Organics in Inverloch

This afternoon I took the magnifying glass down to Greenheart Organics in Inverloch and examined the produce closely. I was looking for Australian products, of course, and although there may be one or two items on this list where the ingredients may need closer examination, the following are up for further consideration.

Here is the list of products that made it into the Ausfood notebook.

Almonds
Apple Cider Vinegar
Brown rice
Dried Apple Wedges
Dried Apricots
Mock Red Hill Bio-dynamic Apple Cider Vinegar
Oat Flour
Pecans
Polenta
Quick Oats
Roasted Peanuts
Rolled Spelt
Rye Flour
Sunflower Seeds
Tasmanian Quinoa
Unhulled Buckwheat
Walnuts in Shells
Wholemeal Flour

There are definitely some items on this list which won’t be found in either of the duopoly supermarkets.

I would be delighted to find vinegar to add some variety to the salad dressing but I suspects if I read the labels carefully for the one listed it will have some form of cultures on the ingredient list.

Cultures?  Where on earth do cultures come from? I will have to investigate this matter further.

Milk...................

Three ingredients make up my cup of tea.

Tea. Water. Milk.

I’ll get water out of the way immediately; as you might well guess, the water comes out of the tap and is supplied from nearby reservoirs. The word imported does not apply to any mention of the water in this blog.

Good. I’ve got that matter out of the way.

Now let’s move on to one of the other two ingredients. Milk.

Milk appears in supermarkets and other shops in many guises but today in the world of Ausfood the band is narrowed to the variety produced by cows; whole milk and reduced fat milk. The fat may be reduced slightly or it may be reduced altogether, though strictly speaking the words there should be removed altogether. Or fat free.






In the Green Supermarket, my first research area, I find four major brands of milk; Pura, Pauls, a2 and the store brand. Within those four brands there is a multiplicity of varieties – Tone No Fat, Light Start, Smarter White, Rev, and lactose free, just to name a few.





The list could go on but I am interested only in milk which is a product of Australia and to which nothing has been added. No vitamins, for example. Where do the vitamins come from? In drums or are they freeze dried and arrive as air cargo on freight planes from distant parts of the world?

 I am only interested in the ingredient milk, whose components may be milk and milk solids.

I find the Green Supermarket sets the standard for the other three supermarkets in my research area; the only changes being the brand names for the store brands, according to whichever supermarket I am researching. I do notice that an overwhelming amount of milk on the shelves in the Red Supermarket is the store brand. It is invariably cheaper and is the dominant presence on the shelves. In addition the Red Supermarket has Great Ocean Road milk, produced at Warrnambool; this brand is also cheaper than the regular brands.

At the IGA supermarkets the milk shelves follow the same general pattern as the duopoly but with the usual variations in the store affiliated milk products.

Happily, as might be expected, all milk bears the stamp Product of Australia.

..................... with your tea?

Researching the tea shelves was an exercise in learning that a tea may be produced in one country but it can be packed somewhere else entirely. And not all tea comes from China, though Mr Twining’s special selection teas seem to favour China.

There are quite a few varieties of black teas stocked on the shelves of my four local supermarkets, most of which would be recognised by any respectable tea drinker. In no particular order I found Bushells, Dilmah, Tetley, Lipton, Madura, Taylor’s of Harrogate and Billy Tea.

Tea-bags are most popular but for those die-hards tea drinkers who maintain loose leaf is best, most brands carry a loose leaf range. The tea may be a blend and it may be grown in India or Sri Lanka and it may be packed in Indonesia or the United Arab Emirates.

And an Australian grown black tea? Only one 100% Australian grown tea. Nerada. I  found this variety in January when I wrote this post and this current closer look at the shelves stocking tea in the supermarkets hasn’t revealed anything new. Those readers who might be interested in the history of Nerada Australian tea can find out more here.

Madura also grows tea here in Australia but it is packaged and sold as a blend of local and imported teas. Close, but no cigar.

As for Billy Tea and its Campfire Brew and the claim it has been traditionally Australian since 1885? Close examination of the label shows it is an imported tea with very clever labelling which might lead people to think it is an Australian tea. Not so.

Ah well, one Australian produced tea is better than none at all.

Another source of information

As I browse through the Epicure section of the Age this morning, while enjoying a coffee at my local coffee hang-out, I make two Ausfood discoveries.

I find two Victorian products which might well qualify for the Ausfood Challenge.

The first is Long Lane Capers, who are located near Mansfield in country Victoria. Capers are not high on the list of essential ingredients to be found in my kitchen cupboard but as time passes I may find them a useful addition. As spices produced in this country appear to be virtually non-existent, I may need to resort to capers now and then to add a bit of zing to a recipe.

I look at their web page and find a recipe for Caponata. I have never heard of this dish so I will be searching for more information. The caponata recipe looks to tick all the Ausfood boxes so I will file it away for future reference.

Next on the discovery list is Just Go Nuts, who have pistachios. They don’t appear to have a web page so I scroll through all the Google offerings to see what I can find. As well as pistachios and in-season avocados, they also have blood oranges. I will have to get along to a farmers market where they sell their wares and find out more. I also find their produce is available on-line through Farmers Direct – but that old problem rears its head – I can’t read the label before I buy the product.

I'm rather partial to pistachios and would be very happy to find a local supply.

And finally a more fanciful idea – that of a coffee farm. An at-home coffee farm, either in the back yard or on the deck, patio or balcony.   The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival is on soon and The Urban Coffee Farm and Brew Bar will have coffee trees for sale at $25 per tree. The idea is amusing and they would maybe make an interesting deck or patio plant but as for waiting for the first harvest. I wouldn’t be holding my breath.

I will, however, be looking at each week’s edition of Epicure to learn the latest on what produce is available and where it is available.

Flabbergasted by Flummery

Flummery.

That fluffy white dessert of my boarding school days; comfort food and almost forgotten until I opened page 16 of Bloody Delicious! and read the recipe for pineapple flummery.

Perfectly suited to these hot days of summer and with simple ingredients, it should easily make the Ausfood list. It’s a long time since I have considered making flummery and this recipe uses the core and skin of a pineapple for flavour. What a good idea, extracting every bit of goodness from that part of the fruit that might otherwise be discarded.

I am inspired by this recipe and can’t wait to try it. I need a pineapple, sugar, water, lemon and plain flour - so far so good.

What else? Ah, gelatine. A trip to the supermarket this afternoon will find that ingredient which is missing from my kitchen cupboard.

Wrong!!

I am not able to find one gelatine product made in Australia in any of my local supermarkets.

There are two well known brands packed in Australia from imported ingredients, one familiar brand, Davis,  manufactured in New Zealand; three other brands are products of France and Germany, but nothing is made here in Australia.

 Not quite what I am looking for.

What happens to all the hides, bones, tissue and gut left after animals are slaughtered in this country?  I hope you weren't  too disturbed when you read the last sentence, but these are the facts ladies and gentleman.

I will look into this matter further.

The Condiments - Part One: Salt

Salt and pepper.  In everything.

Today I'm looking at one of the condiments.

Salt; found in mostly every kitchen cupboard and on the table at meal times. According to Wikipedia, salt has not always been used just as a condiment;  there are biblical references, it has played a part in creating and destroying empires, salt was taxed by the French over many centuries and in American history it was a major factor in the outcome of wars.

Closer to home, here in Victoria, the history of salt production began in 1888 when Richard Cheetham - a manufacturing chemist from the UK - began construction on a saltfield near Geelong; six years later the first salt was produced. The Cheetham Salt Co Pty Ltd was set up in 1903 and the company expansion included new works at Laverton and in South Australia. Ongoing business expansion and joint ventures, both here and in New Zealand continued until the latter half of 2012 when this article in Deal Journal Australia covered the sale of the Cheetham salt business to Hong Kong company CK Life Science International. This purchase was  driven by the increasing demand in Asian markets for soy sauce, of which salt is one of the major ingredients.

And so to the local supermarkets and a close look at salt available for home use. If you think salt is just salt, you will have to think again. Here is are some of the choices you will find:

                                       Table salt 
                                       Cooking salt
                                       Iodised table salt
                                       Iodised cooking salt
                                       Sea salt flakes
                                       Iodised sea salt flakes
                                       Iodised sea salt
                                       Natural rock salt.

Is your head spinning yet?

In my quartet of local of supermarkets I found five different suppliers; an Australian company which has both local and imported salt, the supermarkets with their own house brands and a salt which is packed in South Africa from local and  imported ingredients.The latter is the cheapest in its line.

And then there is SAXA. In the mid 1960s Salpak, a joint venture between Cerebos and Cheetham Salt saw the beginning of SAXA and Cerebos salt manufacturing in Australia. Many of the different types of salt listed above are on the shelf under the SAXA brand. Each SAXA package or container was clearly marked with the logo "from the seas of Australia" which makes it eligible for the Ausfood list.

My choice of salt for the Ausfood cupboard is Kooka, another Australian salt from the seas of Australia. As well, there are other more specialised types of Australian salt but here I am dealing with the common or sea shore variety found on almost all supermarket shelves and available to everyone.

 Now the salt shaker/grinder/cellar has been filled, we will move on the other half of the condiment pair, the pepper shaker/grinder/pot.

The Condiments - Part Two: Pepper

 Part two of the condiment story is short and to the point.

Basic black pepper comes to my local supermarket shelves courtesy a handful of companies and is available in ground, cracked, packaged peppercorns and peppercorns in their very own grinder.

All of them are imported.

It troubles me to think I might have to forgo pepper if I am to take up the Ausfood Challenge.  I will give this matter some serious thought and maybe run a few words through a search engine and see if I come up with a home-grown product.

I am not very hopeful about my prospects of finding Australian pepper of the black peppercorn variety.

Not happy, Jan.

The 400 series

Curious about the 400 series of numbers appearing on the Gundowring ice-cream label list of additives, I made further investigations.

And at this website I found the following:

412 Natural stabiliser

Guar gum Derived from the Seeds of Cyamoposis tetragonolobus of Indian origin; fed to cattle in the US; can cause nausea, flatulence and cramps, may reduced cholesterol levels. See 410.

415 Xanthin gum

Derived from the fermentation of corn sugar with a bacterium. Improves 'flow'.

410 Locust bean (Carob gum)

Derived from Carob or Locust bean tree Ceratonia siliqua. As a thickener, vegetable gum, artificial sweetener base, modifying agent or stabiliser, it is used in lollies, cordials, essences, some flour products, dressings, fruit juice drinks; frequently used as a caffeine-free chocolate substitute; may lower cholesterol levels.

407 Carrageenan 'Irish Moss'

Fibre extracted from seaweed, used as a setting agent. It has recently been linked with cancer because it may become contaminated when ethylene oxide is added to an inferior product, this results in ethylene chlorohydrins forming, a highly carcinogenic compound; linked to toxic hazards, including ulcers and cancer; the most serious concerns relate to degraded carrageenan, which is not a permitted additive; however, native carrageenan, which is used, may become degraded in the gut.

The above fall under the headings of Vegetable Gums, Emulsifiers and stabilisers. According to this source of information, emulsifiers help prevent separation of oil and water mixtures and stabilisers maintain the uniform dispersal of substances in food.

In other words, no nasty lumps in the finished product.

An ideal always aimed for in the home kitchen, where the rectification of problems are not achieved with the help of additives, but by falling back on tried and true methods of putting wrongs right in the bowl or saucepan as the cook prepares the dish or meal.

Bloody Delicious!

This is not my opinion about the meal I cooked tonight, though it may well be an expression eligible for permanent entry into my food appreciation lexicon.

Bloody Delicious is the title of a book written by Joan Campbell, former food editor for Vogue publications, and published in 1997. An Australian book, about Australian food written by an Australian; all qualifications indicating it might be compulsory reading for anyone writing a blog in support of food produced by Australian farmers.

I obtained a copy of this book through the Victorian library service and it has been sitting in my yellow library book bin for a couple of weeks. Finally I have found the time to do more in-depth reading and in line with my developing standards to be applied to Australian produced food, I see in the early chapters many ideas and some recipes which might be contenders for the 2014 Menu list.

As I read through Chapter One I also note, with some misgiving, a number of recipes where the ingredients may not be produced in this country. Three weeks have passed since I started serious label reading and already I am aware that it is essential to read the ingredients listed; this applies to something as simple as self-raising flour which may pose problems. The upside to reading carefully through the recipes in Bloody Delicious is being made aware of possible modifications to recipes I have on hand and being reminded of recipes that I might search out from the back of the recipe drawer, or ones hidden somewhere in the depths of the Trash Palace archaeological dig.

I put Chapter One under the magnifying glass and find a handful of recipes which will happily fit into the Ausfood Menu; they are basic and use simple ingredients and although they may not be contenders for MasterChef, they will suit my purposes and will be very welcome at the Trash Palace dining table.

I also find a number of recipes with sticking points when it comes to the Ausfood factor. These sticking points are ingredients to be found in many kitchen cupboards but are they produced in Australia? Here is a selection of ingredients from Chapter One which will require further investigation.

• self raising flour
• vanilla beans
• vanilla extract
• dates
• nutmeg
• cayenne pepper
• mustard powder

The above listed items are all specific recipe ingredients which  might prove difficult to find; I will either have to look for an alternative or simply abandon the recipe idea for the blog.

However, in this first chapter, there are two recipes which will definitely appear at some stage (oh, traitorous thought) on the non-Ausfood days; Glad’s Yum Yum Cake and Mrs Dobell’s Upside Down Pineapple Cake.

This has been a step in the right direction of tried and true Australian recipes, handed down through generations, and I have only one last question regarding this book.

What dirty, lowdown, no-good person ripped pages 29 and 30 out of this book?

As Queen Victoria might have said “We are not amused.”

Bran Cereal Options

Standing in the local Green Supermarket, beside a conveniently positioned flat top trolley piled high with empty bread racks, I take out my trusty notebook and pen, pick down the two boxes of cereal I need to examine and place them under the Ausfood magnifying glass.

This is what I see.

First the box of Vogel Ultra Bran.

It is Australian made; there is a logo, a map of Australia. It’s not the Australian Made logo with kangaroo and no country of origin is to be found. There are many, many words of varying shapes, sizes and colours on every side of this box and I spend some minutes searching. I cannot find any words telling me this product is made from local and imported ingredients.

I look at the ingredients list; it’s lengthy.

Wheat bran (39%)

Wholemeal wheat flour (Vitamins (thiamin & folate)

Wheat flour

Sugar

Hi-maize TM cornstarch

Linola (linseed meal 8% soy (2%) (Soy flour& isoflavone concentrate)

Minerals (tricalcium carbonate, zinc oxide)

Salt

Natural colour (annatto)

Vitamins (E & folate)

Food acid (citric acid)

An exhausting, if not exhaustive list.

I turn to the Kellogg’s All-Bran box; it has the Australian Made logo but once again, no information about the origin of the ingredients. I’m greatly relieved to find this ingredient list is shorter.

Wheat bran (85%)

sugar

barley malt extract

vitamins (riboflavin, folate, thiamin)

As far as being bran cereals options eligible for the Ausfood list, these two have fallen at the first hurdle. No country of origin on the packaging, no eligibility for the list. Simple.

However, among all those listed ingredients there is a couple that attracted my attention and I may, on a day when time is passing very slowly and I have absolutely nothing better to do, investigate them further. Not because I consider they may be products of Australia but I am curious about their real make-up.

These two are Hi-maize TM cornstarch and isoflavone concentrate. They might be considered as red herrings, though I suspect that neither of them will have anything to do with fish, more to do with sugar and spice I’m thinking.

I’ll put them on the back-burner. Oh no!! I‘ve said that word……

I’ll regret that, you can be sure.

Robert and the Aromatics

I’m not talking here about a band from the sixties. I am talking about a recipe book from the sixties.

I’ve scratched around among my collection of recipe books from the past thinking they might hold the answer to dishes with simple ingredients. Food wasn’t so fancy fifty years ago and I think my 2014 Ausfood Challenge might have a chance of getting over the finish line if I keep to a basic recipe plan.

Only those people over a certain age will remember Robert Carrier, who was the last word, in the early sixties, when it came to food and how it should be prepared and served. American–born and raised, he arrived in London via Paris and his cook book recipes are strewn with ingredients more easily found in England or the Continent than out here in the colonies.

I acquired two of Robert Carrier’s books in paperback; Great Dishes of the World and his second book, The Robert Carrier Cookbook many years ago. I found Great Dishes on a shelf, jammed into a row of recipe books and when I opened the book it fell into three sections; the spine is broken and the middle section is completely detached. This dislocation makes the book willful, difficult to manage and prone to dropping open at random pages. Pages with recipes for pheasant in red wine; partridge with lentils; Creole jambalaya and chilled watercress salad. Great dishes of the world in the sixties maybe: but far from basic and not what I am looking for today.

I turn to the front of the book and in section 1 I find the Aromatics: onions, shallots, leeks, chives and garlic. There are suggestions about ways to do simple things, which, according to Robert, will lift a dish out of the ordinary with the use of aromatics. The French lead the charge with their trick of browning finely chopped onions, shallots and garlic in olive oil and butter as a base for a casserole. Leeks, pureed with chicken stock and cream to make up a cream of leek soup, also get the French thumbs-up. More than a page is devoted to garlic and its versatility in both summer and winter dishes; cooks are encouraged to grow chives in their gardens and use them in omelettes, salad dressings and as a garnish for vegetables.

All of these are basic food stuffs and should be Australian grown and available in supermarkets. I foresee Robert and the aromatics getting a workout come winter; I hope the book, with all its frailties, is up to the challenge.

Labelling Laws

I wait in the motel reception this afternoon while the owner takes what turns out to be a long winded telephone call. I’m waiting to finalise my account as I will be leaving very early in the morning; I pick up a motel brochure and commence reading. This brochure is in the room but on reading it again I see I have missed something important. Something of great interest to me. I can hire a tablet for a nominal sum; I get it immediately, along with a few instructions and I find it more user friendly than similiar devices I have used in the past.

After playing around on the tablet for a while I settle down to do some serious research. I decide to look for some labelling information. I look at two sites: www.foodstandards.gov.au and another belonging to the ACCC  and consider them both useful sites for defining words on labels.

However, nothing is ever as simple as you might like it to be. The ACCC is a transition website and this publication here concerning country of origin and Australian Consumer Law is being reviewed. Enough said – especially when I see the publication was last published in 2011. I do look at the current electronic version and make a note of information around the words Made in Australia which might be useful in the future.

The Fsanz site offers a little more about unpackaged foods and country of origin labelling. I read and I am bewildered; each sentence is more bewildering than the last. I move on to the paragraph about exemptions from country of origin labelling and find this:

Are there any exemptions from country of origin labelling?

There are some exemptions for country of origin labelling. For example it is not required when food is sold to the public for immediate consumption, for example food sold in cafes, restaurants and canteens, or where a food is made and packaged on the premises it is sold, such as a bakery where the bread is baked and sold on site.

Now there’s something to think about.

 Bread. Eating out in cafes and restaurants.

 If I am going to take on the challenge of eating Australian only food it will certainly need to be modified to a part time challenge.

It’s after midnight now and I am too tired to read any more. I need a few hours sleep before I leave town on the 6.30 a.m. bus -  when the sun will hardly be above the horizon.

Knocking Down the Cereal Hurdles

I’ve finished the cereal search; finished the prancing around the supermarkets and while there hasn’t exactly been gnashing of teeth there certainly has been some muttering. And a lot of walking back and forth along the aisles trying to second-guess where the supermarkets might shelve some of the items on my search-list.
Anything that is not boxed and branded with any of those well known breakfast cereals names are the poor cousins of the cereal section of the supermarket. Gathered together, almost as an afterthought, the smaller, less interesting, plainly packaged and doubtless least profitable items are either found at the end of the cereal shelf row or laying in obscurity on the very bottom shelf.

However, by dint of application I have found almost all of the four products on my cereal for muesli list. Not all in the one supermarket of course – that would be too much to hope for wouldn’t it? Spread out over the four supermarkets within walking distance of the Trash Palace, I have found the following:

Local Green Supermarket

Lowan Wholegrain Rolled Oats           100% Wholegrain Oats                     Product of Australia
Lowan Oat Bran                                    100% Natural Oat Bran                      Product of Australia
Homebrand Wholegrain Oats              100% Wholegrain Oats                     Product of Australia
Homebrand Natural Oats                      100% Oat Bran                                  Product of Australia
Homebrand Processed Bran                See list below                                   Product of Australia
Ingredients listed on packet: Wheat bran, wheat flour, sugar, salt, emulsifier (471)
Rice Bran                                               Not Available

Local Red Supermarket

Lowan Wholegrain Rolled Oats           100% Wholegrain Oats                       Product of Australia
Lowan Oat Bran                                    100% Natural Oat Bran                        Product of Australia
Bran Cereal                                           Not Available
Rice Bran                                              Not Available

Eastern IGA

Lowan Wholegrain Rolled Oats             100% Wholegrain Oats                     Product of Australia
Lowan Oat Bran                                      100% Natural Oat Bran                       Product of Australia
Bran Cereal - Only Options:
Kellogg’s All bran
Vogel’s Soy & Linseed
Rice Bran                                                Not Available

Northern IGA

Lowan Wholegrain Rolled Oats                  100% Wholegrain Oats                   Product of Australia

Lowan Oat Bran                                            100% Natural Oat Bran                     Product of Australia

Bran Cereal                                                   Only Option:                                      Kellogg’s All bran

Rice Bran                                                      Only Option:                              Energy Fields Rice Bran Cereal

So there you have it.

Lowan Rolled Oats and Oat Bran have all the bases covered: they will definately make it onto the ingredients list. The Local Green Supermarket offers some acceptable items priced to suit the budget conscious, while the bran cereal options mentioned in the above tables need all round closer examination along with the Northern IGA rice bran cereal. Rice bran, not unexpectedly, might prove to be difficult to track down.

I'm about halfway through in the breakfast muesli stakes. I might need to broaden my horizons and extend my search into the neighbouring suburbs.

Cereal hurdles

Making a start on the Ausfood front has given me an insight into some of the difficulties ahead.

Let's look at the muesli  I make up, on a regular basis, for breakfast each morning.  I've been using this recipe for years now and although it may not be the most exciting muesli on the face of the earth it suits me. It is based on a recipe from Sandra Cabot's book "The X Syndrome" and in theory it is designed to help with a weight problem.  No doubt it would, if only I kept to the rest of the program.

However I digress.

The breakfast muesli is made up of the following ingredients:

• rolled oats
• processed bran
• oat bran
• rice bran
• natural sultanas
• dried apricots
• chopped almonds
• pepitas
• sunflower seeds

Due to the irritation factor when chopping up the dried apricots, which stick to the knife and the equally irritating almonds that jump all over the place when I chop them, these two items only make the cut on that rare occasion when all the planets are in the right alignment.

First I will deal with cereal component of the muesli - the rest I will deal with at a later time. This search will take place within walking distance of the Trash Palace. I will be looking in the local Red and Green supermarkets and the two local second-tier supermarkets.

This promises to be time consuming. I am confident about walking straight to the areas where I will find rolled oats and oat bran in all the afore-mentioned supermarkets but I am not so confident about finding the bran cereal or the rice bran cereal.

All this could lead to a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing, flouncing about and gnashing of teeth.

Shopping around

The Ausfood search will be conducted at all levels, from the major supermarkets (sometimes known as the duopoly), through the second tier supermarkets, the Queen Vic market and other suburban markets, down to the farmer’s markets and those stores who see themselves as specialising in fine foods.

In this age of many shops attempting to be all things to all people, there will be greengrocers and fruiterers, butchers, cafes and home wares stores; all of these are fertile grounds for finding new products. And let us not forget the micro Australian farms; community gardens, home vegetable gardens which, if you are lucky enough, might include a couple of fruit trees and for those apartment dwellers, balconies and window ledges.

And of course there are on-line stores. At this point in time we will be concentrating on vendors where we can pick up and examine the labels and easily verify whether they are Australian grown products or not. However as time passes the search will no doubt extend to those on line vendors where it is clear they provide Australian grown products and where we cannot easily obtain a particular product elsewhere.

My very own Ausfood search will be mostly conducted within walking distance of the Trash Palace and its kitchen cupboard. This takes in the duopoly, who will henceforth be referred to on this blog as the Green Supermarket and the Red Supermarket; any one else who features will be referred to by name as it takes my fancy. I also have two second tier supermarkets, two butchers and a deli, all within walking distance.

Plenty of work ahead of me, searching through all those shelves for Ausfood products.