Sunday, 19 July 2015

Bacon Cabbage And Potatoes For Sunday Tea.

We had a lovely meal tonight.  Our bacon and cabbage and potatoes grown on the smallholding veg plot.  It was delicious and the cabbage tasted fresher than anything you buy in the shops.  It was still fresh and the sugars hadn't yet changed to starches.  

That's the great thing about growing your own vegetables and raising your own meat.  It's fresh and you know what drugs or man-made chemicals it hasn't had.  Fresh veg is best.  

My grandparents ate bacon, cabbage and potatoes virtually every day.  They would kill a pig and salt the bacon and keep it in a barrel in a kitchen.  My gran-dad grew 'British Queens' potatoes and set his own cabbages.  He even sold cabbage plants from an old sack in Bantry town centre.  

Every farm use to have a field of vegetables growing when I came on holiday to West Cork in the nineteen sixties and early seventies.  There were rows of cabbage, potatoes, carrots, onions, lettuce, beetroot and giant cow cabbages for the cattle and mangles for the horse.  Hay was still king and round bales of silage was unheard of.  I wish we could go back to self reliant and stay at home farmers.  

I have been struggling to blog this week.  I suppose you just tap the computer keys and a blog will appear? 

16 comments:

  1. So did you wash down your wonderful meal with a traditional cupful of buttermilk Dave ?

    If only blogging were so easy when there is a thousand and one jobs waiting outside eh!

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    1. I washed down our meal with a can of Newcastle Brown ale Heron. Blogging can be very difficult to write some times.

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  2. Hey Dave, I have nothing to say at the moment. So I just dont blog. lol I eat peas from the pods in the garden like sweets. Wild plums in the garden at the mo and blueberries. A chair in the garden with a bit of shade. no need to blog about it. am just living it!

    Dinner sounds lush by the way. Although I cant remember what bacon tastes like now...

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    1. Sounds great Sol. I have been wondering our your house renovations are getting on.

      It was a very enjoyable meal and so different to al the spicy food we often eat. Fresh food with little or no preservatives. Thanks!

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  3. you grew your own bacon in the veg pot? :o ;)

    sounds marvelous!

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    1. The pigs live about twenty feet from the veg plot. I once had bullocks dancing and jumping about on my growing potatoes. It was marvelous - thanks!

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  4. It's getting harder to be a stay-at-home self-reliant farmer.

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    1. Yes the countryside is so quiet in the day time these days Cumbrian. So many farmers have to travel miles to work. The farmer should be able to make a living from their farm. There is more going on at night in the countryside than in the day time. Thanks!

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  5. I sometimes find writing a blog hard as well.....I think most of us do...sometimes the words will flow and other times they remain blocked in the head. But nice to hear from you........

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    1. Nice to hear from you Vera. Writers block is awful but it strikes us all now and again. Then sometimes you don't try so hard and the words just flow. I always enjoy reading about your smallholding in France. Thanks!

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  6. I love all those veggies. Yummy! I agree its so nice to know what is "not" in your food! :O)Veggies from ones own garden don't taste anything like what is in the store. They are so much better!

    Being vegetarian I would pass on the bacon now, but many, many years ago when I did eat some meat bacon was my favorite!

    My grandparents always had what they called salt pork.(salty bacon) I liked that when I was a kid. They ate it nearly every day. We had potatoes nearly everyday as well.

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  7. Hi Texan. Your grandparents sound like my grandparents here in Ireland. The grew their own vegetables and raised a lot of their meat and we drank the unpasteurized cow milk. We were even served potatoes and cabbage with massive salmon steaks. That was on a hot summers day too. Thanks!

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    1. My grandparents were the BEST, they raised me half my life. I miss them very much. We lived a simple, hard working life. It was the BEST! I too wish life was more like then.

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    2. I miss my grandparents and my parents very much. Life is so short and it's good to follow your dreams. My animals give me reason to get up every morning.

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  8. You can't beat home grown veg and your own meat, as you say you know exactly where it come's from.
    I know what you mean about writer's block, it's like wading through treacle sometimes.;-)

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  9. Hi Deb. I like living on my smallholding but I still miss my allotment in England. It's good to grow and eat your own produce but I miss the camaraderie of the allotment tenants and the knowledge always given for free by the old allotment tenants.

    I think the isolation is one of the reason's why I blog. I am a frustrated writer (like most bloggers) and like you say writer's block is like wading through treacle. Thanks for your comment Deb.

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