Food for thought

I have seen a Kestrel on the moor almost every day for the last week or so.  It is a remarkable bird, hovering with complete mastery of the wind, head perfectly still and the eyesight capable of seeing a beetle at 50m.  Its estimated they will eat 4-8 voles, or similar animals, a day although I wonder who counts these things.

None of these considerations impacted on Napoleon much, not only is his food served on a plate and eaten in 10 seconds, but he was more interested in extracting rocks for the De Lank stream.  

It made me think about unusual meals – not everyone is partial to voles and shrews.  Mind you, having said that, one of my first experiences of our countryside was reading the books of “Romany of the BBC”, who was actually named the Rev George Bramwell Evens.  He was almost the first David Attenborough, writing books and developing radio broadcasts with stories of nature and wildlife, travelling in his traditional Romany horse-drawn caravan, a vardo.

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Romany and his dog, Raq

He died in 1943 and its amazing to think his stories date from the 1920’s.  There are now an estimate 33 million cars in Britain today, in the 1920’s there were much less than 1 million – a very different world.  

He had a lovely turn of phrase and for me started a process of people who knew so much of country ways – Jack Hargreaves, who featured in “How” and a series called “Out of Town” and then later such people as Peter Scott and Keith Shackleton, an amazing bird artist.  

One of the Romany stories I recall was how to cook a hedgehog, although I’ve manage to struggle through life with without this vital knowledge.  Apparently, its best done wrapped in a clay ball and when the clay is hardened in a fire, as you pull it off the spines come with it, leaving you with a delicious (?) meal of spine free hog.  Not for me – and partially because although there were 33 million hedgehogs in Britain in 1950, there are an estimated 1 million now, at best.

Several pubs in the UK hold squirrel recipe days and given the Grey Squirrel is something of a pest, tree rats with good PR, it’s not a bad idea – if you like squirrel.

Of course, some people in certain parts of the world eat guinea pigs, rats and (heaven above) bats, so there are all sorts of weird and wonderful things.

As Geraldine and I have travelled a lot and lived in 6 different countries and we’ve endured all sorts from mopani worms in South Africa, marmot in Mongolia (avoid at all costs), crocodile in Zimbabwe (a bit snappy) and some unidentifiable things in Indonesia, including some memorable but pretty ordinary-tasting dried cow lung.

One incident stands out though.  I have said before I was in a remote part of Zimbabwe many years ago, near the Chizarira National Park. It was a very male-orientated camp, in those days, with the only females being the Senior Field Officer’s wife (nice, but 90 in the shade) and an ex-American mercenary’s (who forgot to go home after the Bush War) wife who was Very Off Limits.

One day, we had a Seagull Visit from Some Big Shots (Seagull as they fly in, squawk, shit on everything and fly off) from the client, a large oil company.  They did indeed fly in, in a small plane to our little grass airstrip and proceed to visit something or other of Great Importance.  Word quickly spread that the pilot was a FEMALE and she stayed in the camp pub all day, with the 4 or 5 guys in camp at the time falling over each other to get to the pub – we had all been in the bush for several weeks.  We all sat around this poor lady regaling her with witty stories and talk turned to food and she mentioned she had never had Guinea Fowl.  One of the guys said he had a big casserole on the go and he’d go home and fetch some.  Ignoring her protests, he shot off and returned 5 minutes later with a steaming bowl of what was admittedly very good stew.  

He also took the chance to try and deal with the layer of dust all over him after a week in a fly camp with an associated musky odour.  He didn’t bother with a wash, he’s just applied a liberal dose of deodorant to the dust.  It wasn’t the best of smellies and the combined effect created a heady mix of sweat, dust, oil, diesel and deodorant.  No wonder she seemed unimpressed – but we all ate the stew for her. He did have the good grace to be embarrassed when she left, her dignity intact, a while later.  We let him off by agreeing he could buy us few beers.

Back on home ground, the march of the seasons is gathering pace.  Farmers on the moor are haymaking in this fine Indian summer and bringing in the hay, the animal feed for the winter months.

These days, the big round bales are covered in perforated plastic that allows them to be stored outside, whereas the old fashioned square bales need to be under cover for the winter.  Times change, I remember haymaking taking weeks and all being done by mid July but that was in the wilds of the Lancashire Pennines, with Pendle Hill in the background.

The leaves are turning now, quite rapidly, and the autumn is here – top tip for gardeners is to bag fallen leaves into black refuse sacks and leave them over winter and by spring they will have transformed into natural leaf mould.

The Swallows are largely gone but a few House Martins remain sweeping under the large sycamore tree in the garden.  It’s worth celebrating every day we have them and there will be precious few more this year – but then, we will await their return as the days length in March and their epic journey will be over for another year.