FRUGAL FOOD

My Ready Meal Is None Of Your Fucking Business.

SkiI have been writing this recipe blog for almost six years now – six years – and its primary purpose is to teach people to cook, for very little money. It achieves that, if my email inbox and the folders full of letters I receive from thankful readers are anything to go by, every single day. Yet it occurs to me that some of my newer readers, or some of you who may have stumbled here by…

There are so many different kinds of poverty. Living in cities and towns, poor accommodation really does mean living with only a microwave (or kettle!) to cook with. Some food banks are even offering 'kettle packs' because this is the reality. I've actually been there, in the 1990s, with only a microwave to use for four children.

Here, it happens to be island living, where there is only one town. I live 20 miles away from it. There is a shop in the next village but it's fair to say that it's a convenience shop and more expensive for that reason, with very little choice. Cans, one freezer of mostly branded food like Birds Eye and some dried lentils, some bread, milk, eggs.

There are a couple of visiting vans - the bakery comes down our street on a Thursday and there is a fresh fish van in the next village on a Thursday too. They aren't cheap.

Traditionally, islanders fished, shot and trapped rabbits and geese, crofted sheep and the occasional cattle and foraged for seaweeds. Winter fuel came from the peat banks, fish and meat was salted for over wintering and the dairy cow provided milk and cream to make butter and a crofting cheese called crowdie. Everyone had chickens for eggs. The wool was used for spinning, dyeing and weaving. If you had a loom.

It is hard to grow crops here but most people managed root vegetables such as potatoes, turnips, parsnips, swede, carrots, some onions and tomatoes and some leafy veg like cabbage.

The grain was mostly barley for bannocks and whisky.

So it is possible to live off the land here, if you have £25k plus to buy a croft and more to buy sheep.

There are three main food shops - Co-Op. Tesco and very recently Iceland. Tesco delivers for a £5 fee if you book a fortnight in advance. And if the van is operational and the driver is fit and well and not on holiday.

It's possible to run all of the heating and hot water from a solid fuel stove run on freely dug peat (if you never go out).

It is also possible to grow veg, fish and hunt, store fish, meat and veg in the freezer and subsist on locally available food without travelling too much.

But then there is no time for work. I do work, but more money goes on food here, than anywhere else I've lived. Island prices.

Poverty here means trying to grow food in harsh, icy winds. It means not going to the hairdresser or the dentist. It means not travelling. It means a summer of hard labour to cut, dry and turn peats and it means a winter of trying to keep the stove going without burning the chimney and house down. It means fishing wherever possible and making friends with the gamekeeper for the odd spare goose. It means soup most days. It means building up a dry store of flour, yeast, pulses, beans, rice, spices and creating lots of recipes for bean chilli, cottage pie made with spiced lentils and polenta top, dahl, barley soups and baking your own bread.

It sounds idyllic but the winter is long and dark and cold. The winds are wild. There is a break in the wind from around May - late August. The roads are pretty treacherous and I've written off two cars in three years. Going out for supplies and working is a struggle when having to travel so far to town on a bus service that runs twice a day and takes an hour each trip, and bake on a solid fuel stove and keep it going. Islanders often work several part time, temporary jobs because full time, permanent employment is so hard to come by. Ferries are cancelled in windy weather or when sea conditions are too rough. It's just a different kind of poverty.