Calder Food Hub Blog

As a seasoned, seasonal foodie, i was delighted to remember Mytholmroyd’s World famous ‘Dock Pudding Competition’ in time to perfect my winning entry.
The Dock Pudding, famous in these parts, is a dish consisting of fried sweet dock leaves and nettle tops,cooked with onions, bacon and oats. Previous winning entries have stepped away from tradition, and incorporated other ingredients like sausage meat. One year pudding judges were wowed by a vegetarian entry.
I have grand plans, starting with the traditional recipe and tinkering with it until i have created a unique and winning dock pudding worthy of the Mayor of Calderdale. But what could be my winning ingredient…
Today I amused local dog walkers,as i scrambled down muddy bankings in search of sweet dock leaves. I was rather disappointed upon weighing my bag of gathered leaves, to discover that had collected slightly less than 100g for a recipe requiring half a kilo. Undeterred, i will be taking to the hillsides tomorrow with a large sack.
Sweet dock, not to be confused with the common dock, its larger leaved cousin, has delicate stems and small light green, spear shaped leaves. Its flower, which will appear later in the season is an attractive, pink spike. Bistort, as it is also called seems to like to grow in shady places, in slightly boggy soil. I have found large patches of it locally near to streams.
Here is the traditional recipe as cited by Calderdale online
Traditional Recipe

Ingredients

2 lb fresh, sweet variety dock leaves (polygonum distorta)

2 large onions, or 2 large bunches of spring onions

½ lb nettles

A handful of oatmeal

A knob of butter

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Wash and clean the dock leaves and remove the stalks

Wash and clean the nettles

Chop the onions

Fry the vegetables in the butter until tender

Add the oatmeal and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring to prevent the mixture from sticking, the pudding is then ready for eating or for storing in a sealed container

So I invite you to join me in my quest to popularise this quirky and local dish.
for more information check out

http://www.calderdale-online.org/community/life/life5.html

Happy picking!

A glorious Saturday 25.2.12 bought People thronging to the CVOG Potato Day at the Good Shepherd in Mytholmroyd. There were 41 varieties for sale and pre-order, from ‘Accent’ via ‘Pink Fur Apple’ and ‘Lady Balfour’ to ‘Wilja’. There was also the popular ‘Potato Cafe’ with a menu of spud dishes and a craft based Kids Space.
Calder Food Hub ran a table with information, Apple trees, fruit bushes and Jerusalem Artichokes.

Making Local Fruit Work
Conference Todmorden Unitarian Church Saturday 28th January 2012.

A hundred delegates gathered to discuss the sustainability of local fruit projects and different models of enterprise based around fruit growing. These ranged from inner city ‘scrumping’ projects such as ‘Abundance’ (Sheffield and Manchester), who collect surplus apples from largely domestic situations and distribute them to local needs groups such as old people and refugee organisations, to small scale commercial Cider buying coops, ‘MossCider’ and the ‘Real Cider Company’.
Locals Calderdale Local Orchard Group (who produced 800litres of juice, 25% up on last year), Incredible Edible Todmorden (who have planted 700 fruit trees in Todmorden) and Calder Food Hub (we took along scions from Callis Community Orchard and samples of Apples that keep through the winter), were well represented.
Groups with a broader national interest, Sustrans, F3 (food consultants) and Northern Fruit Group also sent representatives.
Introductions and case studies from groups in the morning were followed by requested skill sharing sessions in the afternoon from which the following photo’s are taken. All in all an informative and entertaining day with food from the travelling teapot cafe thrown in for good measure.
Processing Equipment discussion

Closing Review