The Yin of Yesterday's Yang...

...or maybe it's the other way around. Anyway in yesterday's post, I was bemoaning the fact that we have lost some ground in cooking with the basics or from scratch. We no longer do what a generation or two did before us - make our own preserves, bake our own bread, do our own processing of whatever is needed. Instead we have left the processing up to huge conglomerates, who are more interested in the "bottom line," to decide what we will eat or not, as the case may be.

I was also concerned about the fact that, if this generation has lost so much ground, what will subsequent generations lose!! Cooking our own food maybe a thing of the past and more and more we will be handing ourselves over to big business, who will feed us with fast and/or processed food, thereby controlling what we eat, who we are and how we think - Big Brother lives!!

Rumtopf

Enter a ray of sunshine. Another item in the paper the next day - and maybe that's all it takes, as they say "tomorrow is another day" - I read another article about a 30 something male who loves cooking from scratch and carries with him for his morning commute - "The Joy of Pickling." He also studies "Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing." The article by Rebecca Zandbergen was in the Sunday Star and explained how she and her partner - said cook - had befriended a couple in their 70's who also shared a love of cooking. The article wove its way through common delights including a fascination with a Swedish Chef who opened a restaurant on a farm and serves only food from this farm.

The article ended with a wonderful "challenge." The cook a.k.a. "Kitchen-man" was going to spend a day with the woman, mentioned above and together they were going to make their own sausages. This is my idea of food, cooking and community!!  People of all ages coming together, to share a common love by getting back to their roots with real food and real fun!!

Bring back the communal oven!!

The picture? When we moved into our home 30 years ago there was an extensive garden and I added to it. The first summer I preserved the fruits that we didn't eat in Rum. We had black currents, strawberries, raspberries, plums, peaches and cantaloupe. It was delicious. Must do it again.