since global trading began. Larger, more powerful means of cultivation and transportation made it too easy to manipulate the markets.

For millenia, middlemen have conspired to speed up growth and containment of food distribution. I obtain sugar from Hawaii, cloves from Zanzibar or vanilla purely extracted of Jamaican beans..how exotic! Recipes goad me to use more of each, more of every ingredient at each social turn of event. Spice of life means raking, prodding earth and utilizing distant resources, human and otherwise. I can' t lose one single gram of these precious commodities. That's sacrilegious!

Foodies are the new gourmets, they have brought culinary arts to the doorstep of every reader of cuisine blogs. Digital photography has enhanced saliva secretion over wide publications across the entire planet. I am sure there is a Jivaro, right now, sitting in a hammock under a thatch roof, thumbing through delicious shots of head cheese on pickled grape leaves from Greece, elegantly displayed on silver platters.

Satellite communications disregard political frontiers to the point of elevating expectations in any random area. Discontent rises with technological progress. Grandma grumbles when dial-up slows down her new recipe download. Neighbors find better cookie patterns. Teachers make funnier faces on their weekly cupcakes. Food fashion is out of control...and who's gonna clean up the mess? I mean THE mess. Shipping miles, oil spills, mechanical problems, trucker's motel bills, somebody's gotta pay for all that. Somebody' s gonna get hungry for that.

Ask any kid in lunch line if he knows where his food is coming from and you won't need to switch on the comedy channel for a month. His parents are so alienated from the farmers, packers or milkers that it' s very easy for him to chuck the food in the bin. Oh the waste! Where is Darfur again? Oh yeah, I forgot, children starve there, the school holds a subscription to National Geographic; so I am aware.

Food waste is not just about hunger, it is about the damaging attitudes growing as fast as mold around us. It is not the half bun, the bread crust or the apple with one bite out of it sticking out of the lunch box. It is about the lack of pleasure in the face of the child. It' s about the disgust in the adult's eye in the cereal aisle. How about the sadness in my eye when I pass what should be fresh and local foods, now imprisoned under plastic wrap with cartoon figures winking at short wailing beggars from the shopping basket seat.

Time to give credit to my own, I've never had to poke or prod mine to clean their plates, they left very little reason to wash dishes at all. No matter what was served straight from garden or desert. OK, the burnt meat did not pass the test, how could I ever forget that? and one still doesn't like watermelon. But I do..no waste here!

THREE FRENCH SOUPS

THREE FRENCH SOUPS.

Nourishment comes in many a form and soup is an easy way to conjugate economy with ecology. Sumptuous velvety concoctions or interesting flavors can be achieved in one large pot...add water and spice—savor slowly. Here are ways to reach 'Zero-Waste' and 'Maxi-Taste' in one simple bite.

These three recipes demonstrate the possibilities and adaptations of my most prized mixer. Vitamix came into my life at a time when using every bite was essential to my family's nutrition; its power could reduce fish bones and eggshells to smooth and assimilable liquid minerals in seconds of pulsing.

Basic ingredients can be changed according to regional and seasonal availability, or as a way to use neglected leafy vegetables in garden or refrigerator; an excellent excuse to take someone on a foraging or fishing trip through the countryside.

Green soup..Soupe verte:

Ingredients:

1 quart of water.

A of your choice of leafy greens:

cabbage, beet , turnip greens, lettuce, dandelion, sorrel..or a mix of all; flavors blend very well as they are mitigated by the root vegetables and onion.

2 unpeeled potatoes.

2 parsnips or turnips.

2 small onions cubed.

2 cloves of garlic.

2 tsp each of parsley flakes.

1 tsp sea salt, ground black pepper to taste.

2 Tsp sweet cream or butter.

Preparation:

Wash greens under running water or in a bowl of cold water with a spoon of lemon juice or vinegar.

Cube potatoes and onions, cover with water in large pot, bring to a boil, simmer for 10 minutes.

Add chopped greens and minced garlic to large pot, simmer for 5 to10 more minutes, till greens are limp.

Allow cooling period; then ladle into the blender, pulse to a rough texture..

when potatoes and onions are white specks in a verdant velvet sea..you are ready.

Serving suggestions:

Sour cream or butter, gently stirred in hot soup help to absorb the pro vitamin A and other fat soluble components of the vegetables, plus, one single spoonful of it tastes so rich against the calming effect of the greens.

Croutons or Melba toast slices are always welcome in liquid soups or floating atop with chopped parsley..

Fish soup: faux bouillabaise.

To use whatever fish is available and make a one step nutritional experience, consider the powerful calcium and protein boost of less commercially desirable water creatures..Never waste a single trout skeleton or fish head again, you can reduce the valuable leftovers of a good meal to a tasteful creamed soup. You can use less expensive species or prolific ones such as carp.

Ingredients:

1 quart water.

1 Tsp olive oil.

2 fish heads and bones or whole fish. Any type.

1 large onion, 1 small head of garlic.

2 large tomatoes or 1 small can of stewed tomatoes.

2 celery stalks.

2 green peppers.

1 sprig each of parsley, oregano and dill. (or use 1tsp of the powdered herbs).

1 tsp curry powder. (or cumin, clove and turmeric)

1 tsp sea salt.

Preparation:

Wash fish in cold water with 1 tsp lemon juice or vinegar, lay in deep pan with herbs, cover with water , bring to boil, simmer on low for 30 minutes.

Chop onions, and garlic cloves, fry swiftly in olive oil 5 minutes till transparent.

Add cubed tomatoes and peppers.

Pour over fish and simmer an additional 10 minutes.

Allow to cool then blend thoroughly; bones will be melted into the smooth rusty colored broth.

Serving suggestions:

Again, adding a spoon of sour cream lends a creamier taste and aids in the absorption of the essential nutrients, lycopene, Omega 3s, trace minerals and calcium..

Croutons rubbed with a garlic clove bring a Mediterranean pungency to the 'one bowl' meal.

Fresh parsley sprinkled on top tempers the aroma.

Watercress soup; faux vichyssoise.

A creamy cold soup for springtime celebration, quick and easy, and oh so sumptuous!

Ingredients:

1 quart water.

1 large bunch of watercress.

2 large potatoes.

1 onion, 1tsp sea salt, pepper to taste.

½ cup plain yogurt or sweet cream.

Preparation.

Scrub and cube unpeeled potatoes, bring to boil, simmer for 20 min.

Cut off stringy roots from cress, rinse very thoroughly, chop stems and leaves. Add to potatoes, simmer for additional 5 to 10 min.

allow cooling period, add yogurt or sweet cream, blend till light unctuous green.

Serving suggestions.

Cold or hot, this simple soup is refreshing and mineralizing. Provides iron and tastes like a vege smoothie.

Pour icy cold in glass bowls for a European flair. Decorate with parsley sprigs and sesame cracker crumbs.

 A  side bowl of macademia nuts or cashews lends a contrast to the so-smooth-so-soft texture of the cress soup.

Bon appetit! With gratitude to the Green family from My Zero Waste blog and Little Green blog. for their steady influence toward healthful living.