Food miles

[Arch]

Putting the sugar (mine is Silver Spoon) aside, I made jam last week with blackberries and apples gathered at my workplace - about a mile and a quarter from my flat.

However, the blackberries had been taken over to NT's to store in his freezer, and then brought back, so they've done 140 miles more than the apples - 70 by train, 70 by car.

I made crab apple jelly yesterday, with crab apples gathered from the Dean's Park next to the Minster. About 500 yards away.

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

Caramelisation always involves sugar, it is the oxidation of mono and di saccharides. Those sugars do not have to come from refined sugar. Apples, if sweet enough, pears, plums, and many more fruits can be caramelised using their own sugars with none added. Patrick could have only had 30m of food travel for his caramelised apples if he'd tried. I've done it with Worcesters which have a very high sugar content and taste wonderful caramelised under a grill.

A good example of this process is caramelised onions. When heated the starch (a long polymer made from glucose units), which makes up much of the onion, is broken into the disaccharide maltose (2 glucose units) which is then oxidised. It produces the lovely sweet malty tasting brown caramelised onion, with uses such as onion gravy for bangers and mash suppers.

edited following patick's admission of using added sugar....

Yes, but these are apples off a decorative apple tree - planted for the spectacular spring blossom. The apples are small and rather bitter - a bit like a halfway house between a crab apple and a dessert apple. Normally, there's not much of a yield, but this year was the best in 28 years. I made apple and bramble jelly at the weekend, utilising some of the abundance of blackberries that I grow in large tubs round the back of the greenhouse. It set like a dream. I've had a couple of attempts with rowan jelly (also in abundance) but there is a dry and dusty taste to it.

 

[Davidc]

Yes, but these are apples off a decorative apple tree - planted for the spectacular spring blossom. The apples are small and rather bitter - a bit like a halfway house between a crab apple and a dessert apple. Normally, there's not much of a yield, but this year was the best in 28 years. I made apple and bramble jelly at the weekend, utilising some of the abundance of blackberries that I grow in large tubs round the back of the greenhouse. It set like a dream. I've had a couple of attempts with rowan jelly (also in abundance) but there is a dry and dusty taste to it.

Sounds good (so did the original meal). The crop of wild blackberries is good this year and they're really sweet too.

The apples sound a bit like cider apples - have you tried crushing and fermenting them? (That always works best with added sugar if you want to get totally paralytic on the product).

 

[Archie_tect]

Pork pie - 300 yards or ten feet from my computer desk if I make it myself.
Elderberry wine - twenty feet from the front door.
Rhubarb wine - fifteen feet from the back door.
Sage - kitchen window sill

Yawn....

 

[Noodley]

I'm starting to think Patrick starts a thread about food everytime he eats and that he just can't afford much so it only happens fortnightly.

 

[Fab Foodie]

I recall posting a report some years back where it showed that the Carbon footprint of frozen New Zealand Lamb was lower than Welsh hill farmed Lamb purchased locally, strange but apparently true.

 

[Cheddar George]

I have half a packet of sugar free polos that have probably done the equivalent of twice round the world.

 

[Fnaar]

My plums have been around a bit

 

[jayonabike]

Beef - Argentina
Chillis - Israel
Peppers - Spain
Tomatoes - Spain
Chilli Sauce - Thailand


Do I win??

 

[Fab Foodie]

Beef - Argentina
Chillis - Israel
Peppers - Spain
Tomatoes - Spain
Chilli Sauce - Thailand


Do I win??

Nah, I've got Chocolate from Mars ...

 

[vernon]

Milky Way beats that, but only in some hideous game of Top Trumps.

It's a draw. It too comes from Mars.

 

[Frood42]

It's a draw. It too comes from Mars.

Well, I suppose the USA can be a bit alien, what with using "z" rather than "s".

 

[Puddles]

Just been totting it up.
Gloucester Old Spot belly pork - 5 miles
Potatoes - 1 mile
Caramellised apple slices - 30 metres
Sage - 15 metres
Not sure about the green vegetables, but they tend to be Lancashire - so 80 miles.

One's choices are limited when there's no Waitrose with Organic Fair Trade Quinoa locally.

 

[Davidc]

I'm starting to think Patrick starts a thread about food everytime he eats and that he just can't afford much so it only happens fortnightly.

Don't be daft - this man is a solicitor!!!

 

[Puddles]

Don't be daft - this man is a solicitor!!!

Is that the same as Nobber?

I only ask as I get very confused with the meanings of some of the technical words on here like bonking and stuff