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Tell me people. Why are Asda Free Range Eggs now £1.88 for 6. I am certain that less than 4 months ago they were £1.20 ish. Do you think they are
A) Paying the farmer more or
B) See anything with free-range or organic as a nice opportunity to have a big, fat, mark up.
Answers on a postcard please. In the meantime I´ll continue to support my local market (Preston Market) and buy me eggs (free range of course) at less than £1 ´cause I reckon the farmer is going to get the same amount.
Count down to D Day has begun. Paul and Diana are madly editing and the stuff that´s coming through is first rate. Chris is designing and the pages look fantastic. This much we can control. What is out of our hands is the take up at newsagents. Please go in and ask your agent to reserve you a copy every month. If this fails or if you have a long treck to your nearest agent as all the supermarkets have basically forced them to close then subscribe!
When I look back on my childhood in the sixties there are lots of things I really miss. Helping out at the abattoir sounds a bit gross to modern ears but at least it wasn’t as smelly as the tripe works at the end of the street! I loved working with the pigs at the abattoir; they would come from the pig man who lived on the Dingle. Everyone had a swill bin and all our scraps went in it. The pig man would collect the bin every week and boil it up for the pigs. In payment for our waste we got a turkey for Christmas, and I helped with those too!
Then I loved going to Mr. Dennis’ because he had hens like ours – in an old Andersen air raid shelter and I remember listening to England win the World Cup and shouting so loud that an old hen dropped an egg right in front of me.
Then there was my grannies – she made the best cheese sandwiches in the world. The cheese came from her washing line in an old muslin bag where it had been draining since she made it early in the morning.
Why am I telling you all this? Well Clayton in Manchester was just about the most inner city district in the country and we lived the ‘Good Life’ there. Only we didn’t really know it was the good life – it was just life. In amongst the back streets, where everything was purple from the dye works or noisy and full of smoke from the wireworks, we had hens and their eggs, pigs for their meat, and by the river there was an old man who kept sheep with whom we’d do a swap – a clutch of plucked hens for half a lamb.
Within sight of my bedroom you could see the remains of Manchester United’s first stadium, the power station, a dozen factories, including the one that the Germans bombed, my school, rows of back to back houses and a few dozen little farms, because we all did our own. Own food, own furniture, own everything really.
I bet if I went into every garden in Clayton today I wouldn’t find a hen or a pig. I know I wouldn’t find an abattoir and the tripe works became a Youth Centre. There are no butchers or greengrocers either – only a DVD shop and dusty old newsagents. The allotments and the sheep? They are now lost under the concrete of a retail park.
This magazine is for everyone who, be they dreamers and would love to have a go at keeping hens, or realists and have already got their hands dirty and might even have a little land. We are going to grow wheat and make our own bread – cook it in our own oven too made from our own mud. We are going to fish and salt herring, make furniture, keep hens, make the healthiest bacon in the world, build polytunnels, hunt for land, keep sheep and even a cow and on top of it all, be responsible for our own food. To eat proper food, clean food, chemical free food, grown mostly by ourselves.
Of course, in this day and age, we have to go to the supermarket, drive a car, go to the cinema, but the fundamental idea behind Home Farmer is anyone can live ‘The Good Life’ whether they live in a council house in the inner city or in a moorland farm or a valley smallholding. Not because it fits the ‘must have’ way of life, not because it is trendy or new. Just because, as my grandfather put it when he taught me about his hens, ‘…if you don’t know that, you don’t know nowt!’
It´s fantastic!
The 20 page preview of Home Farmer is now hot off the press.
Get your copy by calling
01772 652 693
or send your name and address to
editor@homefarmer.co.uk
or by snail mail:
Home Farmer Magazine
The Good Life Press Ltd
Unit 110,
Oyston Mill,
Strand Road,
Preston,
PR1 8UR
Just signed up for a subscription to Home Farmer magazine. The sample issue looks really good - lots of articles on making cheese, sausages, soap etc. The first real issue is out within the next week.
Katie
Got the 20 page preview at the weekend. Howard whipped it off me to look at the breadmaking article and I haven´t seen it since. Looks pretty good.
Lynne
This looks amazing....well done and good luck!! A magazine like this was really needed
Carolyn
I have just received the sample copy, very promptly, as I only requested it yesterday. It seems interesting, and I will be buying.
Frank
My copy came today - very prompt delivery. I havent had time to look at it yet but OH has read through it and was very impressed... I emailed my request in the evening of the 25th Feb and it arrived in the post on the 27th. Cant get better than that
Marion
Fantastic ! Finally a monthly based on the ways we actually do live our life ! We´ll be subbing ...
Angie
just got my copy, looks very good so far.
Mike
What I´d like to see, Paul, is a section like the one in Practical Self-sufficiency all those years ago called ´Getting it together´ which was all input from the readers - much more than just a letters page with ideas, what people had found worked or not, appeals for recipes or suppliers etc. I think it really made people feel that they were involved in the magazine and that they were all working together towards self-sufficiency. Sounds a bit starry-eyed, I know but I think it would be good, anyway!
Katie
I requested my sample copy and the next day it landed on my doormat. I shall be hunting out the 1st issue when it goes on sale, looks like it will be the sort of mag i will love reading.
Mitch
Paul its bound to be a success in its own right, there just isnt a smallholders mag out there which doesnt take that elitism attitude & promote only the most expensive of products/methods.
Angie
I am sure HOME FARMER will soon be a household name!!
Carolyn
There is genuine excitement about this magazine. Something good is happening.
Frank B
Just to show that Home Farmer is your magazine - and we love your comments and input - a reader kindly rang in to say that slate can explode if it gets too hot. I used slate on the design for the small brick oven.
Where the slate is used it doesn´t get really hot - but it is better to be sure. SO IF YOU ARE BUILDING A BRICK OVEN - DON´T USE SLATE AS A COVER!
A piece of wood will do just as well.
Job1: Belly pork in salt
My first attempt at bacon was to buy some belly pork, in strips, and cover them in salt. Left overnight in the fridge, a huge amount of liquid came out of the pork - enough to dissolve all the salt. The pork was removed and washed, sliced up with a very sharp knife and fried. It was very salty, considering it was only cured for 12 hours. There was no doubt that it really was bacon though!
Job 2: Belly pork in salt:sugar mix
The second attempt was to cut down the sugar content. I covered the same quantity of belly pork with a 50;50 mix of salt and ordinary sugar. Not nearly so much liquid came out of the meat, and it was much less salty. I like rind (skin) but you might want to cut this too.
Job 3: Belly pork with more care
I read somewhere that salt doesn’t penetrate fat as well as it does meat. Since most of the fat melts when you cook it, I tried to put the cure only on the meat but this isn’t as easy as you might think. Commercial bacon producers have special weighing machines and analytical chemists that ensure the salt is just right - but we don’t have that. Ordinary cured pork is around 3% salt and a tiny amount of nitrite. How do they do it?
So I had a brainwave. If I get the butcher to slice my pork as though it was bacon, then I can put a tiny amount of cure just on the meat bit. This means for the first time I can vary the actual salt content of the meat I eat.
Some maths
Commercial bacon is 3% salt. This is 6 level teaspoons of salt per kilo.
Half salt bacon would be 3 level teaspoons, but you can use only 1% salt if you like - 2 level spoons, or even less.
You can also buy cure mixes, flavourings to make a certain type of bacon.
Now I don’t always want to eat ultra low salt bacon. 1 teaspoon of salt and four teaspoons of sugar (brown or otherwise) makes a very sweet cure and is really lovely. Sometimes I just want more salt so I add less sugar. A cure of 2 spoons of salt and 3 of sugar is good and I also do a 3 of each, which makes a good robust bacon)
Meat: get your butcher to slice for you 1 kilo of whichever cut you like.
Spread these on a tray.
Weigh out the amount of salt you require and add sugar to make up the cure.
5g or 1 level teaspoon is not enough to make it taste like bacon
10g or 2 level teaspoons gives a mild flavour but certainly smells of bacon when cooking
15g or 3 level teaspoons is very defiantly bacon, and is only a half of the commercial stuff.
Rub in even amounts of cure into the cut slice being careful to sprinkle only onto the meat, not the fat.
Sprinkle an extra couple of tablespoons of brown sugar over the whole of the meat on the tray and rub in.
Cover and store in the fridge overnight.
I have found that with very low salt bacon if you pile the slices on top of each other, so the underside of the slice above benefits from the salt on the slice below.
Acquired taste
Some people get a shock when they taste sweet cure bacon. It is surprising that shop bought bacon (and sausages too) has a lot of sugar in order to disguise the saltiness. So start with a saltier cure and gradually work your way down. Even if you make bacon that has 20 g of salt per kilo, this is still a saving of 13 g on the very healthiest bacon the shops have to offer.
Keeping and cooking
This bacon doesn’t keep so well as shop bought. It will freeze and last for months, and we find that with three rugby players in the house a kilo of bacon lasts such a short while anyway. Clearly the higher the salt the longer it lasts, but if you treat the product like cooked meat then you will not go far wrong.
Of course the bacon can be cooked in the traditional way, in a frying pan. (I have a real aversion to the term "pan fried" – it is either fried or shallow fried or deep fried) You can also use the product in pasta. I make a special sugar-less version to enhance macaroni cheese, which isn’t sweet. The sweeter cure version is brilliant in stir-fry because there are a lot of sweet flavours in Chinese cooking.
The way things are…
I’ve been looking at things ever so closely. Mortgages, the cost of living, all sorts of things are conspiring against the ordinary person who have been pretty much forced into a life that is completely dependent on banks etc.
Well, interestingly, the government is doing all sorts of things to try and keep the ‘system’ working. Did you hear the People’s Post Office? It’s the new name for the Post Office – even though they are closing them down left right and centre?
Then there is mortgages being swapped for loan guarantees. So if I default on my mortgage, is it the bank that ownes my house, or the government? And what say do I get in it anyway?
It seems the only completely ‘safe’ and reliable things are natural ones. It rains, the sun shines, the crops grow. From now on I’ll put my money on that – it might be all we have!
If anyone is planning on coming to The Smallholder and Gardening Festival in Wales we are holding the very first ever Home Farmer International butter making championships on the Sunday from our stand (opp the Press Room) at 2pm. There will be 3 levels (Childrens/teens/adults) and will, hopefully, be a bit of fun. Fingers crossed the weather holds up otherwise the entrants will be shaking with one hand and holding a brolly with the other. Hopefully see you there!
The Home Farmer and Good Life Press stand will be at the Grow it, Cook it, Eat it, show at Melton Mowbray, April 5th - 6th
Come along and say hello!
For more details wisit: www.growitcookiteatit.co.uk
We´ve had a lot of people saying they can´t find us in newsagents so I just wanted to clarify some details. ALL newsagents can order us through their wholesaler and all of them have been notified. However we can´t make them stock us and with shelf space as pressing as it is many have not ordered us - but if you ask them to get it they will. We are currently not available in any of the supermarkets. This is because we are a very small publishing house which quite simply cannot afford the charges they demand for shelf space. We are in every W H Smith for the next 3 months as well as Dobbies/Mole Valley Farmers/Ascott Smallholding Supplies/victoriana Nursery Gardens and Osney Lodge Farm Shop. I do hope this helps and if anyone has any problems getting hold of us PLEASE let us know and we will do our best to help you and your newsagent.
The magazine is available at WH Smiths at the moment, a number of farm shops and gardren centres.
You can ask at your newsagent, who can order a copy for you or fill in the subscriptions page where you can get a 1 month, a 6 month or a 12 month subscription.
When we received subscription orders for 6 - 12 months we do not know whether you have already got the current issue - at the moment that is April issue. We therefore, unless we are told otherwise, automatically put your subscription to start with the next issue. Anyone ordering just 1 months will get the current months issue. I know it´s not perfect and please just let us know if we have got it wrong.
We are sorry that we haven´t made it clear on the subscription page. Anyone who signs up for a annual subscription will automatically be sent out the book, A Good Life - the bio of John Seymour (retail price £10) absolutely free.
Pat Clarke wrote in having read the 20 page issue.
Dear Home Farmer team,
Thank you for sending me the sample issue of Home Farmer, I have found it interesting and will probably be subscribing. However in view of your ethos I did not understand in your article on how to make tomato ketchup you state “discard as much juice as you can” , while I appreciate the reasoning in not using the juice in the ketchup it can be used as a base for soups, sauces, casseroles etc. Keep up the good work.
Yours sincerely, Pat Clarke,
Do you know – whenever I have made this I never have room to store the liquid.
Of course you should keep it and use it. Here´s an idea sent by another reader: Put the pulp in ice cube try, freeze then put the frozen tom pulp ice cubes in a bag to use whenever you need them.
We would like to hear from people who have a repairing lease, or had one.
Was your lease too expensive? Did you have to leave when the rent went up? Did you find it fair? Did the repairing lease work for you?
We want to hear about your experiences, good or ill.
Please email Paul and Diana on editor@homefarmer.co.uk Many thanks.
We have had a fantastic response the pre-launch issue of Home Farmer. A lot of people have been really excited about the magazine.
One chap, Peter Smith who is a postman, saw the new magazine in his delivery bag last week and requested a copy too!
We really hope people will join in the spirit of Home Farmer. Let us know your thoughts, recipes, and experiences. So keep the emails and letters coming!
Richard Branson is flying a Jumbo to Amsterdam as a test – using biofuel in one of its engines. It has been hailed as a breakthrough and as an important step for greener transport.
So I did some maths. I’m not brilliant at maths, but a Jumbo fills up with 85, 000 gallons of fuel. This represents over a Billion Joules of energy. 1 Joule is the energy needed to heat a teaspoon of water through 1oC. Now the sun’s energy that falls on the planet varies according to where you are. At it’s hottest you get 600Watts per hour. So the area you would need to fuel a Jumbo Jet for onetrip is enormous!
So, Mr Branson, I have a financial proposal for you. Buy a fleet of sailing ships and offer world wide transport of goods around the world. It will only cost you the price of the ship and the wages of the crew. Not a ounce of CO2 need be spilt in the process.
We are overwhelmed by the response to our 20-page pre issue magazine. Thank you for your comments and kind words!
In a couple of weeks Home Farmer will be in the shops! We are already working on Issue 2!
Don’t forget, we are looking for your experiences on Repairing Lease rentals – so if you have anything to say – email Diana and Paul.
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