Cep Lasagna & Local Foods

It may not exactly be self-sufficiency, but one of the best ways to increase the sustainability of one's lifestyle is to source one's food as locally as possible.  And doing so also increases the quality and health of that lifestyle.  We are on the right track with our fledgling vegetable-growing, but until we have that smallholding of our own, we are going to have to find some other true smallholder or local farmer to supply us with eggs, cheese and any meat we may consume (and the meat will probably still hold in the future, even, as though I can imagine us with chickens and goats, I'm not so sure about any larger livestock like cows, etc).

It has been a long time coming, but I have now officially resolved not to eat meat unless I know for certain that it was not raised in a feedlot or other industrial capacity, but lived in biologically appropriate surroundings, eating what nature intended for it to eat (i.e. pastured animals).  This is not just for reasons of animal welfare, but for my own health (not to mention gustative pleasure) as well - from food safety concerns to avoiding hormone and antibiotic-filled meat to the nutritional content of that meat (pastured animal meats have higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, etc).  So unless I can find some good local producers, this decision is tantamount to going vegetarian.

Fortunately, we have just discovered a little shop about 7km away that sells all local produce.  It is right next door to a 'pick-your-own' farm, whose produce it sells, and it has eggs, cheeses, whole chickens and a variety of meat products all from small farms in the area.  Posters gracing the walls tell you the names of the farms and the living conditions of the animals (along with doing a little omega-3 preaching of their own).  And unbelievably, the prices are similar or even lower than in the supermarkets (probably because you don't have all the middlemen taking their share and the supermarkets squeezing the farmers - I would imagine more of your money spent in this shop goes to the farmers as well). 

Once we knew we had a glut of ceps, we made a little visit to the shop to get an essential ingredient for the lasagna.  The recipe on the DVD called for 'parma ham', or in their case, River cottage cured ham, so we popped over to the store (in the car, but actually next time I think we'll go by bike) and got several beautiful slices of some cured ham.  We were also seduced by a pâté à l'ancienne and a very creamy local cheese, along with a whole grain loaf of local bread.  These we scoffed down for lunch in throes of ecstasy.  I honestly have never tasted pâté that good.  We also sampled a slice of the ham, my first reaction to which was (once returned to my senses and again capable of speech), "Ohhhh, so that's what pork is supposed to taste like!"  Most cured ham you get only tastes of salt; this actually tasted of delicately seasoned pork, a flavor which was, I have to say, completely new to me. 

Now this was an odd state of affairs.  How often is it, once you get to adult life, that you experience a utterly new taste, one that sets your tastebuds in overdrive and your neurons firing as your brain grapples with that novel sensation?  And I don't mean a different recipe, but a food, an ingredient unto itself that you have never before encountered.  This may happen while traveling, in the form of an exotic fruit perhaps.  But it was astonishing to have the experience in the first place right at home, and then to realize that that brand new taste experience was happening while eating a food that should have been eminently recognizable, one that you've supposedly been eating all your life.

This experience simply strengthened my resolve, even though I know it is likely to be a tough road ahead.  But if the meat we are used to eating literally tastes nothing like what it is supposed to, then what exactly is it that we are eating?  Not anything I want to put in my body.

 

Cep (Bolete) Lasagna

Several ceps or other boletes cleaned and trimmed

Bechamel sauce

Shredded emmental cheese (and a little parmigiano reggiano)

Lasagna pasta (we intended to make our own but ended up using dried)

Cured (Parma) ham

Savoy cabbage (optional)

The original recipe didn't call for the cabbage, but Henry had the great idea to harvest the first of our Savoy cabbages and actually get some green vegetable into this dish.  We blanched the cabbage (shredded) and Henry made a bechamel while I prepared the mushrooms, which I sliced as shown above (stems and caps separately in this case).  Then we buttered a deep Pyrex dish and started with a layer of mushrooms, then bechamel, then the ham, followed by the shredded cheese, the cabbage and lastly a layer of pasta, then started over again with the bechamel first until we got to the top and finished it with the last of the bechamel, shredded cheese and some grated parmesan.  We cooked it in a medium oven (~150°C/300°F) covered with foil for about 40 minutes, then removed the foil and turned the oven up so it would brown on top.

This was how Hugh did it on the show, and not to criticize his recipe or anything, but we felt like a lot of water came out of the mushrooms, and they weren't as flavorful as we expected.  I think if, or rather when, we make this again, we'll fry some of the moisture out of the mushrooms first and get some color on them before we layer them in the lasagna.  That said, it was still absolutely heavenly, with that beautiful ham flavoring those wild mushrooms and covered in cheesy, bechamel-y goodness.

Comments

[Judith]

I really enjoyed reading your post Laura and understand exactly what you mean about the flavours of food.
I have been a vegetarian for 15 years now and cannot imagine a diet based on and around meat any more, although I still cook meat for my other half. We eat less of most things, but higher quality ingredients now. The meat I buy for him is usually organic or animal welfare standard. I think I took on board the advice of "eat food, not too much, mostly plants," a while ago and now define food as unadulterated and wholesome and close to original form. Sounds like the kind of things sold by your local shop! I'm not a food puritan-I love ice cream, biscuits,cakes, that kind of thing-but I think I appreciate tastes and origins much more these days.
Good luck with your continued quest-at least in France good food is still easily obtained.

[Laura]

Hi Judith,
Thanks for your comment! I've just finished reading "In Defense of Food" actually :) (having already read The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma - Food Rules is next), and found that it really pretty much sums everything up. I've read or watched various exposés on the modern food industry (from processed foods to factory farming) over the past few years and been extremely affected by them, but somewhat shockingly, not enough to fully change my behavior until now. And I'm not exactly sure why that suddenly changed, perhaps I just finally reached a tipping point... What prompted you to officially become a vegetarian? (kudos on 15 years!)
And I could never completely forswear ice cream or biscuits either :) but I guess the trick is to find them in as unadulterated a form as possible!
Laura

[Judith]

My daughter decided she would be vegetarian when she was 13 and I wanted to cook properly for her, so I cooked two main dishes in the evening-for me and her and for my husband and son. It was partly to keep her company I began and it became a choice later on. She is now a vegan but I remain a dairy food fan! Probably eat too much dairy but I do love cheese.

[Laura]

Wow, you are a good mom! Even though I love cooking, it is enough of a struggle to get one meal on the table every evening, let alone two with one vegetarian. I think I would find it more difficult to give up dairy than meat :)

[Max]

I think your meat eating resolution is spot on.

I think animals raised on things that humans can't eat and free from the burdens of the factory farm system are probably a necessary part of an agricultural system.

I beleve the only ethical alternative is veganism.

[Laura]

Hi Max,
Thanks for the support :)
I think you are right - the domestication of animals seems to go hand-in-hand with the domestication of plants in the development of agriculture, forming a virtuous cycle of taking and replenishing the nutrients in the soil while providing other means of converting solar energy into human-edible calories.
As returning to a hunter-gatherer state is not really an option, animal husbandry would appear to be a necessary concomitant to crop cultivation, although I am sure one could find examples of success in vegan self-sufficiency (one that I know of for sure is Helen and Scott Nearing [The Good Life]). And indeed if one follows the purely ethical reasoning through to its logical end, veganism is really the only possibility.
-Laura

[Max]

Hi Laura,

I don't think we're the sort of animal which does the purely ethical and vegans are vegans for other reasons.

The Nearings achieved some wonderful things. I don't count his sanctimonious dietary diatribes among them.

[Laura]

Yeah, they definitely got a bit preach-y... I admit to some extensive skip-reading on that one!