Monthly Archives: October 2014

Porridge

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World Porridge day has been and gone. We ate Likuni Phala to get into the swing of things. That’s Malawian porridge – four cups of maize kernels and a cup of soya beans with 15 cups of water. TESCO provided maize meal, which was a useful short-cut, and textured soya protein, also known as soya mince. I had intended reducing the soya to a more meal-like consistency in a blender, but I forgot to pack it . First I tried a rolling pin but still ended up with some recognisable pieces of mince. That was when the stick blender came into play.

Next time I’m going to seal the top of the jug with cling film. It wasn’t as bad as when the courgette soup went wrong, but having said that we’re still finding crumbs of soya twenty four hours later.

The day was supposed to be about comparing ourselves with other countries, so I also made oatmeal porridge to compare with the Likuni Phala. Unfortunately, given a choice kids always go for the familiar. Eight out of twelve refused to try the foreign porridge and even the ones who did try it covered it in sugar. From the point of view of comparison, and nutrition, I have delivered better education sessions.

On the other hand we did make sure everyone had plenty of porridge. As many of the group had free school lunches (which always seems to feature a plain grated cheese sandwich in white bread) this was probably a good thing.

After looking at the animals and learning more about how we grow and use wheat (what we refer to as our Seed to Sandwich presentation) it as time for the kitchen session. I’ve been working on a simple scone recipe because it gives us something to spread our home-made jam on. It also, being Hedgerow Jam, allows us to talk about foraging and alternative foods. People who wouldn’t think of trying something new when offered porridge seem happy to eat anything if it’s in the form of jam. The amount of sugar probably helps.

The first time we tried the recipe the mix turned out a bit dry. This time it was a little too soft. A bit of extra flour soon cleared that up. Next time I may get it right.

Next time, I will get something else wrong.

I’ve been thinking of what to write as a first post about Green Care for several months now, Finally I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter what I do it isn’t going to be as good as I want it to be, but at least I managed a key word in the first sentence, which is what I’m supposed to do.

That may be the last time I do anything because I’m supposed to do it. In a life characterised by drifting it might be asking too much of a blog if I expect it to correct my character flaws as well as publicise Quercus Community.

It’s also slightly misleading because I probably won’t be writing much about Green Care, just about a series of events that occur as I drift through life supposedly assisting my wife. She’s the one who set the Quercus project up with a friend and she’s the one with the sense of purpose and the crusading spirit. Today, for instance, I have been baking quiche (using ready-made pastry cases), looking at the World Porridge Day website, thinking about writing press releases and sorting out paperwork. Pleasant as they may be, I can’t see porridge or quiche changing the world. Nor can I see much paperwork being done.

Meanwhile my wife and her co-director have been outside in the cold and rain with our usual Wednesday group engaging in horticultural therapy and using the Green Gym. In everyday English that’s “gardening”.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with a picture. It’s our guinea fowl doing what guinea fowl do best – loafing about in a big group, Just like teenagers with feathers. They’ve had a busy day so far, looking for bugs, taunting the sick turkeys in the hospital pen and dodging showers. In this picture they are sheltering under a table. Every other bird in the county is in a hedge, but ours are sheltering under a picnic table.

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However, they do eat a lot of pests and according to most websites they don’t damage plants. My experience is that they did shred a courgette by roosting on it as it grew at the top of a tyre stack. And they probably did pull a neighbour’s onion sets up. They were certainly in the area, though it could have been anyone. But as I say, they do eat a lot of pests, and they do deposit a fair amount of manure so I can live with that.

Or as Bill Mollison the permaculture man put it:

You don’t have a snail problem, you have a duck deficiency!