What’s cooking?

What ingredients do you associate with Italian cooking?
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I bet olive oil is near the top of your list. Italians have been using it since time immemorial, right?
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That’s what I thought till I read @historicalitalianfood’s fabulous collection of interviews with Italian women, aged 90+. Again and again (as you can see from my pictures – swipe to read) they used lard. Lard to fry, cured lard for pasta sauces, lard to preserve.
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In these womens lives (they talk about the 1920s-40s and beyond) olive oil hardly ever features.
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The common belief that Italians have always used olive oil is untrue.
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So how did we get it so wrong? And what can that tell us? Have a read of my short blog post (top link in my linktr.ee today) and then dive into the beautiful book ‘Chewing the Fat’ by Karima of @historicalitalianfood. You’ll be amazed and moved.
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And if you don’t already, cook with lard. It is the most delicious and healthy fat plus locally-sourced from a responsible farmer, it’s an ecologically-sound choice

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Yes, we have home-made chocolate today, but really, in my mind, nothing shouts “I love you” more than making your family fresh bread.
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This is a wholegrain spelt sourdough, risen with a wholegrain rye starter. It is one of the breads that works for my family. But bread should not be prescriptive – that’s why when @farmandhearth and I put a bread prompt in the @ancestralkitchenpodcast 2022 challenge, we made it all-emcompassing: “Make a bread that works for you and your family”.
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Whether it’s wheat, spelt, rye, buckwheat, gluten-free, lectin-free, gaps or paleo, there’s a bread out there that will serve *you*. And getting your hands in the dough, being part of the alchemy of bread can bring you much joy!
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I’ll be posting some of my ‘alternative’ (said with a slight cough, as they have all sorts of things inside) breads over the coming weeks. In the meantime, if getting your sourdough starter going is a must, you can get access to the recordings from my ‘Make & Maintain a Rye Sourdough Starter’ Zoom last Saturday by signing up via the link at the top of my linktr.ee. I’ll be sending them out later in the week.
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And the Ancestral Kitchen Ccallenge 2022 is at www.ancestralkitchen/com/challenge.

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I’ve never made pork crackling this good.
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I bought some belly pork (rigatino in Italian) from @valledelsasso for my hubby, Rob. He loves it roasted. I never remember roasting temps, so internet-search it every time. This time, I scrolled a bit and found @recipe_tin’s Crispy Slow-Cooked Pork.
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It went against a lot of the ‘normal’ crackling routine. I didn’t score the fat at all. I cooked it long and slow in a little bath made from foil, followed by levelling it out and then cranking the heat up.
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It was amazing. The fat was airy and crispy all the way across, with no hard bits and no soggy-left-behind bits. The flesh and fat underneath we so juicy and tender as they’d been sort of ‘confit’ed in their juices.
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Next time you have a go at roasting a fatty pork joint, I’d recommend trying this method. You’ll find a *really* detailed post on Recipe Tin Eat’s site.
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More pictures, including the ‘bath’, in my story today.

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Being a mum is challenging work. And striving to do so ‘ancestrally’ when the world is not set up to support it makes the task even harder. Creating community and helping each other is of utmost importance.

@farmandhearth @fornutrientssake @nourishthelittles and I are recording a Q&A next week dedicated to ancestral food and motherhood in which we’ll concentrate all our (four-fold!) energies on any concerns and questions you have. No question is too ‘small’ or ‘silly’.
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Send me a DM with what you’d like us to cover and I’ll make sure it’s in the line up.

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The last of this season’s chestnut flour made up into a castagnaccio, sprinkled with fennel seeds and ready to go into the oven.
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I used the fermented oat liquid swats in this mix instead of water and I left the pan in the fridge overnight to allow the biotics in the swats to do their thing on the chestnut flour, lightly fermenting it.
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Looking forward to trying the result.
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If you want the recipe for the castagnaccio, send me a DM. If you want to know how to ferment your oats into a creamy porridge and a probiotic drink, check out my sowans course over at @thefermentationschool – there’s a link to it in my linktr.ee.

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Number 14 of The Ancestral Kitchen challenge is ‘use fat in a new way’.
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I love mayonnaise. But I’ve not had it these last few years because the only oil I’ve been prepared to make it with is olive. And decent olive oil is strong; too strong for me to like the mayo it creates. When I heard @farmandhearth was making hers with bacon fat, I knew I wanted to have a go with my home-rendered lard.
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The most important thing to remember, as I’ve learnt, is to use half lard, half olive oil and to warm the lard so that it is just liquidy (not hot hot). This way you can drizzle the lard, along with your olive oil, into the yolky mixture slowly.
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Not wanting the buzz of my food processor, I turned to the mortar and pestle. It was *so* much more satisfying this way.
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This is 2 yolks, lemon juice (I don’t like mustard in mayo), 1/2 tsp of miso (why not?!) and, I think, about a cup of fat.
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I’d love for you to join in the challenge. It’s 22 prompts to inspire you to get creative in your kitchen. Check my story or click the link in my linktr.ee for more details.

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Fermented chips in progress!
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When I saw the extent of @kirstenkshockey’s recent crazy potato chip fermentation, I knew I had to join in! This is a bog-standard white potato, chipped roughly and then covered in a 5g salt/1cup water brine.
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I’m planning to leave this for 3 days to do its bubble magic and then bake the chips up.
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My son can’t eat white potatoes, so I’ll be popping out later today to get some sweet potatoes in and will give them the same treatment.
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Are you curious too? Want to join in?

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Anyone else use cast iron on a halogen hob?
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We’re renting, and the stove-top (called hob in the UK!) is halogen. I use my Lodge cast iron pan on it daily. In order to do so, I have a small metal ‘converter’ disc that goes between the pan and the stove.
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My pan is 8 inches across, but the disc I have is only 5 inches. It’s been bugging me for a while and I’ve wanted to get a bigger disc…but there always seems to be a higher priorities for our budget and the reviews online for these discs are not that great.
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Does anyone have experience here that could help me?
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Thanks!
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P.S. I couldn’t resist snapping this photo of the glorious purple cabbage that @radiciumane supplied my kitchen with this week 🙂

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