New Year Food Resolutions

Its the time of year for making changes (or at least resolving to).  I'm terrible at keeping New Year Resolutions and therefore tend to make the same ones annually!  The annual food related resolutions are:

1. Shop more locally

2. Eat more seasonally

3. Diversify the meals we eat (we tend to get stuck in a rut)

 (and lose weight of course)

I live in rural Norfolk a region of the UK which is dependent on the agrifood industry for much of its economic growth.  The land I drive through every day on my way to work produces fruit, vegetables, poultry, pigs, dairy products (as well as vegetable oil, sugar and bootiful turkey).  Norfolk also as one of the longest coast lines in the country with the associated remnants of a fishing industry.  Good farm shops are around but it takes more effort to visit them than doing my weekly on-line sainsburys order.  Yet having vegetables grown in Peru which have been flown half way around the world so I can eat strawberries in December is bad for the planet and doesn't help me diversify the foods I eat.  I know I'll never be able to only eat food produced/sold locally (I'm not imaginative or disciplined enough), but I plan to increase the amount of locally produced food we eat to reduce the food miles and help the survival of our local small businesses.  Some of the regional food producers are the best in the world at what they make and with a bit of extra effort I can make sure we make the most of the skill and abundance of the people and land around me.


To help in both the seasonality of our eating and in diversifying what we eat I'm planning to cook one recipe each week from my 1974 copy of the Cookery Year.  The book was a wedding present for my parents and published the year I was born.  I 'borrowed' it in 1994 when I went to University and last year one of my colleagues rebound it for me in return for me teaching her how to cook profiteroles (which I still haven't done).

Like some of Nigel Slaters books (which I love) The Cookery Year gives recipies for each month with ingredients that are in season.  It also explains what to look for in terms of quality of ingredients and uses what to us now are unusual cuts of meat.  The quanity of double cream used in some of the recipes is a little alarming, but I'm sure we'll cope.