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slow living – slow food

June 13, 2019

Words: Sophie McKeand | Photography: Andy Garside

The recipes in these OUTSIDER chapters are all created with Slow Food in mind. I’ve been obsessed with the idea of slow food since being part of Cittaslow (an international Slow Town movement) some years ago when we lived in yr Wyddgrug, north Wales. Here’s a quick quote from the Slow Food International website:

Slow Food is a global, grassroots organization, founded in 1989 to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the rise of fast life and combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us.

Slow Food believes food is tied to many other aspects of life, including culture, politics, agriculture and the environment. Through our food choices we can collectively influence how food is cultivated, produced and distributed, and change the world as a result.

Slow Food International

Locally grown, seasonal produce cannot be beaten on taste & quality, and is usually better value for money, we just have to take a bit more time hunting it out instead of using supermarkets. When I was test-running the OUTSIDER dish of pan-roasted French apricots & cherries (published here) I photographed two versions, one with produce from the supermarket (Intermarche) left, and one from the farmers market in Mirepoix, France, right. It’s not rocket science as to why the fruit is bigger, juicier & honestly tastier – farmers markets are filled with small local producers who often tend their own crops.

These farmers couldn’t possible grow enough produce to scale up to service the needs of a national supermarket so no matter how delicious their food, you’ll never see it in Tesco. When we were on Crete some of the juiciest, most delicious oranges we’ve ever eaten were ugly, knobbly, dirty looking ones from the market. When you meet the producer face-to-face and they offer you a taste of their food you don’t need to work on (often wrong) assumptions based purely on the aesthetic, as we’re forced to do with supermarkets.   

Mirepoix farmers market

There’s nothing wrong with supermarkets per se, we all use them, but part of this OUTSIDER journey is weaning myself off ‘convenience’ and going the extra mile, taking a bit more time to find the delicious, seasonal fruit of the earth. I want to rein in the couple of hours spent online each day, and the best way to do that is to replace it with more rewarding activities. For me that’s cooking, knitting, reading, writing, yoga, and hunting out farmers markets. This is not a race to be the perfect vegan shopper – some days I still just want a bowl of cheesy pasta from Lidl, and when I want that, I have it. But slowly, over time, my food choices are changing. I’ve been vegetarian for about three years and increasingly eat vegan meals. As the seasons roll by, I’m becoming more in tune with the earth’s blossomings & ripenings and am finally beginning to feel that making good food choices, for myself, other animals & the planet, is becoming an integral part of who I am; making food shopping, foraging, cooking and eating an altogether more intuitive, mindful, beautiful experience. 

In this spirit, these recipes are not written for speed, in fact quite the reverse, they’re about taking time to source beautiful, local, seasonal produce, then slowly building a simple & delicious dish oozing with flavour. All recipes are vegetarian, most are also vegan and gluten free, and are created on two gas rings in our tiny van kitchen, using basic, minimal utensils. This makes cooking a more joyous, involved, slow affair. Instead of making desserts I’ve devised fruit-based dishes that work instead of a savoury one for a light lunch or supper. The only thing you will need is time. If you can give these dishes that, you will hopefully not be disappointed.

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