Mmm…. I don’t know about you, but potatoes are one of my favourite foods. Here at Zaytuna we were a tad late in potato planting, so we’re having to cover our potato rows at night – as even here in the sub-tropics we’re getting some winter frosts. A couple more weeks and we should have a good crop to harvest – which will add to all the sweet potatoes and pumpkins we’ve already gleaned from the soil.

Anyway, here’s a tip on storing seed potatoes for future planting – simply layer them in a container with dry sawdust. Easy.

This week I’m shopping for a persimmon tree for the Edible Japanese Garden I’m creating. Of course I will be planting a sweet, rather than an astringent, or ’shibui’* persimmon. The sweet ones, such as Fuyu, are squat-shaped, and can be eaten either crunchy or yielding. The long-shaped Hachiya variety, the ones Aussies first planted before we knew better (sorry Hachiya), are awfully ’shibui’. You have to wait until they become syrupy-ripe before eating, otherwise, biting into one will give you that ‘cotton-wool-in-the-mouth’ reaction. Awful. I find slush and string almost as unattractive as shibui, and so too it seems, do the Japanese. They usually hang the autumn harvest under the eaves, and let the dry winter air transform them into something like enchanted dried apricots: intense, chewy, and frosted in sugar crystals. ‘Hoshi Gaki’, in Japanese.

Last year while visiting the pottery town of Machiko, deep in the Japanese mountains, I came across a lady at the traditional dye-works. She was kneeling on the stamped-earth floor, peeling persimmons that had been just picked from the gracious old tree out front. Preparing the persimmons, hanging them to dry, then enjoying their chewy sweetness with a cup of green tea throughout the year is something every household did, a task that was part of savoring Autumn.

In a few weeks, a walk around Autumnal urban Melbourne will give you glimpses of these elegant-limbed trees, naked but for baubles of these glowing, and – chances are – unwanted fruit. Ours for the asking, or trading.

Here is how my Japanese friends tell me I would do it.

1) Cut the fruit from the trees when orange-ripe yet firm. Leave a little ‘handle’ twig for hanging.

2) Peel the fruit, but leave a tiny square of skin at the bottom. This stops the sugars from dripping out the bottom. Don’t bite!

3) Hang each orb, evenly spaced, in a shady place with dry air circulating to prevent mold. If you have ancient thatched roof eaves on hand, perfect. Note the beautiful, asymmetric patterns the Japanese lady has arranged her cascades of strung persimmons (above), delighting and honouring the viewer, the fruit, and of course, her own creative self. The sight of drying persimmons is one you will live with for weeks, recalling autumns past as you gaze on them. In the Japanese aesthetic, nothing is so mundane that it cannot be elevated to art, with no resources required but careful visual ‘listening’, and placing so that each relates beautifully and sensitively to the other.

4) Massage the fruit. Yes, as for wagyu beef, as in a rich marriage, a fond, attentive massage has great transformative powers. A minute or so of attention every few days, and a white frostiness will appear as the sugars seep to the surface and crystallise. Home-reared hoshi gaki have a rich flavor and smooth texture. The cheap, mass-produced ones who missed out on this loving step are stringy and shallow. My friends explained to me that the massaging of sugar crystals up through the flesh breaks down the fibers.

Hoshigaki dried persimmon photo from digicamworks.
No bloom yet, but looking festive.

Hear the how-to story from somebody who has actually done it. The Slow Food USA drying persimmon story is both beautiful and useful.

My friend Endo-san’s persimmons, drying in the grand Tokyo garden that her parents left to her and her sister

Planting edible trees is a delightful part of urban permaculture. But making best use of what’s already flourishing, unwanted, is where permaculture gets glorious. You may mess up. Australian rain or mould or possums could leave you empty-handed the first year, but your new permie persimmon friends will almost certainly forgive you, and the creative thinking required to succeed will make for some good Autumn memories.

If you have a go, I’d love to see your photos and stories.

*About Shibui: Shibui, that dry astringency, is a word that comes in handy, and that English just didn’t have, but we can start borrowing from now. First use it to describe mundane things: the dryness of red wine, or overbrewed tea. At another level, "shibui" is useful to breathe in admiration when acknowledging that ‘Malborough Man’ type coolness. Use ’shibui’ for that reserved, understated, but riveting kind of beauty, when a thing is unapologetically itself, like a gravel-voiced love song that pierces the heart. The Wikipedia entry on Shibui is Wikipedia at its most elevating. Don’t miss it.

Apartment balcony Hoshi gaki persimmons from Nekobiyouri blog

Margaret Lynch explains how to grow, store and prepare the edible section of what is a truly prolific plant.

Helianthus tuberosus is an annual which will tolerate most conditions. Commonly called Jerusalem artichoke, it is known in its native America as Sunroot. Other names include Sunchoke and Suntuber. It is not to be confused with the globe artichoke, Cynara scolymus, which is a thistle with edible flower-buds.

Suntuber foliage is said to be good fodder. Rapid growth makes it an excellent summer shade, screen, or windbreak. It may also have potential in paper-making. The plant produces a substance which inhibits growth in nearby plants, so don’t use the green foliage for mulch.

Plant tubers in early spring, choosing the spot carefully – you plant Suntubers for life! When you harvest them – last year I took four and a half large buckets from a patch one metre square – small ones will be overlooked and grow next year. Don’t put whole tubers in mulch or compost, and remove unwanted plants as they appear. In warm weather, plants will reach one to three metres in a few weeks. Water and feed in moderation. They will produce a crop even if totally neglected. The first cold snap kills the tops. Dig tubers as required. If you have to harvest them all at once, store them in moist sand in a cold place.

For Food: You can feed fresh tubers to pigs and goats, or finely chopped to poultry. As a human food, like many other food plants, they need careful preparation. Some people have no problem digesting them but they are a minority. Over 50 percent of their carbohydrate is in forms we don’t have enzymes to break down. Beans contain 10 to 15 percent of the same substances. These substances need to be leached or converted to make a digestible product.

Refrigerate or cold-store tubers for at least a month, then slice and boil in lots of water for 15 minutes, adding one tablespoon of lemon juice per 1200 mls after 10 minutes, or right at the start if you want crisp tubers. Drain, slip off peel, and pat dry. The slices can then be marinated, pickled, dehydrated, barbecued, roasted, deep-fried, made into soup, pureed and used in pies, cakes, or scones – use your favourite pumpkin recipes, but add less sugar.

If you have a solar cooker, slow combustion stove, crock pot, or are planning a hungi, cook whole tuber for 24 hours in a tightly closed container at 93’C (200’F). Season and serve, or slice and dry for a snack.

Help Raw Milk Diary Producers in Australia!

As you probably know, many small dairy farmers have been forced out of business by big corporate Ag laws, especially those laws that outlaw sales of health-giving raw milk, raw butter, raw cream and other raw milk products. My grandparents had this happen to them. These pasteurization laws take what should be a healthy value added cottage industry product (raw milk and raw cheese, etc.) and force small dairy farmers to sell at wholesale at 1975 prices.

Dairy farmers who sell wholesale go out of business here in the US at a rate of 16 per day, as they are squeezed by the giant corporate milk companies. Study after study shows that compulsory pasteurization laws (that protect the inferior pasteurized unhealthy product of Big Ag) have been largely responsible for the decline of small diverse mixed farms, and small American towns and rural life. I believe this is true also in Australia and around the world.

The Weston A. Price Foundation, of which I am a chapter co-leader, has a campaign to legalize raw milk dairies world-wide, as we believe it is an important natural health-giving food that can bring in needed income to small farmers. Here in California we have been involved in a year long campaign to keep our raw milk dairies legal.

Likewise, we are also helping Australia to legalize raw milk. We have just learned that the Food Standards Authority in Australia will accept submissions regarding the raw milk products proposal from anywhere, not just Australians. This is a momentous undertaking that will have life supporting effects for dairy farmers in Australia, as well as health giving effects for dairy customers in Australia. We believe that on-farm sales of raw milk products can turn the tide of domination by Big Ag, and bring back vibrant small towns.

What’s needed today is widespread return to the humane, non-toxic, cottage industry of old: pasture-based dairying and small-scale traditional processing. For more information about real milk, why we want to drink it and where you can find it worldwide, check out www.realmilk.com/what.html

Read more about the campaign in Australia via the links below, then send an email to submissions@foodstandards.gov.au to show your support. Please note that these specific email comments need to arrive by September 16 (but comments anytime continue to support real milk in Australia). Make sure you include your name and contact details, and whether you are a consumer or work in the industry. Separate submissions should be made for raw milk and raw milk cheese.

• www.foodstandards.gov.au/standardsdevelopment/proposals/proposalp1007primary3953.cfm
• www.realmilkaustralia.com/index.php

P.S. Please be aware that some Australian corporate dairies are feeding their milking cows Genetically Modified feedstock.

Around a third of the world’s population have no access to electricity. If you’re like me, you’ve spent your entire life being able to plug in. Do we ever give a thought to what life would be like if the various appliances we’ve come to rely on were to suddenly stop working? One of the most energy guzzling appliances in our carbon footprint portfolio is the refrigerator. But, unplug it, and the quality of your life will suddenly deteriorate. Take that thought, and imagine living in a hot dry country in Africa, without electricity, where food quickly wilts and rots in the sun, aided by onslaughts of flies.

One modern day genius, mindful of this basic need to preserve food, has solved the problem for many. Mohammed Bah Abba, a Nigerian teacher, invented the ‘device’ — a refrigerator that doesn’t require electricity!

From a family of pot-makers, Mohammed has made ingeniously simple use of the laws of thermodynamics to create the pot-in-pot refrigerator, called a Zeer in Arabic.

Here’s how it works.

You take two earthen pots, both being the same shape but different sizes, and put one within the other. Then, fill the space between the two pots with sand before pouring water into the same cavity to make the sand wet. Then, place food items into the inner pot, and cover with a lid or damp cloth. You only need to ensure the pot-in-pot refrigerator is kept in a dry, well-ventilated space; the laws of thermodynamics does the rest. As the moisture in the sand evaporates, it draws heat away from the inner pot, cooling its contents. The only maintenance required is the addition of more water, around twice a day.

To give an idea of its performance, spinach that would normally wilt within hours in the African heat will last around twelve days in the pot, and items like tomatoes and peppers that normally struggle to survive a few days, now last three weeks. Aubergines (eggplants) get a life extension from just a few days to almost a month.

Inventing the refrigerator in 1995, Mohammed distributed thousands around Nigerian communities during the late 1990s (initially for free to get the word out, then later at just production-cost price), and subsequently won the Rolex Award for Enterprise in the year 2000. It has improved the lives and health of thousands. Less work can translate into more education for children, and small farmers who were before losing large proportions of their harvest are now able to earn a better income. Another knock-on benefit is improved health due to better preservation of vitamins, as well as a reduction in health problems like dysentery due to the separation of food and flies.

It seems that not all the answers to life’s needs have to come with a plug and instruction book.

Originally published on Celsias