Fishing and market economics

Yesterday I spent the morning talking to a fisherman. Great discussion we had! He told me about all the fish that isn't fished anymore because there is no demand (selling price is too low) so instead these fish are overpopulating our waters and creating troubles in the fishing nets. Now they found some Russian customers that wanted to by the stuff by the million, and with a good price on top of it all. Jackpot. A couple of guys further south from here made almost a fortune in a matter of just a few weeks.

A lot of things starting going seriously wrong when the economists took over the fishing business... I mean detaching it from the community and the face-to-face pricing principles.

And another thing that occurred to me, we usually hear that the fishermen are to blame for the bad catch that you can achieve these days. They over-fished  Well, what if it isn't that simple.What if the pollution from industry has made it impossible for fish to survive? What if the international pricing of some species have changed the delicate ecosystem in the sea? These days I have a hard time to see how traditional fishermen, fishing for the local communities only, would have caused the tragic situation visible in almost all coastal regions around around the Baltic Sea. Actually, they are a reservoir of knowledge which we should care for and make sure never dies out.

I am right now reading an article on how the ancient food culture of the Americas mixed with the European culinary heritage after the arrival of the Spaniards and the Portuguese. It is soooooo interesting, and hopefully I'll have time to tell you more about that another day.

Now, out in the sun with my two kiddos!

Evil thoughts about innocent food

Ok, so the past few months I have been working hard on staying away from the long supply chains of store bought food. Instead I have been buying my Finnish roots on the market square, the meat from the ecological farmer, the fish from the fisherman (with whom I btw have a scheduled meeting tomorrow morning) and the other vegetables from a local food circle. Left is only the milk to feed my kefir grains, the kid's oatmeal and some other insignificant stuff like 70% chocolate and the red wine from Alko. I smile big times when I rarely step into the "chained stores" these days and they ask for my affiliation card. As I pass it through the machine, I wonder what the marketing department might be thinking of me and my food consumption, and what kind of classification they've put on my head. Am I a lost case? Or will they soon start the offensive to attract me back to the big hyper market aisles? The monthly member magazines remains inside the plastic cover as it passes from the mailbox to the trash box (yes I know I should just tell them to stop sending me the stuff). I guess they might as well just give up right away. Lost case. For sure.

Today I bought a salad on the way to the train. As I was chewing my garlic soaked olives, I started thinking of what kind of histories those green things might be hiding. There are no eco-labels on olives in ready made salads. Nor are there any guarantees that the mozzarella cheese from Italy hasn't been produced in are area with mafia contaminated toxic waste. I lend a quick thought to the blog post on Uusi Musta that I read yesterday, of the girl that was living in the environmental collapse in industrial China. She said she is nowadays using a strategy of "hear no evil, see no evil" when she shops for food there. Meaning: as long as the stomach is not reacting, it must have been safe. And I thought, when eating at restaurants or ready made salads, you'd better practice the same philosophy, just so you do not destroy your food with bad thoughts of their origin.

Then as I scroll my way through the Finnish woods on the train I come across an interesting status update from Mats-Eric Nilsson, the guy behind the "secret chef" and "real food". He is now working on a book about the food going into restaurant food. Yeah! I am this guy's biggest fan. His books are changing the way we look at food here in the North. Very happy to hear about this. Maybe sometime in a not so faraway future I do not need to think evil thoughts about my innocent food.

The big question

E-codes and Real Food

Finnish radio channel discuss why the public does not want the e-codes, while the establishment is arguing that this is the best way to keep the food safe and healthy.

My question: what food are we talking about here? Aaah, processed food! That is what we are talking about! And if the public wants to stay away from e-codes, why doesn't the public stay in the real food aisles of the supermarket? Better yet why doesn't the public shop outside the supermarket? And according to season, no need for long shelf-life there...No need for suspicious codes...

I am happy to see that the old market at Hietalahti has opened its door. Please tell me dear friends in Helsinki that you can get real food there? That it isn't just another tourist trap with different jams and Finnish foie gras in glass jars?

This weekend we ate what I had shopped at the square on Friday. And some fresh fish and ecological meat to go with that. And may I add, we ate well! The veggie lady recommended making mashed potatoes together with some other roots. Esquisit! And the kids ate parnsnip (palsternacka) without even noticing. There, introduced a new taste, success! I also forced them to have some beet roots that I had spiced up with chevre cheese (ok, this one was from the supermarket, I confess) and honey. May I brag about how deliciously good it was? And then the meat, left in the oven for almost 2 hours while we were out sledding. Our ecological meat never fails us. Yesterday it was just perfect!

I also made a fish dish, from scratch, inspired by a distant memory of a Oriental Fish Soup that we made in school years back.  This, although it was not the kids favourite, we got them eating it all up, twice! And I added kefir yougurt on top, to boost immunity.

E-codes "throw yourself in the wall" as we would say in Swedish. You're not needed anymore. Power to the kitchen!

Sweet pictures from the South

I made it to a seminar on Mapuche health, and they served some food. The seminar was good. I was a bit disappointed by the food... Wheat is not native to South America. I wish the indigenous communities would have held on to their ancient bread ingredients (potatoes and nuts from native trees). Then also I could have digged into these dishes!

From the Urban Mapuche seminar to the rural reality in Uruguay. May I present to you: a Uruguayan calf!

And a Uruguayan pig.

A very polemic (almost dried out) water well. 

The king of the place.

And a tour with the owner of his very famous cheese production site.

Cheese in the making!

Growing old.

And even older.

Uruguayan countryside. Slow living at its best.

Soon to be soy field?

Soy field. Say no more...

My dinner out as a researcher. A bit lonely sometimes..But the food was good, despite the slow service. But Uruguay is the mecca of slow living, of course the food has to be slow as well! This is btw Colonia, Uruguay.

Then I visited this place. An oasis, with a very very interesting story and project behind.

The future fridge. Today small plant storage.

Restoring the native nature of Uruguay. Almost in extinction.

Clear waters after restoring the soil. Incredible!

Do you know where you food comes from? Do you care?

Selected food pictures

Our egg-production facility. Personally certified it as both organic, local, and fair trade!

Typical oven in Cajon de Maipo where they bake a delicious bread (no more of this for me unfortunatelly).

Loose and happy hen = excellent eggs!

Almond tree

Child labor: almond hacker.

No more of this: locally produced manjar & mermalades.

Typical Chilean food: No more of this either....

Chilean fast food.

Pebre and Chimicurri, Chilean and Argentinean combo.

The Parrillada. Paleo dream (if you leave out the potatoes).

Digestion drink after all that food...

Nuts and dried food in San José de Maipo (the seller spoke Swedish)

 Natural remedies in San José de Maipo.

LIMONES at the fair in Quilin.

Alcachofas & their seller.

Fresh seafood

So good!

Machas, almejas, congrios, reinetas, corvinas... and much more!

The dying soul of my hometown

I am on the train heading South. ´Behind me I have a couple of days of beautiful autumn in my childhood town. As always, my senses are open for anything regarding food, health, and ecological living.

We made it through the week with just a little bit of food from the grocery store. Most stuff was based on leftovers from our now empty freezer. Read: Organic spinach and grassfed meat on the bone. These two ingredients combined with some local roots (carrots, potatoes, celery) and eggs made up our dinner and lunch for almost four days (spinach pancakes, spinach soup, beef risotto boiled in bone broth and fortyfied with tumeric power and meat soup). Most food was well received, maybe because our active days out in the parks of this hometown of mine.

We also went to the market place to buy the vegetables and some fresh local apples. The market place is in the VERY city center. It is the soul of this town. If you haven't seen this place after visiting this town, either you are blind or you missed the most essential part of the city. Really, Vaasa, without the square is not Vaasa, nor Vasa (Swedish spelling for the same city) for that matter. Once this quite big square was filled with farmers selling their produce. Particularly at this time of the year you would have seen the square filled with life and fresh vegetables, apples, lingon berries etc. Today, there is one - yes, let me repeat: ONE - local farmer selling her local produce on the market square. And then there are the guys over at the berry stand (strawberries in September - hellou, don't think so!), who are not local, based on their appearance. Note: nothing against immigrants, but this just shows how sad the situation on the market place is... Local farmers have all given in, people go out to buy their food at the big hypermarkets outside town. The only lady left said she'll give it another four years, then she quits. She is done with complaining customers and a 15 hours day shift.

I get really upset when I hear this. I want to shout and scream at the top of the statue of liberty (yes the square has one of those too, just that it refers to the liberty after the civil war...not anything to do with the NYC ditto). People of my dearest hometown - don't let the square die! Invest a few euros extra in showing your support for locally produced foods! Give incentives to those few vegetable farms around the city to go back to the square and sell their stuff directly to you! Encourage the farmers to start selling local eggs, directly to you! Do whatever you can to maintain the soul of Vasa alive!!!

While farmer's markets are living a booming life in the country where hypermarkets were invented, we here in Finland are giving the farmer's markets its last blow by choosing the hypermarket aisles. Do you really have so little time in life that you can't make it to the square? Do you really feel glad when stressing down the aisle of the green hypermarket, queuing with your cars outside, queuing at the cashier inside. Do you really feel good buying those apples from the other side of the world, without a clue of how and with what chemicals they were produced?

I hope the square life will have its revival! I hope you who can do something about it think so too!!!