Time, passing, history and a hopeful dose of nostalgia. So often are these elements found bordered within the smallest of confines; as small as, say, a suburb backdating some one hundred and fifteen years. Who would have thought to consider their local neighbourhood and its unspoken story of adaptability and reformation; the winding timeworn roads rendered by the broken backs and dime-a-day ethic of our forefathers, the period-style freestanding homes whose facade changes with every successive generation of family or the scrawlings of high-school nothings into the streetside paths leading into the heart of the metropolis. Approximately nine kilometres from the Central Business of Sydney, the unassuming suburb of Dulwich Hill, Sydney has quietly seen the ebb and eddy of aimless immigrants with little more than a few cheeky, broken words of English, a charming demeanor exemplified in their roughly woven, patchwork suits and their skills for building their homes upon Australia’s stable earth. Countless times have my family repeated to me the story of ‘afterschool beatups’ that were supposed to happen down by Caves Lane, the noble five cents that could buy the biggest bag of sweets known to a seven year old and the arduous mile-long stretch of road that lead, unwinding and unrelentingly, from their doorstep to the promenade of their school.
Through the tree-lined streets whose ancient, aching roots have lifted the gravel road like an old folk stretching his tired limbs, the behemoths of an era past stand perched upon that gently curving hill, breathing sighs as the westerly winds pass through their corrugated iron roofs and tamper with the brickwork; the work of labourers whose hands and hearts are long retired from their love of European-descent homes. Many amongst us (apartment-dwellers) are awed by the size of the private backyard, many of which containing their own garden as my my grandmother does. Following a carefully planned seasonal rotation roster, the best yielding fruits and vegetables are grown, from strawberries, mangoes and lemons to zucchini, broccoli, eggplant and string beans high enough to reach beyond the clouds. But after all this, we are not concerned with one single residence but the magic of the history of the shops and the suburb it resides in…
What comes to mind when you think about the humble, uniform egg? Probably not much; you might consider cooking a few for breakfast on the weekend, what they taste and look like, how much that bald guy on the morning train really looks remarkably similar to an irritable poached egg and disguse a chuckle beneath the daily paper. Perhaps it might interest you to know that eggs have remained a hot topic for a while now (unless of course, you have been living under a rock in Antartica), especially in titillating office conversation when peering into your colleagues lunch box to see if they are having ‘the same old devilled egg sandwich’. A subject of much commotion and contentiousness in recent times, eggs, which we all acknowledge as the primordial symbol of (re)birth and a staple for all our mighty nations, has never seen such diversity as that which is presently thrust upon them by marketing middlemen, speaking on behalf of the farmers tending to them in the first place. We’ve all thought about them at some point in our lives, perhaps dwelled upon their mysteriously perfect shape, marvelled at their cohesiveness as a birth capsule of nutrients and studied the paradox of its solid shell perforated with minute holes for micro-respiration (please say that you’ve thought about these things, otherwise I’ve exposed my inner geek!). A food of the ancient world and a commonplace sustenance of the modern world, present in a myriad of food products from Apple Pie right down to Zwetschgenkuchen. So if eggs are so common, tasty, versatile and nutritious, what’s the problem? Well, they’re getting a little expensive and they’re becoming unusually diverse with too little difference in between – supermarket aisles are bombarding consumers with too much choice on the market, making it harder to discern the ‘forest for the trees’.
Frankly, it’s no longer possible to just ‘buy a dozen eggs’. When you place a carton in your shopping trolley, you are declaring open war. You pledge your allegiance to a choice that rules your conscience and guides your egg-buying pattern. Walking down the fresh produce aisle, you are bombarded with the selection available and must make an educated decision motivated by ethical or economic concerns, or both. Who in their right mind, for example, would understand what ‘carrot eggs’ are or who might be conned into purchasing carb-conscious eggs, omega-3 enriched eggs or even as outlandish as olive oil eggs? In the most epic struggle since The Battle for Middle Earth, the fate of the dominant dozen eggs will be decided. Will you choose to support the parties whose hens produce seventy percent marketing verbiage and only thirty percent nutrition, or those whose nutritive benefits are supposedly like those descended from the Golden Goose herself? Read on and find out why the newly crowned organic eggs are truly worth their weight in gold.
When it comes to finding a decent and recently imported can of tomatoes, supermarkets are succumbing to their convenience vice and becoming, as it is aptly put, super lazy. While the grocery giants cut corners in order to keep their prices down, it is often the shopper who suffers instead of the lost profits of food corporations.
It wasn’t all that long ago that I had to visit a delicatessen to source such an exclusive luxury as a can of tomatoes for pasta and rice dishes; tins of tender fruit were conspicuously shelved alongside cartons of their worth in golden olive oil, deep sea salted fish and freshly strained ricotta – all contained on our ‘special’ items list.
Nowadays, whole aisles are being obstructed by vicious, jutting crates of tins and jars, covered with recipe suggestions and each extolling the history of their company in the business of the fruit. Not a shopping week goes by without myself tripping over a discarded can of these market impostors, who have brought about a host of horrible cliches to a once elite and secretive armament of the well-stocked pantry…
The Wild Thyme and Sweet Pea project found its roots when it was plucked excitedly from the garden, washed briskly in a basin of water and lovingly left out to dry in a soothing marinade of vision and ambition ... More »
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