After eating a wonderful brunch of omelette with herbs and rocket salad from the garden plus the very first minty broad beans, some rhubarb and strawberries and mint tea I feel extremely smug!
There are a few reasons for this feeling, first of all, it is very satisfying to continue having that dialogue with your patch of earth, and after many months of care, we now begin to receive something back and the allotment is so generous that from what we invest, it gives back with extreme generosity.
At this point in time, the hungry gap is over, now we begin to receive daily gifts in form of produce and this shapes the way we eat and also the way we live. There is more to growing your own food than just putting seeds in a pot and eating what comes from the earth… give it a go, do that and then find out what happens next.
To grow your own food automatically puts you in touch with your local patch of earth and your surroundings, it makes you think seasonally, it inspires you to cook and live in a simpler way and it makes you part of the community and your surroundings… when things go right then you have the right to feel smug.
To grow your own food does not mean having to renounce living in modernity, it doesn’t involve retreating to some idyllic cottage in the middle of nowhere and it does not mean having to be rich and idle to afford the luxury of time and of not earning a living. What it requires is the will of doing it, and to take what comes with the commitment.
I write this in the middle of May; at that magical time when evenings are long and balmy, when the natural world that most of the time we fail to see, calls upon our senses, this is a time of year we cannot ignore. At this particular time, I think a lot about this, first because it is right in front of me, because I am lucky enough to have an allotment, and because of my research on urban agriculture.
It is at this precise moment when a beautiful book caught my attention: East End Paradise by Jojo Tulloh. This book falls within the ‘cookery’ section and yes it contains many recipes and it is about eating food, but to me it is more than that… whatever more it has, it certainly fits my bill!
East End Paradise is a book about growing food and eating it, but it is also about other things too, it is a book that advocates for a simpler lifestyle that can be fitted within the permanent busy schedule of postmodernity, it is evocative and it is reminiscent of older styles of cookery writing that reminds us of Jane Grigson, Elizabeth David and Richard Olney; those dear writers on food who celebrated food for its simplicity and beauty, and whose lives revolved around the gorgeousness of creating something nice from what surrounds us. Although Jojo’s book fits well within this pattern, it also fits within contemporary styles of having to juggle a number of factors like having a family with children, working and living in the city. This book is not precious, it is generous instead, because it does not put the author on a pedestal from which she is going to instruct us on ‘how’ to grow food and ‘how’ to cook it. In fact the recipes although they can be followed step by step, to me they are just hints, similar to the hints I always get in my head when I pick my own food or when it sits in front of me; what is precious is the fact that this book inspires to generate ideas and is not prescriptive.
As a novice food grower, this book is also illuminating in the fact that it shows –from the perspective of a normal human being; on issues of growing and processing food and also it shares beautiful and useful ideas like how to obtain seeds from your produce, as well as hints on using herbs and ‘weeds’ to make free tisanes. It also inspires the reader to use alternative materials for gardening, like local wooden sticks as poles, coffee sacks as fleece and seashells for paths.
I have decided not to read this book in one go, I read it with the seasons, just a little bit ahead, so that I understand what needs to be done, that together with being on site at the allotment, means that I am learning lots and rescuing something precious I felt I had lost: the art of simple living. In many ways this book has reminded me of the early days when we shared a house with John Craxton –himself an old friend of Richard Olney; when food was a cause for simple celebration and an excuse for socialising in a bohemian way.
This is a book that I don’t know where to place, maybe on the self of my future shed so that it can whisper tips on what to do with my patch of earth; it should probaly sit on the shelf reserved for Grigson, David, Olney, Stein, Slater and Barehan. At the moment it is by my bedside table and I love reading it when I wake up with the light at 6.
I am very glad that there is a book like this around, something very refreshing for balmy evenings!
