LocalFood.co.nz : NZ Food Found!

New Zealand Food Found. This brand spanking new project officially launched on 10.10.10. The is New Zealand’s food finder. Plug in your address, choose the distance you would like to search within, submit and presto! see what is available locally. Producers can list items for sale too. This site is in its early days, and is currently focusing on getting local food producers on board. If you know any NZ food producers pass the word on. www.localfood.co.nz

NZ Food Found

Do you want to:
- sell food locally?
- reduce “food miles”?
- entice customers with your luscious harvest?
- be part of a shift to sourcing food close to home?
- find out about other local growers and producers?
- grow your local economy?

www.localfood.co.nz

New Zealand’s local food finder – the place where food producers connect
with food lovers.

Growers, producers, vineyards, orchardists, bakers, farmers markets, cheese
makers, specialist food manufacturers and backyard veggie gardeners with
surplus harvest can make their products available to local food lovers on
LocalFood.co.nz.

Local food enthusiasts enter their location, enter the geographic range they
want to search and voila! they will find your profile and what you want to
sell. Chefs, home cooks, travellers, food fans and lifestyle shifters will find you
there.

Discover customers right in your area. If you are a grower or producer, even
a keen veggie gardener, you can show you what you have available. You and
the local food customer are in direct contact with one another through LocalFood.co.nz.

LocalFood.co.nz: The first place local food enthusiasts look beyond their own backyard.

What’s Your Tipple?

Pilsner, wine or ginger beer?
Local Merton amateur brewer, Helen Carter, reaps great satisfaction from transforming locally grown products into wine and beer. The upbringing Helen remembers, a Scottish ‘waste nothing, make use of everything, even if others think it is useless’ background finds her using what’s available, what’s seasonal. She describes herself as practical, just like her Mum. She remembers “there was always something brewing on my uncle’s kitchen table”.

Helen’s first dabble into brewing began at boarding school. The dilemma of what to do with the nightly supper of badly bruised apples was remedied. Mush up the apples, add sugar, strain through thick regulation school tights, add yeast and leave in the school locker to ferment. Remembered for its bouquet (which filled the corridors), its pink hue and for being harsh on the palate, Helen’s first vintage was born. Things have only improved.

Helen’s inspiration comes from whatever fruit is available. It may be from her and partner Ben’s home gardens, foraged from the wild or from friends’ surplus. Plum wine has been very successful, with pears having also been harvested and tried. Every year Helen makes Elderflower Champagne and Elderberry Wine. Particularly good is her Green Ginger Wine. Her most unusual and memorable variety is Gorse Flower Wine enjoyed as a golden coloured peppery dry wine.

Helen also brews beer and has tried Nettle Ale. Nettles were a favourite flavouring for beer for 2,000 years before hops gained favour in the 15th century. Until then the distinction between beer and ale was that only beer contained hops. Ales used herbs for flavour, predominantly nettles. Hop oil also has good preservative qualities. When brewing beer Helen prefers the hops grown in Motueka and stocked at Brew Craft, Hillside Rd, Dunedin where she also purchases her brew kits. Helen’s brewing method follows; heat the tin of malt and pour out, add sugar and dissolve with warm water. Top up with cold water. Boil up hops for half an hour (any longer and they become bitter), strain onto the malt wort then sprinkle on yeast. Put a lid on with an air lock and leave for 2 weeks in winter, 1 week in summer. Bottle, cap and leave for 2 weeks before drinking. One kit yields 40 x 500ml bottles at an approximate cost of $1.00 / bottle. Helen’s son, Jack, brews Ginger Beer and between them they have never had an exploding bottle – very impressive !

Helen is happy to share and swap recipes and also will consider a trade of your excess fruit for some wine.
Contact Helen at   karitanekrew@gmail.com

Contacts for this column :
Suzi Flack : suzi@parisettes.com
Patti Vanderburg : vburg@es.co.nz

Winter Book Review

Tucking in with a good book about food and gardening while staying close to the fire is a long tradition in our area. As we regroup for the upcoming planting season and plan to extend our vegetable gardens we seek new information and inspiration. The Waikouaiti library is a treasure trove of good books on growing and gathering food.

This year’s gem is Bee Dawson’s “A History of Gardening in New Zealand”. It is richly illustrated with everything from romanticised woodcuts and engravings of Maori cultivating kumara in the 1800s to photos of young women in wool skirts and sensible shoes digging their victory gardens during World War II.

Otago and South Island garden history gets regular mention. The author refers to hunting, fishing and gathering as the main sustenance for Maori and also describes their reliance on fern roots and native cabbage trees for starch. She describes European potatoes spreading south and by 1813 growing at the head of Otago Harbour. Whalers’ gardens depended on fish and seaweed for fertilizer, with fences constructed of whalebones to keep out wandering pigs and with shells laid on the paths. The European bees shipped to Lyttleton in 1884  (only 48 bees survived the voyage!) had spread to our area by 1888 and made a remarkable impact on pastureland. An 1849 letter to the editor of the Otago News raves about a fine early rhubarb crop. The North Otago Times noted that in the Oamaru autumn show “Ah Leong (Chinese Gardener) was very successful in securing a number of prizes for his broad beans, French beans, lettuce, celery, cauliflowers, peas and parsnips”. At some point thistle seeds took hold in Otago, most likely from bags of oat seeds planted to ensure a porridge supply.

This book documents household gardens shifting in and out of vegetable production depending on the overall economy, world wars, and interest in nourishing fresh local food. The worst of the depression years brought huge interest in growing food. Good gardeners ate better and could trade their skills and produce. Great photos and facts show New Zealanders during World War II producing food for the war effort. The Vegetable Production Scheme with large mechanised farms provided vegetables for troops in New Zealand and the Pacific. The Dig for Victory Campaign extended to the South Island in September 1944 and people were urged to “beg, buy or borrow a spade and dig for victory”. Weekly radio programmes helped with practical instructions. Food was grown for local communities, New Zealand military camps and troops overseas. In 1943 a Dunedin firm paid people to gather rosehips to make high vitamin C rosehip syrup. The wartime sugar ration of 340 grams /week was increased during jam making season. As we experience this current downturn in our cash economies we are certainly showing a renewed interest in growing our food locally. Looking back and looking forward – Bee Dawson’s book is a great read

Contacts for this column:
Patti Vanderburg: vburg@es.co.nz
Suzi Flack: suzi@parisettes.com

Histories and Hardships

Food for energy, food for health, food for celebration, food for trade, food for thought…
Supermarkets and the drive thru are modern conveniences unheard of 100 or 200 years ago.
How has our Local Food changed ?
The traditional Kai Tahu diet included protein-rich seafood, land and sea birds. Traditional starchy foods included fern roots and cabbage trees.
Sealers existed on the rations they were dropped off with – usually salt pork – but some survived on crabs and sea bird eggs when the ships were delayed or failed to return.
Whaling ships travelling between here and Sydney brought in supplies. The local Maori were successfully growing potatoes and eating wild pork introduced to their traditional diet by trading with explorers. This available food all helped to stave off the threat of starvation while the first sponsored settlers awaited harvests of their first crops.
The years from 1840-1848 saw changes to the landscape and available food. By the time the main body of settlers arrived in East Otago the pioneers had shown farming practices familiar to them could be applied here. Wheat and oats were grown and livestock raised and eventually creameries and dairy factories were set up.
An explosion in the rabbit population caused problems for farmers. Were they a food source or just pests ?
Procuring food wasn’t the only challenge. Food also needed to be cooked and sometimes preserved. Sugar was only available in 20lb blocks, so black and hard it required an axe to chop it.
The first settler families arrived with minimal basic equipment for cooking. Dampers were cooked on earth floors covered with hot ashes if no camp oven was available. How the appearance of the Orion coal range, made in Dunedin, must have revolutionised the making of a cup of tea with the inbuilt water heater !
When wheat was scarce bread was made with maize meal using just enough wheat to make it bind. When salt was unavailable for butter making sea water was boiled down to extract the salt. Butter making was shown to be an artform. The Waikouaiti museum displays A&P show certificates awarded for best fresh butter, best dried butter (WWll) and best table display. A medal dated 1886 was awarded to Mrs Demspter for the best fresh butter.

When you compare our lifestyle today to that of our ancestors you can’t help but think how lucky we are. It’s easy to flick a switch or phone up for a home delivery, but I think we still enjoy some aspects of hunting and gathering our food. There is a lot more to food than just calories.

Our thanks to the Waikouaiti Museum for their time, information and the use of photographs.

Contacts for this column : Suzi Flack : suzi@parisettes.com
Patti Vanderburg : vburg@es.co.nz

Cracked to Order Hill Rd Hazelnuts

Two hundred productive hazelnut trees are the result of nine years of good planning and hard work by Neville and Coleen Hastie on their Warrington property of ½ hectare. You may have met them at one of the coastal markets this summer and sampled their delicious locally grown hazelnuts. Coleen has baked chocolate hazelnut biscuits for folks to try as an introduction to the fine taste of their homegrown nuts.

They were always keen home vegetable and flower gardeners but wanted to grow a crop on a larger scale. After a lot of good research they decided on hazelnuts, a crop well suited for this climate. By growing mostly the White Heart variety with 3 additional varieties as pollinators they plan for overlapping pollination seasons. Italian alders provide just the right shelterbelt, allowing 20% of the wind to come through to support good crops of nuts. The time for harvest is just about now, late May. They are looking forward to using their new vacuum harvester after years of “harvesting on our hands and knees, recruiting the grandkids and using all kinds of contraptions!” The vacuum harvester will pick up the nuts and leaves and separate them out as it goes. About 20% of the nuts harvested will still have their husks that need to be removed by hand. The nuts are then washed and hung in onion bags in lots of 2.5kg to dry. When the moisture drops to 8% they are ready to eat. They keep well up to 2 years in the shell.

Coleen and Neville specialise in “cracking to order”, preparing individual orders as they are received. Over time they have built up a loyal customer email base (ncnuts@xtra.co.nz) and also take orders by phone (03-482-1931). Standard packets are 200 grams but other sizes can be made to order.

They describe their hazelnuts as “locally grown-fresh and natural” as they use no sprays on their trees. More people are realising the nutritional value of nuts and are seeking good locally produced food. Hazelnuts make a healthy snack, are a delicious ingredient in baking, and work well in pesto and in homemade muesli. Yummmmmmmm.

Contact info for this column:

Patti Vanderburg  vburg@es.co.nz
Suzi Flack  suzi@parisettes.com

Is It a Relish or a Chutney? Local Sustainable Living Groups Make Good

Recently two local Sustainable Living Groups participated in an afternoon of preserving at the Waikouaiti Events Centre. The venue was spacious and well equipped to host the enthusiastic attendees who set about prepping vegetables and measuring out ingredients. Head chef for the day was Judy Martin whose forward planning ensured the workshop ran without a hitch. Armed with cookbooks, utensils, and ingredients Judy led us in the production of pumpkin chutney which included apple and ginger. Some prepped vegetables, others weighed out ingredients, we were on a roll. While the pumpkin chutney was simmering it was decided to make some beetroot chutney as well, seeing as the vegetables were available.

There was no problem of having too many cooks and everyone contributed to the workshop. Garden harvests were supplied, excess vegetables were swapped and ingredients and local foraging spots were traded. It wasn’t all cooking and chatting, there was also some serious sampling to be had. Homemade preserves were expertly laid out and labelled by our younger helpers. The jams and marmalades were accompanied with freshly made pikelets. These included yellow plum and citrus jam, bramble jam and plum jam. Rhubarb chutney, beetroot jam and plum saucewere sampled with Judy’s homemade crackers and Evansdale cheeses. Helpful hints and tips were exchanged throughout.

More than a successful preserving workshop, we had the add-ons of meeting new people, sharing skills, ideas and enthusiasm – all the good things that keep communities strong. I’m not sure if we did find out the difference between a relish and a chutney though. Is it more than regionality?

For information on the Sustainable Living Groups contact Maureen Howard mhoward@slingshot.co.nz

Contact for this column:
Suzi Flack:  paradisesouth@xtra.co.nz
Patti Vanderburg: vburg@es.co.nz

Sharing the Harvest, Otago, New Zealand

A gem of a model for small communities sharing the bounty of household gardens is operating in the nearby Blueskin Bay area. For the last 3 years folks from Purakanui to Seacliff bring their surplus edibles to the Harvest Market, held one Sunday morning a month during February, March and April. The concept is simple: anything edible grown or produced locally (plants, veggies, fruits, honey, chooks, eggs) can be bought, traded, or bartered. It’s all about local food production by people at a grass roots level. The project is an initiative of the Waitati Edible Gardeners (aka WEGies). Secretary  Lynnaire Johnston says, “It’s a community market, for the community, by the community. People bring garden produce by the wheelbarrow or car bootful.”

The market is held at The Old Stores, the home of Rayna and Mark Dickson, who own the Taste Nature store in Dunedin. Set up is simple, a few old tables on their verandah and a cup of lemon verbena tea for everyone. It only lasts an hour and a half and those who come to buy, sell or barter are there for that reason. A lot of good socialising happens around sharing the harvest. Local orchardist, Jason Ross, is often on hand with apple samples. Publicity is simple, through the local newsletter, community email lists and word of mouth. With no charge to stallholders lots of people of all ages feel free to set up with their good local food items. Most times there are about a dozen stallholders.

It does seem a great model for other small communities to share seasonal harvests. If you are interested, come along to last Harvest Market this year Sunday, 18 April, 10:30-noon, The Old Stores, Harvey Street (just over the bridge past the library), Waitati.

EVANSDALE CHEESE, Otago, New Zealand

It Started with a Cow

Every story has a beginning and Evansdale Cheese has a story. It begins in 1978 with the Dennison family cow that produced more milk than the family could use. The excess milk was distributed amongst friends in the Waitati community. This led to discussions of others getting a cow and pooling the milk to produce cheese. By the time the first factory was built on the Dennison property at Evansdale not everyone was still on board with the cow idea. This meant the first milk used for cheese production was from dairy farms in the area, milking for Cadburys. A cottage industry was born and, using 150L of milk / day, the first cheese, ‘Monterey Jack’, was produced. “It was a terrible cheese,” remembers  Colin, but through trial and experimentation Farmhouse Brie came about and is still popular today. This cheese is also the basis for the smoked cheese ‘Tania ‘ and ‘Laurel’, a special soft brie.

Evansdale Cheese was the first small cheese making factory in NZ and from the
beginning had strong local support producing local food and being a local business. Business growth saw them in four different programmes on national television in one year and also featured on the cover of the Air New Zealand magazine. In 1997 the   factory moved to their present site at Hawksbury Village where they now use 1,500L of milk/day, produced locally and supplied by Fonterra. The milk is delivered raw and pasteurised on site. Colin’s son, Paul, is now the cheese maker and factory manager. Their cheeses are sold throughout the country to supermarkets and restaurants. All Evansdale cheeses are free from preservatives and rennet. There are 20-30 varieties and Colin finds  farmers markets a good way to trial new products, get feedback and make contacts. The factory entrance has been newly painted and the picket fence is very welcoming. Inside a viewing window into the curing room complements the display of cheeses for sale.

Further information is available on their website, www.evansdalecheese.co.nz
and to subscribers of their newsletter, info@evansdalecheese.co.nz
phone  03 4658101. Factory sales also available.

Living Food, Writing Food

The rural Palmerston home of Mary and Michael Browne reflects their love of and dedication to the elegant practical integration of productive gardening into Mary’s world of food writing. Long shelves hold hundreds of cookbooks, a wonderful home kitchen tests recipes and a conservatory looks out onto their prolific vegetable garden and orchard. It is obvious that Mary doesn’t just write about the world of food, she lives in it.

Mary’s food writing, both on her own and in collaboration with her sisters, artist Nancy Tichborne and anthropologist Helen Leach, is often not only about food. Mary Browne is able to connect different subjects through food. Her first cookbook, “Mothering Time Cookbook”, written as a guide for busy new Mums, was an early fundraiser for the La Leche League of New Zealand. She still likes doing community cookbooks and finds that those projects result in documenting regional food cultures and also help build communities working on a common project. The Waikouaiti Branch of Rural Women produced a cookbook “Favourite Recipes from Rural Otago” with Mary’s assistance. That cookbook will provide their carefully chosen and valued recipes for generations to come. Mary’s column, “Earthly Pleasures”, ran for 3 years in NZ House and Garden.

Her academic background in home science prepared Mary to understand the science of food and to value good research. Part of what she does is to make sure the techniques, measurements and descriptions of food are accurate. This often means long and repetitive testing the growing of food plants or testing recipes. Her recent work with sister Helen Leach for “The Pavlova Story” found her translating a 1933 Rangiora Cookbook Pavlova recipe for the contemporary cook. The vague language of a good old recipe needed specifics to be replicated by today’s cook in today’s kitchen. Showing the Pavlova over the decades required a fun hunting expedition to find china and table settings to match each era. This flair and attention to detail is obvious in Mary’s clear writing style and wonderful published images showing good gardening and good cooking. She belongs to the New Zealand Guild of Food Writers, founded by Tui Flower who wrote from the test kitchen of the New Zealand Women’s Weekly for 30 years.

Mary notices that we are now interested in what we used to cook, especially in what our mothers and grandmothers cooked. She sees a resurgence of both good cooking and gardening. This time the drivers are the economic downturn, issues of food safety, and a desire for renewing our ties to the land, our culture and the pleasures of growing, preparing and eating good food. The last time we were this interested was in the late 1970s when Mary and her sisters wrote the classic “The Cook’s Garden”. Previously books were either about gardening or about cooking. “The Cook’s Garden” was about both. The three sisters also wrote the “The Cook’s Salad Garden” and the “The Cook’s Herb Garden”, wonderful practical guides for successfully growing and preparing beautiful garden bounty. Completely updated versions of these two books are due for release later this year.

Good gardens, good food, good food writing. That’s Mary Browne.

Contact info for this column:
Patti Vanderburg: vburg@es.co.nz
Suzi Flack: paradisesouth@xtra.co.nz

Flavour Sculpture

It has been a year of hard work  since Chris Trotter and April Nijland opened the doors of Crema Cafe in Stornoway St, Karitane.
Chris’s love and appreciation of food began at home, in the Bay of Plenty where his parents had large gardens and orchards, and with his grandmother, whose 4 course meals were worth waiting for. Childhood memories of food smells and flavours are rekindled at the cafe when using seasonal and sometimes forgotten fruits. Chris gained more experience with food working under the guidance of his sister, an  award winning chef.
While living in Whanganui and providing wholesome and low key food for his family and himself, Chris took on a more commercial role doing the same for staff & students at the Whanganui Polytechnic. Chris also began working towards a perfect Ciabatta bread with large air holes. After the birth of their daughter Sylvia they were both tempted back down south, home to April.
While continuing to bake breads for local farmers markets and catering in Dunedin, the opportunity came along to set up a business in the now Crema Cafe, Karitane. Working as a ” Flavour Sculptor ” Chris and partner April put together the cafe menu which includes his signature pies (including the famous aubergine pie), extra thin crust pizzas and delicious breads.
“It’s creating flavours, not just cooking”,says Chris. Chris credits the success of his breads to the hardness of Speights water and organic flours. His sour dough starter was born in Karitane.
April specialises in the delicious and sought after sweet delights. Three of those recipes have already been requested for the “Ask a Chef” column in the ODT’s food section. April also sells whole tarts and cheesecakes when requested.
Care is taken sourcing ingredients, sometimes from local growers and suppliers,the cafe garden or from the more tropical climate of the North Island. The coffee is wonderfully fresh and roasted locally at Mazagran in Dunedin.
All dishes on the menu are created and sculpted on the premises and the presentation is as artful as the surroundings. The walls are hung with the works of local artists and include their own work. April is also a glass blower and Chris a wood carver.
Chris and April have come a long way in just one year and are pleased with the feedback they have received. Referrals see people taking a detour off SH 1 to stop by at the cafe. As well as locals, backpackers, campers, walkers and cyclists they also see families and dog owners due to their child and dog friendly environment.
Chris descibes the menu as a cross of various cuisines including Italian, Lebanese and Meditteranean with a seasonal twist.
Chris and April would like to acknowledge the support of the local community in their first year at Crema Cafe.
Cafe hours are
Mon        10-2.00pm
Wed-Fri  10-4.00pm
Sat-Sun   10-5.00pm
Closed  Tuesdays
The cafe is available for private functions and catering by arrangement.
Contact details are
phone 03 4657786
cremacafekaritane@live.com

Contacts for this column:
Suzi Flack  paradisesouth@xtra.co.nz
Patti Vanderburg   vburg@es.co.nz