Slowpix.org

Month: June 2014

  • Håøya nature workshop

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    From the beginning of June to the middle of August you can go by boat from Aker pier in Oslo to Håøya, an island in the Oslo fjord, in about an hour. Having disembarked, follow the gravel road until you reach a fence which you follow till you reach a wooden construction. On your right, you can see a clearing about 50 metres away. Proceed to the clearing and you’ll arrive at Håøya nature workshop, a cooperative consisting of a cook, a dairy technologist, and a goat farmer. The building in which they work and sell their products have no running water and no electricity, meaning that this is really a work of passion.

    Due to changing use of this lovely island, former meadows have gradually been turned into forests and in order to counteract this, the goat farmer Helge Haugen has brought his Kashmir goats across the fjord from Sætre and let them graze the northern part of the island the last two years. In fact, Helge started breeding goats because he bought an overgrown farm and needed goats to open his property. Having worked with cheese for many years, the cook Yngve persuaded Helge to start a temporary goat farm on the island in order to produce goat cheese. However, the goats had never been milked, and the first trials started in February this year. After a lot a of work, most of the goats are willing to be milked by both female and male volunteers. Having finished the milking, the milk is brought about 50 metres to the house inside of which is a small dairy where rennet is added to the milk in order to separate the curd from the whey. The curd is laid in small, cylindrical containers with holes such that the whey can flow out and be collected in a bucket. Once a day, the whey is used to bake bread in a wood-fired oven. Since the milk is not heated, their cheeses are unpasteurised and very tasty.

    The cheeses, having about the same size as an ice hockey puck, are for sale at the house of the cooperative, and to select restaurants and shops. Customers can choose between freshly made or mature cheese besides having them covered with crushed juniper needles, cuckoo flower or charcoal.

    Having an appointment with Yngve, he readily showed me the dairy and their products and willingly let me taste their cheese, bread and apple juice., a wholesome meal indeed. Having talked about their enterprise, we walked to the milking house, that is the wooden building I passed earlier. Helge, being a practical person, had built it on his property, freighted it in parts to Håøya and assembled it. The goats walk up a ramp, then they will put their heads through some openings in a wall in order to reach what they like, while they are being milked at the same time. After milking, they are allowed to walk down a second ramp such that more goats can be milked. Unfortunately, milking times were early in the morning and late in the evening, while the arrival and departure times for the boat required that I had to stay one night on the island in order to see it.

    While the female goats and their kids are free to go near the house of the workshop, the male goats consisting of two bucks and some which are castrated are living on their own in two separate areas on the northern part of the island from April to October. There, they are welcome to graze whatever they find in order to open the landscape. I entered their enclosures and tried to find them without result. Anyway, Yngve told me that they had seen them by going near the island by boat and calling for them.

    Having returned, I found the goats and the kids on a meadow, busily eating grass and leaves, while some of them were ruminating or sleeping.

    Visitors arrived occasionally at the house of the cooperative, tasting the products and buying whatever they wanted. Approaching the time for the boat’s return to Oslo, I had to say goodbye to Yngve while he was preparing to receive another group of guests.

  • The old smokehouse

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    Being a rather new company, The old smokehouse (Det gamle røgeri), was founded in 2012, I first got to know about this back-to-the-roots-company at a food and wine fair in Oslo. Having tasted their delicious servings of meat and fish, they agreed to an interview at their premises.

    Their philosophy is to preserve food as our ancestors did, doing everything manually and spending whatever time is required in order to obtain food of the utmost quality using only naturally occurring preservatives and taking no shortcuts. This is obtained by using the following ancient techniques:

    Brining – meat or poultry is soaked in brine where the salt in the brine enters the food leading to that bacteria are killed.

    Fermenting – a preservation method which was probably discovered because the cost of salt was high in the past. It is used for conserving fish by turning it acid, preventing the formation of bacteria. A recent discovery in Sweden of 9000-year old fish bones provides earliest evidence of fermentation for food preservation anywhere in the world.

    Lye – used to make a dish called lutefisk by preventing bacteria from growing.

    Marination – meat is laid in a bath containing e.g. vinegar. The acid will break down the tissue, allowing more moisture to be absorbed and resulting in a juicier end product.

    Salting – the food to be conserved is lain in dry salt for a certain time.

    Smoking – the food to be preserved is hung up in a chamber into which smoke from burning wood chips is allowed to enter, covering the surface of the food with a thin layer, making it more difficult for bacteria to enter.

    Anyway, the philosophy of this company is not only to preserve food, but to improve it. That is, to improve, in particular, the consistency of the food, but also its taste. This has been proved time and again when they have attended food fairs and children, who tend to be very fastidious with food, can’t get enough of their products. Besides, I was told that their methods are able to “sweat out” any unwanted substances resulting from what domestic animals have been fed.

    Their main activity consists of buying high quality fish and meat and preserving it with the methods described above. For instance, they buy whale meat and turn it into a delicacy, a big, but pleasant surprise for those who have bad experiences from poorly prepared whale meat.

    They also make bacon with lots of fat like our ancestors used to eat. Odd-Kåre Aalberg, a man with more than 25 years experience with preserving food, showed me a pig’s head from Fjellgris, a company with which they are cooperating, and pork lying in brine taken from another pig’s head.

    In fact, fish, crustaceans, meat, fowl, game, and whale are preserved here, using the methods described above, but always adapting them to the product being preserved. Hunters and fishermen are welcome to bring their quarry to this company where they can discuss with Odd-Kåre how to obtain the best result.

    Restaurants, catering firms, and other companies working with food can cooperate with Odd-Kåre, using their own recipes in order to make their own products. In fact, he told me that he wants to cooperate with cooks who intend to make their own, special dishes.

    This work requires, of course, a trained craftsman who knows how to handle food. However, I got the impression that those craftsmen are available, but it also requires someone who knows when the food is ready, requiring a combination of sight, smell, taste, and feel. Besides, this work also requires someone who is willing to work when it is required, which can mean working both early and late, and working when almost everyone else is having a day off. The last requirement makes the search for someone to make this company go on producing their excellent products quite difficult. Having resurrected tried and true techniques, it would be a real pity if they shouldn’t succeed.