Ratatouille to you to!

Posted on 2006/08/31 24:30:29 (August 2006).

[Wednesday 30th August]
On our recent trip to Nagano we had stayed with the family of Chie's friend Junchan. They live in a very rural area and Junchan's mother takes advantage of all the space to grow quite a lot of vegetables. She is also either (A) extremely generous or (B) desperate to go to whatever lengths are necessary to get rid of the damn things, as since our visit we have received two large packages containing an assortment of said vegetables. Very nice they are too.

So tonight's dinner was largely dictated by whatever happened to be in the latest box of surprises - I am utterly determined that none of this fine produce is going to waste.

Today I focused on using lots of courgettes - and the obvious choice here is of course ratatouille. To go with this I made a couple of potato rosti (using potatoes from the latest parcel) and a green salad (with cucumber also from the parcel). The ensemble was, although I say so myself, rather good. I wish I had taken a picture now, but given that it took quite a while to prepare (vegetables can be really hard work) I was somewhat ravenous by the time it was ready, and so wasn't prepared to hang around for these kind of aesthetic luxuries.

Now this may or may not be true... but I heard from a guy at work who worked with supermarket suppliers, that apparently most vegetables in the UK are stored for up to a year in large sealed warehouses in a gas environment that illimates the rotting process ( for storage I presume ). This even happens for the 'Healthier' organic produce.

So, if you can grow your own, I think this is the only way to get truly organic food (unless you decide to cover grow it with pesticides etc I spose)

Posted by Kev at 2006/08/31 20:51:50.

Quality of vegetables in the big supermarkets have plummeted in Italy since year 2000... It's terrible to bite into a cougette and realize that it tastes exactely like potatoes or tomatoes... It's SHITE I SAY! When I will have my house I'll try to grow something myself...

Posted by Lox at 2006/09/01 09:50:34.

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