Comments on: Spud Sunday: Matters Of Import

By: Daily Spud

Daily Spud — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 03:32:07 +0000

Sophie: it’s lovely that you can benefit from your father’s kitchen garden – that’s the best kind of local food!

Oyster Culture: yep, that pretty much sums up how I feel too

By: OysterCulture

OysterCulture — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 17:01:19 +0000

I”m with Gastro – living in Northern CA its not hard to be a localvore but I am always on the search for new and exciting flavors. Given the international and cosmopolitan population its fun to see the international twist given to local product. I could do local entirely, but my sense of adventure would be left wanting more..

By: Sophie

Sophie — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:11:32 +0000

I eat so locally possible & grow a few things myself but my father has a large kitchen garden. He tries several things & new veggies out for me!

I so love this African stew. It looks so appetizing & so flavourful too!

By: Daily Spud

Daily Spud — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 09:19:05 +0000

5 Star Foodie: Thanks! I’d actually like to try something closer to the original version with sweet potatoes sometime too – that, I think, would also be good.

Kristen: I know – even just a few spices can make all the difference! Didn’t realise you had lived in SA (or perhaps I had forgotten) – I wonder if the World Cup association will mean a wider distribution in the US for Nederburg’s wines, hmm…

Gastroanthropologist: …and looking forward to meeting you! I agree that it’s definitely easier to eat local if you live somewhere like California, elsewhere it takes more of a conscious effort to strike some kind of balance between local food and global flavours.

Phyllis: Gotcha on the fish sauce! And, yes, it is a lovely little collection of salts – I feel very spoiled :)

Tangled Noodle: I think I’ll be dipping in and out of Chef E’s goodie bag for a while, sprinkling its contents on all that I eat :)

By: Tangled Noodle

Tangled Noodle — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 07:06:28 +0000

I try to eat as locally as possible but culinary culture and seasonal considerations means that I could never be a pure locavore. I consider food to be the best way to begin learning about another culture, such as with this Potato Stew. Now, I’d love to see what else you do with Chef E’s goodie bag! 8-)

By: Phyllis

Phyllis — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:31:57 +0000

Oooh…I hope I can find some of that Nederburg rose, sounds amazing. And what an impressive collection of salts, how nice of Chef E to send those to you! As for eating locally, I do my best to eat as local as possible but I could never give up those ‘foreign accents’. For example, tonight I’ll be making a Vietnamese themed meal with locally grown veggies, but flavored with imported condiments (what would I do without fish sauce?)

By: gastroanthropologist

gastroanthropologist — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:19:17 +0000

I was absolutely spoiled in Northern California – where truly everything I ate was local (wine, fish, meat, fruit, veg, nuts, dairy, even salt…you get the point). The only thing I ate that wasn’t local was coffee.

Now in London I would say that at least 50% of my diet travels across some body of water and is not local.

While I love the concept of eating local there is so much great stuff produced all around the world that I have to enjoy!

This stew looks amazing…though I have a thing against raisins, so I’d probably go without those.

Looking forward to finally meeting this weekend!

By: Kristen

Kristen — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:08:15 +0000

Agreed! I buy local products when I can, but without some global variety I think I would hate the boredom that is sure to arise from the lack of interesting foods in my area. From the spice perspective alone!

Nederburg is a great winery, I have not seen any here in my little enclave in the US, we visited many times when we were living in SA and are lucky enough to still have some in the cellar.

By: 5 Star Foodie

5 Star Foodie — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:45:15 +0000

The stew looks outstanding, such amazing flavors! I love the raisins in it!

By: Daily Spud

Daily Spud — Mon, 31 May 2010 17:15:33 +0000

Lori: like everything, I think that it’s a question of balance – it’s important to embrace that which is local, but also good to explore what flavours other cultures can bring to the table – not to supplant what’s local but to enhance it

Chef E: Thank you so much for the allspice berries and more! The only other time that I have used whole allspice was in some onion pickles (which I loved) – but I have no excuse not to use them more now :)