For those of you who visit McDonalds for more than coffee, you might want to think about your 'food' choice again.
Name this McDonalds menu item.
Soft serve ice cream, right?
No.
It’s Pre-Chicken Nugget Meat Paste
AKA Mechanically Separated Poultry or Mechanically Separated Chicken
The photo above has been extensively passed around recently, and for good reason: it's a peek into the rarely-seen world of mechanically separated meat, or Advanced Meat Recovery (AMR).
Fooducate writes:
Some American figured out in the 1960s that meat processors can eek out a few more percent of profit from chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows by scraping the bones 100% clean of meat. This is done by machines, not humans, by passing bones leftover after the initial cutting through a high pressure sieve. The paste you see in the picture above is the result. There's more: because it's crawling with bacteria, it will be washed with ammonia, soaked in it, actually. Then, because it tastes gross, it will be reflavoured artificially. Then, because it is weirdly pink, it will be dyed with artificial colour.
But, hey, at least it tastes good, right?
The resulting paste goes on to become the main ingredient in many of Australia's favourite mass-produced and processed meat-like foods and snacks: bologna, hot dogs, salami, pepperoni, meat jerky, and of course the ever-polarizing chicken nugget, where the paste from the photo above was likely destined.
That late night/early morning feed at Macca’s doesn’t look so good now does it!
When we first arrived here at Near River, I was very keen to get some of the perennial vegetables planted as they can keep producing for many years. One of the best pieces of advice that we've been given is that for this enterprise to work you really need to grow what you love. Excellent - asparagus and rhubarb are two of my favourites, and while they can take some time to start producing, once they are settled, with the right care they'll keep giving for years. You can read about our asparagus escapades here and here, and see an earlier rhubarb story here.
We have a small range of preserves that we sell at markets, through a few key retailers in the Hastings and in Sydney, and at our online farmgate stall. Initially the idea was that we'd use excess production to provide the material for the preserve range, and that has more or less been the situation, until one of the preserves starts to sell quicker than you can grow it.
Such is the case of our delicious Rhubarb Lime + Ginger Compote.
Back in 2008, having created the first growing bed and planting a border row of lemongrass for protection, we planted our first rhubarb plants. Grown from seed in our polyhouse, it was pretty exciting nine months later to start 'pinching' some stems and using them in the kitchen for breakfasts and desserts. Not long after this, our good friend John Shelley from Red Hill at Telegraph Point offered us some excellent deep red rhubarb crowns - wild horses couldn't have kept me back. From memory, John gave us about 60 crowns, and for the last couple of years they've been providing us and our CSA customers with wonderful red rhubarb.
In the spring of 2010, we launched our Rhubarb Lime + Ginger Compote, which has gone extremely well, quickly gaining popularity here in the Hastings Valley, and farther afield thanks to our extensive network of agents (read family) and the joys of online marketing.
And then a happy dilemma - we need more plants, but we can't damage the production of our existing crop. Rhubarb is a plant that can be propogated very easily by division, indeed it's perfect for this form of reproduction as you end with identical 'offspring' from the parent plant, also ideal in our case of highly sort after red stem rhubarb. So to minimise the impact we chose to move and divide the existing crop in two sections.
The first 25 plants have been moved to the new, improved bed, giving us 125 plants - don't you like that math - and the remaining 50 plants were harvested last week, and will be moved over the coming few weeks. All up we should finish up with over 300 plants in the new bed, and that will keep us in rhubarb for a few years to come.
So with the red stems trimmed and washed, I headed into town and our chefs, Eric Robinson and Geoff at The Other Chef Fine Foods who produce all our preserves, and witnessed our fresh rhubarb, just harvested that morning, being processed, cooked and bottled. The following images say it all. Later this year, when the citrus trees reach the right age, we'll be using our limes and ginger too.
Add the rhubarb to the pot ...mix well ...simmer at 90 deg for 10 mins ...and presto!
Keen to try some of this for yourself? A couple of local cafes have it on their menu - Bent on Food in Wingham and Beetroot'd in Kendall - and the following stores have it on their shelves - in Port Macquarie head to Essential Ingredients, About Food, or The Visitor Info Centre at The Glasshouse, and in Coffs Harbour Essential Ingredients have it there too. Otherwise order it online at the Near River Farm Gate or come and see us this Saturday and every second Saturday of the month at the Port Macquarie Farmers Markets in WestPort; every fourth Saturday at the Wauchope Farmers Markets at the Showground; and each third Sunday at the Laurieton Riverside Walk Markets.
Stuck for how to use it? I love it with museli or stirred through yoghurt for breakfast, dolloped on banana bread with cream, or chocolate cake with mascapone, or best of all, simply partnered with ice cream. We've heard of customers using it with pork and duck dishes too!
For a while now we've harboured a desire to have a small cafe ...... no that's not true - maybe some ways down the track.
But we do enjoy sharing good produce, food and wine with our friends, and with a German chef on hand for a month or so as a Wwoofer (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) we jumped at this opportunity when Matthias suggested it.
I'll let the pictures tell the story.
The menu
The setting
Antipasto with ….
breads (chilli with honey, walnut, and herb) and ...
corn – the first from Near River.
potato salad w Raging River Wagyu meatballs
goats cheese cream w semi dried tomatoes
smoked salmon rolls w purple caviar (Near River finger lime segments soaked in beetroot juice)
chicken cottage pie
white wine pears w blue cheese sauce
orange and basil sorbet
sushi trilogy
coffee parfait w chocolate crumble
passionfruit sorbet
It was a great meal and a wonderful night, with thanks to Matthias for all his hard work, and our friends for sharing beautiful wine and food with us.
Yep it was yum. I can’t wait for the next one.
I can stay quiet no longer.
Two really important matters have come to light recently that warrant your attention.
The first is an application by Monsanto to FSANZ (Food Safety Australia New Zealand) to amend the Food Standard to permit the sale and use of food derived from soybean line MON87769. This is a new variety of soybean that is genetically modified (GM) to produce stearidonic acid (SDA), an omega-3 fatty acid, in the seeds of the plant.
FSANZ is calling for comments which close on Jan 25th.
The spin is that it is high in Omega 3. The best sources of Omega 3 is from grass fed meat, organic flax, organic Near River eggs, purslane and fish. In other words real food produced with care and respect.
To see the submission and lodge a comment, go here soon!
The second issue involves an organic farmer in WA who has had his crop 'polluted' by a neighbouring farmer growing GM canola. The organic farmer, David Kibble, has lost his certification and his crop. As you might expect this is turning into a debacle with WA farmers wanting their Minister for Agriculture to resign, legislation to protect non-GM farmers, and a full audit of GM farms and their neighbours. Behind all this are the deep pockets of Monsanto. To hear an interview with David and the Food Fight team from radio 3CR, click here
You can expect to see a continuing flurry of these types of posts - after all, earlier this month Monsanto was voted Most Evil Corporation of the Year by 51% of respondents to an online poll.
Guess the other 49% don't care about what they eat!
I'm a pretty optimistic kind of guy - heavens knows with Mother Nature as the majority shareholder in your enterprise you need to be.
But this article from The Guardian in the UK has left me gobsmacked. Surely they can't be serious - this is some sort of joke, right?
Read on and see what you think - I find it unbelievable.
If this is how the Governments of the 'developed' world are going to deal with the health issues that we as a race are facing, then we might as well give up now.
Exclusive: Department of Health putting fast food companies at heart of policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease
About eighteen months ago we sat down with well known local chef Eric Robinson of The Other Chef Fine Foods to see what we could create with a great crop of beetroot that we had grown at the time. Over the course of the next couple of weeks Eric worked out a recipe that became the first release in our preserve range ....
Near River Produce Beetroot Relish
... and we're very pleased with what he did and continues to do.
The relish has been a hit with friends and customers both here in the Hastings Valley and further afield. In August this year we entered our Beetroot Relish in a few food shows including the Mudgee Fine Food Show. We did this as aside from any recognition an award gives each entrant, it allows our produce to be judged against its peers. And yes it's very competitive!
So we were very pleased when the Silver Award arrived.
Wow .. We must be doing something right!
And it is a great relish, with many uses - best served with goats cheese as a canapé, with ham and other cold cuts on sandwiches, as a accompaniment with gamey meat, particularly duck, rabbit or kangaroo, and lastly as an Aussie substitute to cranberry sauce with turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
For a real treat, we serve it on Raging River Wagyu burgers topped with blue cheese - a gourmet take on the classic Aussie hamburger where beetroot is a must.
If you live in the Hastings Valley Near River Beetroot Relish can be purchased at many outlets, such as About Food, Beetroot'd, Essential Ingredients (Port Mac and Coff's Harbour) and the Port Macquarie Visitor Info Centre.
In Sydney, you'll need to visit Essential Ingredient in Rozeiie, or check out our new and improved online Farm Gate Store!
The perfect gift for that foodie friend or someone who has everything
As you'd expect, the learning curve here has been pretty steep over the last three years. Sure I'd trained in horticulture and practiced it for well over a decade, and most of that was in other people's gardens. But the world of vegetable growing has opened up a whole new gamet of plants and how to grow them. And then there is how to care for them once they've been harvested, but I digress.
Who's heard of spring garlic? Until a little over a year ago, neither had we. Also often called green garlic, basically it's undersize garlic that is lifted from the beds in spring as they are thinned to allow the larger garlic to reach it full size.
And it's wonderful stuff to cook and eat with quite a subtle flavour when compared to the cured and dried garlic that is usually used in the kitchen.
We've been having it sauteed in butter with asparagus and Near River poached eggs and now chef Todd Richardson of The Corner Restaurant in Port Macquarie will have Near River spring garlic on the menu shortly too. Todd suggests that "It goes well with twice cooked beef, the Corner's own caramelised onion and truffle oil. The garlic is best slowly roasted. And be quick as the green garlic is only in season for less than a month each year."
This is quite exciting for us as we're keen to develop a strong bond with a couple of key chefs to provide great produce for, and it seems that we are on our way to that happening.
Here's what Stephanie Alexander says about garlic -
"Newly harvested garlic can be used as soon as it is picked. It is a very special treat usually reserved for home gardeners. The cloves are crisp in texture (almost juicy) and the flavour is fresh and pungent. Wrap these freshly harvested heads in a piece of oiled foil and roast for 45-60 minutes in a 180C degree oven until quite soft, then squeeze this perfumed spread onto bread. Exquisite! Even before harvesting the garlic, a few of the green tops can be cut and used as flavouring, snipped straight into sauces, omelettes, soups, casseroles or stir-fries. Green garlic is very pungent and is best cooked rather than added raw to a salad."
I just love finding out about all the new ways to use each of the vegetables and herbs that we are growing here at Near River - so much to learn and experience.
Every now and then, something comes along that brings a smile to your face, adds a glint to your eye, and a spring in your step for the rest of the day.
That’s what happened to me when I watched Birke Baehr on TEDx Next Generation recently.
This 11 year old has a real plan for sorting out the ills of our complex industrial food system, and deals with pesticides and GMO’s into the bargain.
And all in a little over 5 minutes.
Check it out.
With people like this guy around, the future might just be in good hands.
Oh and I can relate to Birke – I was 12 when I declared to my assembled family that I was going to be a farmer when I grew up!
