Just as I started to write this, there was a sound at the window and a blue tit was hanging on the wood looking in at me and my home office on our smallholding. This always thrills me, being so close to the beauty of nature so I thought I would mention it. There is snow outside and of course the bird feeders are full but it is like looking out on a Christmas card! And Christmas brings feasting as it always has done and food brings food waste so it seems.

Tony Jupiter of The Sunday Times claimed recently that “doing away with food waste would have the same climate-change benefit as taking one in four cars off the road”.

I’ve heard similar claims but it seems to me that food waste just isn’t a subject that is raised as much as it should be on the green agenda – or if it is it rarely makes it into the turn all your lights off, turn your heat down and is your car journey really necessary, type of good advice.

Food waste is enormously wasteful in every sense of the word from the food itself to the wasted production costs. It’s also not necessary.

This week 5000 people were fed in London’s Trafalgar Square on food that would have been wasted, coming from farms, bakers and wholesalers, most of which would have been rejected by supermarkets for various imperfections that did not interfere with its nutritional value. I was pleased that this gained so much coverage and has been followed by a spate of recipes in the media based on left overs – especially important at Christmas and New Year when many people buy far too much, far more than they could ever expect to eat.

We have freezers these days and most things will freeze either in their original form or made into stews, soups or pies. There’s really no excuse for waste. A roast chicken, as Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall proved so efficiently in his chicken programme, can be a roast one day and a risotto the next, feeding a family for two days. The same is true of almost all roasts including turkey – there really is no end to what you can do with turkey. But it seems that not so many people are eating turkey this year with a survey finding that only about 40% of Britons intend eating turkey this year, which equates to around 7 million turkeys – a drop of around three million since 2005. Another survey has found that an increasing number of turkey eaters are looking for enhanced welfare, free range or farm gate turkeys. Despite the implications of the recession, many people are thinking about what they buy to eat. So what is on the Christmas menu? Goose has made a return and duck is popular – again I would be checking the label on those for free range sources. Beef, pork and lamb all have supporters especially if it is a joint that is out of the norm and especially in the case of beef, a very large joint which I think cooks more succulently than a small one.

Not to forget vegetarians either, whose choice of festive fare these days has progressed way beyond the nut roast or omlette approach (though both of these can be really delicious if done with enthusiasm and inspiration). We have a free range duck but also a rather nice joint of lamb produced by a fellow smallholder so haven’t quite made the final decision as yet. My own new ducks, the Abacot Rangers are settling in and went out for their first look outside at the weekend. They were a bit enthusiastic, in fact I thought they were going take off across the winter wheat field that surrounds us and join the wintering swans, but they did come back in so we shall gradually be allowing them more freedom. I’m off to the Wisbech Christmas market on the 21st December where if anyone wants to find me, I shall be helping a friend on a stall near the Horsefair. I love the market (if it isn’t too cold!) as it’s really Christmassy and I can buy my last minute things like holly and mistletoe (just a sprig) plus locally made sausages. We also have a wonderful sea food stall where the brown shrimps that come from the Wash can be found. Victorian style entertainers make it colourful and I just love the atmosphere. Wisbech is still a very rural town with strong links into the farming and vegetable producing community and still boasts wholesale flower and vegetable markets where local produce, squeakingly fresh from the surrounding fenland, can be bought. And then its busy busy until Christmas when I can finally relax for a day or two, glass in hand, fire in the grate, animals snug outside and cats draped round the living room. I’m not going anywhere – happy Christmas at home!

Liz is reading “The Kelly Bronze Turkey Cook Book by Mollie Kelly (www.kellyturkeys.com) and taking Daisy the donkey to a moving nativity play this week – the characters, including Daisy, move round the village to various locations including the local Inn!

17/12/2009