We stopped in a small village to buy some strings of garlic. “Is the drought serious?” I asked. A long list of woes came out. The maize is shrivelled, barely half a crop, people are selling stock and worried about fattening the pigs. The wheat was just about all right but maize and sugar beet are a disaster. Harvesting normally happens at the end of September and October but lots of crops are being harvested now. It’s too late. And those who can are putting the crop into silage clamps.
The village of Stara Moravica in northern Serbia has some fine village vineyards and we went off at 0600 to help pick a neighbour’s grapes while they were cool. Some grape crops are only 10% of what they should be. But they have good sugar and quality seemed to cheer our friends up. The same was true for the orchards found beside most village houses; a very poor plum harvest. These are fermented and then distilled to make pelinka (sljivavica in Serbian). Double distilled plum brandy, the solution to and sometimes cause of many disharmonies.
Boffins staring at satellite pictures report another record reduction in Arctic sea ice. “Much faster reduction than expected” etc. This is of course a self reinforcing problem in the “Gaia” view of the world as a single self adjusting system. As protective ice is removed, the dark Arctic waters absorb the summer radiation. Waters warm, ice melts, polar bears float away, oil companies rub their hands. The planet’s foundations are melting beneath our feet.
25 Aug 2012 - Hanter Hill
Hanter Hill is a perfectly conical hill of Silurian rock amongst a great school of whale-backed Radnorshire hills, gorse topped, sheep cropped, ancient, green, golden, and pleasingly remote. This called for a summer escapade in extreme catering. How to get the picnic, fire wood and all, to the top of this hill a good hour’s walk from anywhere? A wheel barrow!
The dire weather forecast, as so often on this Marches lip of the old rock, proved to be unfounded. Storms to the West and North swirled around us. Golden sunset shafts of light shone between dark clouds. We lay happily on the turf sheltered by a hollow, lit a fire,grilled meat, enjoyed our stunning lookout. Celia played her whistle to placate the fairies, perhaps angry or maybe happy to be disturbed by our rituals.
The Walton basin below is well known for its ancient history. A huge Neolithic enclosure has been found by Hymns Farm. Certainly the tillable land below has been favoured, as it is today, by graziers and farmers. I wonder how often people came to the high up lookout, the size of tennis court, just perfectly made for a summer feast. Did they lie in each other’s arms under a harvest moon? Did shepherds build a fold to keep the wolves out? Unrecorded dreams pass down the countless laps.
19 Aug 2012 - The Peasant Olympics
Walking into the small museum in Backa Topola, a small part Hungarian agricultural town in Vojvodina, northern Serbia, Hargita told us about “The Peasant Olympics”. Not only would there be trials of skill and strength of an agricultural kind, in other words young farmers watched by the girls, but there would be a massive and serious gouljash cooking competition. Suddenly The Peasant Olympics became international; it was multi-ethnic already of course. Vojvodina is very multi ethnic in a Hapsburg empire sort of way with Hungarians, Serbs, Slovaks, Roma, probably even some Schwabs. The Outdoor Cook wasn’t going to miss the cooking.
During a very long hot Sunday, from issue of beef stewing steak and lighting of fires at 1230 to official tasting at 1830, there was much stirring, tasting, adding this and that, checking on the competition whilst young farmers backed tractors and tossed bales. We concluded that Hungarians still have a thing or 2 left to discover about cooking their national dish. Too much salt, destroyed vegetables, blackened sweet paprika. The Anglo-Irish team in contrast were unconstrained by custom and happily took hideous liberties with ancient recipes. The secret ingredient was fresh plums. This audacious move startled the judges, but left them unconvinced that it was even gouljash. However they did give us a special prize for the “jolliest team”.
The highlight of the Olympiad came with a mob of screaming children. What on earth was happening? Suddenly a pig raced out between the cooking pots and ran off with its tail in the air and 50 children giving chase. It really should become an official Olympic sport in celebration of man’s ancient relationship with the obliging pig.
5 June 2011 – Melvyn, Piete and the Arrow
Another Hay Festival comes to an end with its garnered ideas and excitements, all fuel for mind and soul. I enjoyed the panache of Digby Jones and Stuart Rose making their case for the sustainability of big business, inevitably in the Barclay's “Wealth” Pavilion. If Government would back off and unleash the creative power of the market, all would be well in the world. Where on earth is the evidence for that? But I accept their point that Government is hopelessly risk averse. In a time of trouble and change we need something different, and Caroline Lucas and Andrew Simms (New Economics Foundation) made passionate and convincing pleas for just that. Lets get on and do it, working from the grass roots was their message. That sounds like community, and making it work with all its messiness. Even Caroline Lucas said that we have to look to what some of us would call spirituality. Small is beautiful as Fritz Schumacher argues; it is also possible, thank God, and it is desirable and even inevitable.
Now let me jump to Melvyn Bragg in one joyful bound. He had the longest applause I have heard at the Festival for his passionate talk on the King James translation of the bible. Whether you are a believer or not, he was saying, just look at the effect of the book of books on lives and society and history. Commerce, with its ruthless efficiency turning capital to profit, gave us wealth and slavery, lifting hundreds of thousands of our countrymen out of poverty. How could we resist this dispassionate engine working for our comfort? But the word of God changed men and women, from missionaries and the slaves to parliamentarians and merchants. A deeper fundamental prevailed, not thanks to big business of the day but to individuals with courage and consciences. Such clarity of thought and the courage of conviction is needed to confront the injustices of our new age of slavery and the threat we helplessly pose to the natural environment.
Today was a Sabbath day for us, more of celebration than rest, because this book of books has entered the conscience and the life of Piete, who was baptised in the River Arrow. He has started out on the huge adventure of the pilgrim life, walking with God, the creator of all the earth, and indeed all wealth, both spiritual and material. Wilberforce set out on that path, and John Newton did the same, changing the world as they found it according to deeper fundamentals.
We stopped in a small village to buy some strings of garlic. “Is the drought serious?” I asked. A long list of woes came out. The maize is shrivelled, barely half a crop, people are selling stock and worried about fattening the pigs. The wheat was just about all right but maize and sugar beet are a disaster. Harvesting normally happens at the end of September and October but lots of crops are being harvested now. It’s too late. And those who can are putting the crop into silage clamps.
These are fermented and then distilled to make pelinka (sljivavica in Serbian). Double distilled plum brandy, the solution to and sometimes cause of many disharmonies.
grilled meat, enjoyed our stunning lookout. Celia played her whistle to placate the fairies, perhaps angry or maybe happy to be disturbed by our rituals.
vegetables, blackened sweet paprika. The Anglo-Irish team in contrast were unconstrained by custom and happily took hideous liberties with ancient recipes. The secret ingredient was fresh plums. This audacious move startled the judges, but left them unconvinced that it was even gouljash. However they did give us a special prize for the “jolliest team”.
