Can Britain Feed Itself?

[igenlode]

https://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/can-britain-feed-itself
https://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/sites/default/files/can_britain_feed_itself.pdf (with tables referred to in main text)

Food self-sufficiency: 1975 versus 2009 (of course the urban population has gone up even further since then).

The most efficient land usage is calculated as 'chemical stockless agriculture': growing potatoes, sugar, oilseed rape, dried peas and vegetables by using synthetic fertilisers. "With industrial processing of pea, bean and grain protein into artificial meat and milk, a semblance of an animal-based diet could be provided for about 200 million people."

Running dedicated high-yielding beef and dairy herds fed on grain is more costly in terms of land use than running low-yield dairy herds fed on grass, which produce more calves (and hence meat) for less milk per head of cattle. "The grass-fed cattle in Table F provide over 2.8 million hectares of ley that can be used in rotation to help fertilise over a million hectares of crops — whereas in Table E the 1.9 million hectares of ley that the corn fed cattle bring with them isn’t enough to fertilize the million hectares of grain they eat. The low yielding cows are nitrogen providers whereas the high yielding cows are nitrogen takers. "

"The draconian laws forbidding the feeding of even sterilized catering and domestic waste to pigs, introduced in a panic after the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic, need to be repealed" as this is extremely wasteful: "selling feed to small-scale pig units on mixed farms is an economical way of ensuring that the nutrients in food processing waste cascade back to the land. The pigs also bring fat into the diet, and produce it on less land than rape oil". "If resources became scarce, I would expect commercial chickens to be among the first to rise in price, (a boiling fowl was a luxury to be had only on special occasions in the 1950s) but there would still be plenty of opportunity for backyard hens fed on household scraps."

"In the absence of supplies of imported rock phosphate, phosphorus rather than nitrogen might become the main constraint upon crop yields, in which case we would have to ensure rigorous recycling of animal manures, human sewage, slaughterhouse wastes etc" -- fertilisers also need to be imported! "The improvement comes through using animals for what they are best at, recycling nutrients and waste — and avoiding feeding them grains.

Comments

[igenlode]

I have a recipe for lardy cake (basically just bread dough with lard folded into it) but it doesn't come out well -- I came to the conclusion that the proportion of lard was just unworkably high. I've never had any success in puff or even flaky pastry, either.

LARDY CAKE

To one quantity of risen plain bun dough (8oz flour, 1 oz lard, 1/4 pint warm yeast liquid made with milk and water, 1/2 tsp salt), take 4oz lard, 4oz sugar, 3oz sultanas and 1 tsp mixed spice (optional). Roll the risen dough on a floured surface to 1/2" thickness. Place 1/3 of the lard in small pats over the top two-thirds of the dough. Sprinkle with one-third of the sugar, fruit and spice if used. Fold the bottom uncovered third of the dough up and the top third down over it. Given the dough a quarter turn then repeat the rolling and folding twice more using the remaining ingredients. Roll out to fit a greased roasting tin 8"x10", cover and leave to prove. Bake in a hot oven (Gas Mark 7) until golden brown -- about 40 mins. Cool in tin until any melted fat had been absorbed by the cake, then turn out onto a wire rack. Lardy cake should be served 'upside down' to show the toffee-like layer at the bottom.

Sounds delicious, but mine just comes out as a greasy mess tasting of lard rather than "rich and sticky" :-( I think I tried twice and then gave up...

[igenlode]

I see that this recipe uses 5oz fat folded into a whole pound of dough -- proportions that might be more practical!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/lardy_cake_80839

[watervole]

It should be fairly flat and greasy. It doesn't rise much. the stuff we buy is usually about 2-3cm high and 20cm square.

But I notice that the stuff we have has dried fruit added, which will definitely affect the flavour..

As we've never made it ourselves, I can't really comment on the recipe overall.

[igenlode]

This recipe tells you to add the dried fruit in with the sugar, like a Chelsea bun.

Clearly I need to try again at some point with a cut-down quantity of lard; the problem was that the fat was simply not being absorbed and cooking in with the sugar, but running out of the cake and sitting around in an unappetising puddle :-(

But it isn't really the weather for yeast cookery at the moment. The trouble with a slow rise in recipes like cinnamon rolls where one adds a layer of sugar is that the sugar gradualy dissolves and falls out during twelve hours or so of waiting for the sourdough to do its stuff...

[watervole]

do you have an airing cupboard?

[igenlode]

No hot water tank. The miracles of new modern boilers...

I can put things on top of a hot-water bottle in the 'haybox' (actually an expanded polystyrene box with a nest of towels in it), but that doesn't extend to things that are on trays rather than in bowls/saucepans!

(And generally I don't attempt to 'rush' sourdough, because its whole utility lies in the fact that it will obligingly rise at room temperature... it's just that sugar does dissolve on contact with it, given time.)