Netherton Foundry Shropshire

Netherton Foundry Shropshire
Classic cookware, made in England

Tuesday 27 August 2019

Foodies and foraging


There was a period not that long ago when every well known footballer had their (sur)name summarily abbreviated, wherever possible, and then deliberately lengthened again by the addition of a 'y'.  Giggsy, Scolesy and their colleagues formed a tribe, the simple addition of a single letter conveying a camaraderie; a clubbiness; the feeling that these super rich men, earning more in a week that most of their fans could ever hope to earn in a year, are just "one of us", guys you could meet down the local for a pint and a natter.

And that 'y', along with its sibling 'ie' has spread beyond the terraces and out on to the terrasses, the pavement cafés, into the land of the gastronome. 

Wikipedia defines a foodie thus: 
foodie is a person who has an ardent or refined interest in food[1] and who eats food not only out of hunger but due to their interest or hobby. The terms "gastronome" and "gourmet" define the same thing, i.e. a person who enjoys food for pleasure.

This article by Kashmira Gander speaks up in favour of the foodie, saying that we all should be looking to know more about the food we eat; its provenance; the ingredients in our "ready meals", the production and seasonality of food.  This sentence sums up for me the quintessence of the positive side of being a foodie:

High quality food isn’t the same as expensive food. Having money doesn’t buy taste, and nowhere is that truer than with grub. Overpriced food markets, bizarre products like asparagus water, and bamboozling fad diets are just as much the enemy as the junk that rots your insides. 

If you want a counter argument read this piece in the Washington Post, you will never refer to yourself as a foodie again.  
The problem with the word "foodie," ... boils down to a simple truth: You can’t possibly call yourself a "foodie" if you’re actually a "foodie." There is a great irony in describing yourself as a food insider in a way no actual food insider ever would. The act itself precludes you from being part of the world you want to associate yourself with.

And, of course, the growth of the foodie tribe has thrown up all manner of uneducated, ill informed, out and out snobbery.  
Sure, given access to time, money, ingredients and equipment, anyone could, with a little application produce a stunning, delicious, nutritionally balanced and Instagrammable meal.  But the majority of people do not have all, or even any of those resources.
People are time and cash poor, education about food is abysmal (there's a whole and separate soapbox climbing, blood pressure raising, rant inducing article to be written on that topic; what's the point of stigmatising a 6 year old's lunch box, when it's their parents who have missed out on the healthy eating classes).
Buying your vegetables ready prepared may be the only option for someone with a physical disability and a fierce sense of independence; tinned and frozen fruit and vegetables are a better option for many, being cheaper, easier to store and accessible. 

And then there is the question of location.  Are we foodies?  I don't know. Personally, I am not keen on the term, but there again, I have never been one of the cool gang.  We DO love food; we grow it, read about it, cook it, talk about it, write about it and we eat a LOT of it.  We eat home made dinners, takeaways, occasional dinners in fancy restaurants, packets of crisps and only ever English asparagus.  We do our best to respect other people's attitudes and approaches to food, it is not our place to judge.

Being a "foodie", however you define it whilst being based in rural Shropshire is not always easy.  Shropshire has some fine restaurants and towns such as Ludlow have some great shops.  However, the more rural locations have their retail limitations - we do not have Asian shops, high class bakers, Mediterranean delis, fish or cheesemongers on our doorstep.   

But what we do have is the bounty of the hedgerows.



This week we have foraged 5 different varieties of plums; we picked 4 kilos of egg plums alone!


What's more, we got to meet one of our neighbours, who, seeing me picking plums from the verge, invited me into his garden to help myself to as many greengages as I could carry!  He never picks them himself, but hates to see them fall to the ground and rot.  

Does this put me more "in touch" with my food, elevate me to forage heroine status, make me feel superior to hose poor folk who have to indulge in the dirty commercial transaction of exchanging money for food. 
No, it just means that I have a whole heap of fresh, probably organic, free fruit and the challenge of what to do with it all before it ferments!  Jam making here I come and a plum cake recipe will follow shortly.


Additional reading on the topic of foodism:
This extract from 2012 in the Guardian
.....The term "foodist" is actually much older, used from the late 19th century for hucksters selling fad diets (which is quite apt); and as late as 1987 one New York Times writer proposed it semi-seriously as a positive description, to replace the unlovely "gastronaut": "In the tradition of nudist, philanthropist and Buddhist, may I suggest 'foodist', one who is enthusiastic about good eating?" ..... its taint of an -ism. Like a racist or a sexist, a foodist operates under the prejudices of a governing ideology, viewing the whole world through the grease-smeared lenses of a militant eater.

From the New Republic
The basic principle of the food industry is the exchange of cash for edible objects, so its social architecture has been built by the people who have traditionally been the wealthiest. If cooking is a working class profession, dining is the province of the bourgeoisie and fine dining, where cooking as an art reaches its pinnacle, is the dominion of the rich. This structure has implications for food culture as a whole, trickling down to influence what the foodie cooks at home, what she buys at the supermarket, what she posts on her social media account.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2019 ©


Tuesday 20 August 2019

Guest blog, Netherton pan goes to the Sahara


We were so inspired by this story, which came to us in abbreviated form, via Instagram, that we asked if we could publish it.
Mike, the happy pan man said "Yes", so here is his story.

Every summer, we go camping in The Cotswolds.


 This is not the Cotswolds...read                     on.

A religious journey into Oxford town is always part of the itinerary. During these visits I stumbled upon a quaint little hardware store called ‘Objects of Use’
This shop was not your average hardware store but as with the name and the very practical wares that it boasted, I just loved everything. All items made by independent manufacturers and small businesses, everything being sustainable and eco-friendly.

 So 2.5yrs ago when I first visited, I was immediately drawn towards the cooking pots area to the right of the shop, as I browsed over the beautiful items, I picked up a 10” iron pan. What caught my eye was two little brass wing-nuts holding the handle to the pan. This immediately appealed to me as an adventurer, straight away I could see its benefits as an addition to my overland kitchen box. Benefits of the spun iron design mean that I can cook with it on any heat source, open fires or gas burners, I could even remove the handle so that its use extends to an oven tray in my Cobb BBQ! I was smitten by the design, if it broke I could weld it, it had a good weight to it, also it would create its own non-stick face after seasoning. More than anything it would pack away so easily.

As I enquired to the store owner about the price, £69 seemed a lot for a pan… I don’t have much money to indulge in such hardware and I’d never paid that much for a pan, I left the shop slightly deflated but it just played on my mind.

I visited the shop again and again in the times we visited Oxford. This pan really had a hold on me, I would touch it and ogle it whilst trying to justify the purchase as my partner and I are so very frugal with our spending. If we buy something it has to be justified and won’t be a one use impulse purchase. Who thought a pan could be so hypnotising???

Surely enough my partner said to ‘just buy it, you know you want it’ and so I did. Immediately I was so pleased with it and started to google ‘how to season a pan’ even though it came with instructions from the manufacturer of which I totally overlooked!
As soon as I got home, I spent the neck 3hrs oiling it and baking the empty pan in the oven until I was happy with the darkened glaze that the pan now had.

Now 2yrs on from the well awaited purchase, the pan has travelled across North Africa and the Sahara desert amongst other journeys and destinations that I have driven to in my Expedition prepared Land Rover. The pan is part of my very important kit as every item needs to be useful, packable and justified. I can’t just take anything on these adventures as space is a premium.



On my 3wk expedition across the edge of the Sahara desert, my pan was used nearly every day on gas and open fires in the evening, it was flawless and easy to clean. My friend who joined us from the UAE was so impressed that he offered to buy it from me there and then. At which point I sternly declined and expressed that ‘hey dude, I have a deep bond with this pan’
I referenced the quote to him that was once said by Private Pyle in the film ‘Full Metal Jacket’ regarding his gun - ‘This is my gun, there are many like it but this one is mine’
Well that’s how I feel about my pan! On my return I did buy him the exact same unit and mailed to him in Ajman.


 

In hindsight this purchase has taught me a valuable lesson about buying items, we are in a world where everyone wants stuff as cheap as possible. The irony is that we buy it cheap because it is cheaply made with no integrity and no sustainability.

My partner and I now choose our items very carefully, like clothes for example. Why have a wardrobe full of cheap, poor quality items when you could have a few very well made and long lasting items?
It’s the same with this pan, the initial price seemed a lot (to me) but I’ve realised that this is MY pan FOR LIFE. I’ve also supported 2 independent businesses within the purchase too.




Thank you Netherton Foundry.

Yours, Happy Pan Man.

Monday 12 August 2019

A break from our working lives.


A definition: what is bouldering?
Bouldering is rock climbing stripped down to the raw essentials, frequently demonstrated by some ripped climbers, stripped to the bare essentials. 
“It is a form of rock climbing that is performed on small rock formations or artificial rock walls, known as boulders, without the use of ropes or harnesses.”
Until recently bouldering was seen as the poor relation to roped climbing, indoors and out.  There is a fascinating but brief history by John Gill, in which he notes that bouldering was first documented as an activity in the late 19th century, and whilst it was used for training for “real” rock climbing, it was not taken seriously, in its own right, until relatively recently.

It is now increasingly popular and fashionable, attracting a whole new target market and this has led to innovation, aspiration and ambition within the wider bouldering community.




A declared interest:
As well as spending a lot of time thinking about iron and oak, we devote a lot of our free time to rock; sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic, not progressive and glam rock.  Although a bit of punk is always a welcome distraction.
Rock for climbing on, an interest that has been passed on to the next generation and here is where our worlds collide.  Netherton’s first born, Toby,  is a talented (#nobias, #parentalpride) rock climber and boulderer and is sponsored by WildBounds to promote their selection of BelmezFace bouldering gear.  Originating out of the cobbled, graffiti-tagged streets of Madrid, BelmezFace’s  collective of artisans and creatives manufacture gear that as environmemtally sustainable as it is high-performance.   Follow Toby to watch his climbing and bouldering adventuires.
Oh yes, Wildbounds also happen to be one of our customers too - what goes around, comes around. 

By the way, if you look up Bélmez Faces, you come up with something altogether different – alleged paranormal activity in a house in Andalusia!

We have been watching the evolution of bouldering and the facilities on offer with great interest and enthusiasm.  As this article points out, “Bouldering isn’t the oldest form of climbing, but it may be the most modern.”
The opening of the Depot in Sheffield , a brand new, dedicated bouldering wall is a milestone in the journey of bouldering walls, the way paved by Yonder, Substation and Boulder Hut on foundations laid in older venues, where bouldering was a lesser part of traditional climbing walls.  The Climbing Works Sheffield blazed the trail that others would follow when it opened in 2006, as they say themselves it is aWorld-renowned bouldering centre of international significance and is the first UK bouldering centre to be awarded a National Performance Centre status by the BMC.”  It was the industry standard and world’s largest bouldering centre for many years before others  such as Yonder and Boulder Hut  further paved the way on foundations laid in older venues, where  bouldering was a lesser part of traditional climbing walls.




And these new venues are winning on so many levels; they are inviting and accessible, they have the atmosphere and ambience of a great night club, but with better loos and lighting (the music is open for debate!), and each has its own USP, be it vegan catering, hot yoga sessions, decent coffee (a must, in our eyes) or great pizza.



We admire this bold approach, the breaking of barriers, puncturing of perceptions, the inclusivity and the drive behind these ventures.  After all, bouldering is a truly democratic activity, appealing to all demographics; you can be young or old; a tyro or a hero; , you don’t even need to invest in special kit, you can hire a pair of shoes at the venue while you work out if you are going to come back for more.  Nor is it not ALL about the performance, you are not up against the clock, or anyone else; it’s about enjoyment and self-improvement.  Everyone is too immersed in their own boulder goals to be watching you!



We are looking forward to seeing more venues spring up around the country – so much is being debated about increasingly sedentary lifestyles, the selling off of school playing fields, a general lack of accessible sporting facilities and we believe that these centres offer far more than the sum of their parts; a chance to enjoy a physical activity, be part of a community, make new friends, challenge yourself.

If you fancy having a go, read this article and let us know how you get on.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2019 ©

Tuesday 6 August 2019

Guest post - rustic Italian cooking


The world is a smaller and often better place for social media.
Here is a story of how we met one of our followers in real life, discovered they also know someone else we know, James at Cabrito Goat Meat and persuaded them to come up with a recipe which bound us all together…………….


A few years ago I was on a quest to buy Made in the UK or Made in Italy; not an easy task by any means, but while searching for UK manufactured products I came across a family run, independent business in rural Shropshire that made beautiful iron pans called Netherton Foundry. As a food blogger and keen home cook, I love discovering new kitchen utensils and ingredients so it was a perfect match for me: I ordered an oven safe fryingpan, intending to make a tarte tatin.
Fast forward a few years, and I still have to make that tarte; but since then, I have been following Netherton Foundry on their social channels, seeing how they have expanded their range and successfully obtained the trust of chef and industry experts.
After an initial occasional exchange of messages and 'likes' - we started 'chatting' about motherhood and kids, making the connection more personal than just about pans.
And on the final day of 2018, we realised (still via social media!) that we happened to be at the same time in the same place, coincidentally - the stunning Cotswolds village of Broadway. We quickly arranged to meet up for coffee in the local deli, which was such a great opportunity to put faces behind 'handles' and yet another proof, if I needed another one, that good friendships can come out of socials. I was delighted when they asked me to provide a regional Italian recipe for their website, making in one of their pans.

Kid goat ‘cacio e ova’
This recipe is found in a few variations all over Southern Italy, from the mountain areas of Abruzzo to the green sea facing hills of Cilento and the inner lands of Campania. It is a warming, satisfying, wholesome dish which uses kid goat, a type of meat commonly found in Italy. In the UK, Cabrito Goat Meat sells ethically reared goat meat; if you can’t easily buy, lamb would work well too.

Serves 4
1kg kid goat meat: a mix of cutlets (ideally) then ribs and diced
2 cloves of garlic
1 small red onion, sliced
¼ white onion, thinly sliced
1 twig of rosemary
good quality extra virgin olive oil
2 free range eggs
1 tin of garden peas, drained
1 tub of pancetta cubes
1/5 lt stock (we used organic vegetable)
Salt & pepper to taste
Half glass of dry white wine
50gr grated, good quality Parmigiano Reggiano / Grana Padano (or pecorino if you like something stronger)
the juice of ½ lemon
In a small pan, sauté the pancetta with a little olive oil and the finely sliced white onion. Once browned, add the drained peas and let them cook for about 20 minutes, adding water a little at a time to prevent them from drying out. Add a knob of butter towards the end for an extra layer of flavour.
Once ready, set aside. Add two generous table spoons of olive oil to your Prospectorpan, two cloves of garlic (peeled but whole) and the sliced onion, with a twig of fresh rosemary. 


Once golden, add the diced meat and the cutlets, letting them brown on a high heat. Add the wine and let it evaporate fully, then turn the heat to low, add a little of the previously prepared stock and partially covered with the lid to let the meat cook. Keep adding the stock little at the time to avoid the pan from drying out and the meat sticking to it. After about 30-45 minutes the meat should be tender (depending on the size of the pieces). Add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
Whisk the eggs with the grated cheese and set aside.  Remove the lid and add the peas, let the stew cook further adding some more stock if needed. Finally, just before serving, add the whisked egg mixture and mix well so that the egg will cook but not solidify like for an omelette; add the lemon juice too at this point.
Serve immediately with roast potatoes or mash and a slice of good sourdough bread to mop up the sauce.


Note: the sourdough was cooked in an oven safe frying pan; it works great with bread too! The recipe used is pain naturel by Weekend Bakery



Read more from Federica on her blog  http://www.pastabites.co.uk and follow her on Instagram @pastabites and on twitter @federilli





Thursday 1 August 2019

Urban Spice Man take 2 - Imperial trout

Imperial trout

1 shallot, finely chopped

1 tblsp rapeseed oil
200g assorted tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 tsp Imperial spice powder from Mr wolf Spices
2 tsp sugar, you can use less if your tomatoes are very ripe
Juice of 1 orange
100ml fish stock or water
2 trout fillets, other fish will work just as well.

Warm the oil over a medium heat in a sauté pan.

Gently sweat the shallot in the rapeseed oil for 5 minutes.
Add the spice powder and cook for another 2 minutes.  Throw in the tomatoes, sugar and orange juice.
Cover with the lid and simmer gently for 30 minutes, adding stock/water as necessary.  You want to end up with a thick, rich sauce, so add the extra liquid judiciously.
Taste the sauce and add salt, sugar or a touch more spice to suit your own palate.
Lay the fish on top of the sauce, replace the lid and cook for 10 - 15 minutes, depending on the thickness of your fish.








Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2019 ©