Author: Ali

Grain mills are expensive. But grain is so much cheaper than flour, and, if you can buy it in bulk, it’ll last.
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When I considered a grain mill a couple of years ago, I talked with my hubby, Rob, and knew we couldn’t justify an expensive mill. I’m not the only one with desires in the family, he’s been a musician without a guitar for most of the last two years!
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We ended up buying a manual hand-crank roller mill, the Marcato Marga. It doesn’t grind grain anywhere near as finely as a stone mill, and it requires arm power, not electricity. But we love it. Rob grinds and reads out loud to us in the evenings. And we are used to ‘rustic’ bread…
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…like this wholegrain rye sourdough. You can see the flour weaving through the crust in this picture. It’s dense but it’s delicious.
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If you want to get started with sourdough and love rye, I’m planning a ‘Make & Maintain a Rye Sourdough Starter’ Zoom on Friday 12th of Feb. More details coming soon.

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A pancake-stack-for-breakfast kind of morning. Spelt discard pancakes (literally just discard, flour and water) left out to ferment overnight and then cooked in the cast iron pan in lard.
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I eat my pancakes savoury, not sweet because I don’t eat sweet things (not even fruit). I often get asked why I don’t and how I manage it. Here’s the short version:
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Why – because if I eat sweet things I get vertigo migraines on my cycle. This is debilitating and not worth it. It took me about four years and much experimentation to figure this out!
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How I manage it – after some time, it’s not as bad as it sounds! Taste buds adjust; you taste sweet in other things. My ‘treats’ take other forms – 100% chocolate, freshly-made mayonnaise, delicious bread and butter. I want to live, not put up with stuff, and my tried-and-tested ‘experiment until you learn’ mindset means I’m totally up for changing habits to improve things.
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Going without sweet is not for everyone. It supports me, I think because I super-overinduged on sugar as a kid. Being twice the weight I am now messed me up somewhat! But still, if you want to lessen your sugar intake, know it’s do-able!
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Back to my pancakes: these are layered with linseed, barley miso and local olive oil. It’s misty and cold here this morning and they helped me ease into my day.
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If you want to share about sugar stuff or what you had for breaky, please do 🙂

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Yesterday’s lunch had to be quick as I had only a few moments in between sessions of my bean-to-bar chocolate course. This was prepped in 5 mins. It’s all from previously created food:
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Einkorn sourdough spread with home-rendered lard, lentils cooked in spices and stock, local greens/carrot salad and coleslaw coated with home-made mayonnaise.
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I haven’t made mayo for *ages*. Gosh, it’s good. Thank you @farmandhearth for getting me back into it. This one used olive oil; lard mayo next!
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Thank you to the ladies who created chocolate with me yesterday. You made my day 🙂

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I made some chocolate in preparation for the bean-to-bar workshop on Friday. Keeping little hands off it is hard!!
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As Gabriel sings, I tried putting a bit of sea salt in. Yet to try the result.
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If you can get yourself some raw cacao beans in the next 40 hours, come join me on Zoom and let’s make them into gorgeous chocolate together! The link with all the details is in my profile.

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These are Jaterničky, Slovak rice and offal sausages traditionally made at the annual pig butchery. They are part of a cannon of incredible Slovak dishes the Naomi at @almostbananas has documented, photographed and brought to life.
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As she says, “Slovak food is comfort food”. Listen in to today’s podcast to hear her describe mouth-watering dishes along with the rituals that surround the once-a-year community event that is a traditional pig butchery.
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This photo is from Naomi’s site. If you like not only good food, but also wonderful photography and writing, go check it, and all of her recipes, out. Thank you Naomi for curating and sharing such ancestral food wisdom.

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Rye loaves made with 50% spent grain from my ancestral ale and 50% wholegrain rye flour. The left one is flavoured with fennel seeds, the right one studded with raisins and orange zest.
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I didn’t use any sourdough starter with these loaves…the leavening is solely from the yeasts that were left coating my spent grain after the ale-making process.
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They are dense, boozy and delicious!

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I found a copy of Pellegrino Artusi’s famous late 1800s cookbook for 1 Euro in my local herbalist’s shop yesterday. Turns out an old lady who is friend’s with the herbalist was decluttering. I was chuffed as I’ve been looking at it on bookshelves since we moved back here to Italy.
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It’s just in time for the research I’m doing for an @ancestralkitchenpodcast episode I’m recording with @farmandhearth next week. The iconic book has three pizza recipes in it, *all* of which are sweet and have eggs in.
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I feel another ‘historical myth’ needs busting (check my last post for a busted one on olive oil):
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Pizza as we know it was not widespread in Italy until very recently.
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@historicalitalianfood’s book confirms it. So many of the women interviewed say something along the lines of ‘I didn’t try pizza until the 80s’.
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So, I say, if you want to put left over chicken on your pizza (as I have done here!) go do it. Put sweet things on it (I once at Guava on a pizza in Brazil) heck, even pineapple. Just know what the toppings will do to your base so you don’t end up all soggy (unless you want that!)
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The recipe for this sourdough spelt pizza base is in my profile.

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Chewing the Fat by @historicalitalianfood is opening my eyes to the way food *really* was in Italy 3/4 generations back. The interviews Karima has shared with women in their 80s and 90s are astounding. The lives they led, the hardships, the struggle for food, the cooking. I can’t read more than a few pages at a time as it’s so much to take in.
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One of the things these women talk about over and over again is how they used animal fats. Almost every interviewee talks about lard or lardo. Olive oil was just not a ‘thing’ like we in the post-industrial, food-led-by-marketing world think it was.
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I’ve been rendering lard in my own kitchen from local pigs for nearly a decade and using it in a myriad of ways. It’s a magical fat that has not made me fat. Reading the words in this book, I realise lard was and *is* normal and I stand on the shoulders of so many women. Our diets are not the only thing that have been hijacked by mainstream food systems, our history has too.
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Have lard stories? Want to share them with me? I’d love to hear.

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