FoodScape Podcast

20/12/2024

🎄🕯️How about a little festive fireside chat?🕯️🎄

What flavours are a must at Christmas? 🍊🥧🌰🥂
How do we decide what’s traditional or not?
Have you or your family ever created a new Christmas tradition?

Mulling over these questions and more whilst sipping on some festive cheer by the fireside…
The last episode of 2024 available now on Substack, Apple, Spotify, etc.

06/12/2024

The average age of Scottish farmers is over 60, and fewer young people are choosing careers in agriculture.

It’s the same in many countries, but here in the Borders we’re lucky to have organisations like RHET and Field To Fork, who actively engage students with the varied and fascinating world of farming.

Have a listen to the latest FoodScape, recorded at The Hirsel Estate, to hear how these organisations gave almost 100 students direct experience of how their food is made.

04/12/2024

Things have been a little quiet here for a while. But that’s because I’m away in a whole different foodscape which currently looks a bit like this 😵‍💫

I’m in the USA this week so there’ll be no podcast episode this Friday, but I’ll be sending out an end of year reflection on what it’s been like capturing our Borders foodscape.

❤️🎄📣 The podcast returns for a special episode on December 20th ❤️🎄📣

If you haven’t subscribed to the Substack yet, follow the link above ⬆️ you can even choose to be a paid subscriber and support the podcast into 2025. There are so many stories to capture, and I’d love your help making that happen.

26/11/2024

Who will produce our food tomorrow?

Even though the agricultural sector is hugely diverse, technologically advanced, interesting and eternally relevant, many children in Scotland would be unaware of the career opportunities without guidance from fantastic organisations like RHET.

I followed for a day, as they introduced 100 students to the world of food and farming on the Hirsel estate.

Whether participants choose to work in agriculture or not, learning more about where their food comes from is vital, and can change their life.

Have a listen ⬆️ link above ⬆️ and on Spotify, Apple, Amazon and more.

22/11/2024

📣 New Episode Available 📣

A day with the Royal Highland Educational Trust (RHET) and Field to Fork at the Hirsel Estate in Coldstream.

Both organisations engage young people with food and farming, encouraging them to consider the varied career possibilities, as well as helping them understand a bit more about where their food comes from.

I join around 100 students from Berwickshire High School as they de-breast pheasants, meet prize Highland cattle, bake bread and have a tour of some serious farm machinery.

Have a listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple and anywhere else you get your podcasts.

08/11/2024

Episode 5 is all about the journey of local entrepreneurs Richard and Jessica Keeling

The Keelings set up Three Hills Coffee about 8 years ago, first roasting from their home, then opening a cafe roastery, and finally creating a state of the art coffee school and roastery.

Hear about their journey, bean to cup sourcing, and how they’re worked to bring the best coffee possible to the Scottish Borders.

08/11/2024

How’s about a wee something to accompany your morning coffee?

☕️☕️New Episode Available Now☕️☕️

⬆️link above!⬆️

Or listen on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, etc….

03/11/2024

🐖 Happy Sunday Everyone! 🐖

If you haven’t heard the latest FoodScape episode on pigs, why not work it into your Sunday.

31/10/2024

“We have to remember that these are animals, not products.”

Anita Withers explains why they’ve chosen to adopt a more hands on and complicated method in rearing their Oxford Sandy and Black pigs. They dont use farrowing crates which means they have a higher piglet mortality rate, but they believe this allows their pigs to express their natural behaviour when farrowing.

Hear more about the challenges of smallholding, raising rare breeds, and eating your own animals, on Episode 4 of the FoodScape Podcast.

Listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple and more…

28/10/2024

This is a really rare sight.

Meet Amos, the big boar daddy of Clifton Lodge Smallholding near Kelso.

The likes of Amos are rarely seen.

At around 400kg, he is quite something to behold, and you won’t see anything like him - particularly around the Scottish Borders, but not just because of his size.

Amos is an Oxford Sandy & Black pig, and there are only 4 boar lines and 13 female lines in existence. Amos is helping to keep the Oxford Sandy and Black breed going by recently producing 10 beautiful piglets who featured in the recent FoodScape Podcast.

They almost became extinct in the 1908s as pig farmers were under pressure to up production, favouring fast growing, pink, hairless breeds like the large white. And so Amos - along with many heritage breeds - is on the endangered list.

Hear why restoring heritage breeds matters, and why we need to eat them to keep them, on the FoodScape Podcast, episode 4.

⬆️click the link in my bio to access the episode, or listen on Spotify, Apple, Amazon and more ⬆️

28/10/2024

Everyone welcome - please confirm a space with [email protected]

This year, we are combining our AGM with a showcase of all of the activities taking place across the community gardens and cooking sessions. If you volunteer at one community garden, it’s a great way to meet volunteers from the other gardens and to share ideas.

If you follow us on social media, it’s a chance to come along and meet the team.

If you’ve been thinking about getting involved, come along and find out more about what we do and how you can take part and make a difference in your community.

If you are curious about what can be learned at our cooking courses, then talk to us about local fresh ingredients and healthy recipes.

If you are a friend or funder, you can find out the many ways in which your support has changed the lives of participants and improved the Borders landscape.

Refreshments will be available from 12.30 with the formal AGM starting from 1pm.

The AGM will be followed by demonstrations, games and opportunities to take part in fun, creative activities. There’ll be photographic displays and produce from the community gardens and your chance to have your say about what you would like to see Abundant Borders offer in the future.

More details and a full programme to follow, but please put this date in your diary now, and contact [email protected] to book your place.

Borders Community Action
The National Lottery Community Fund Scotland
SBHA HomeChoice
Eildon Housing
Waverley Housing
Scottish Borders Climate Action Network
Borders Food Forum

26/10/2024

“Being smallholders was never the plan, but it’s been an amazing journey. We’ve grown so much, learning things we never knew about ourselves, as well as the animals. And we love selling the meat and seeing people’s enthusiasm for it.”

Ed and Anita Withers share the beauty and the difficulties of being smallholders in this recent episode of the FoodScape Podcast, which focuses on their passion for the Oxford Sandy and Black pig. Featured here, one of ten piglets which I interview 😉 along with Ed.

If you love pigs, or just love eating them, or have ever wondered what it would be like to be a smallholder, have a listen!

⬆️ link above ⬆️

25/10/2024

🐖📣 New Episode Available! 📣🐖

Rare breeds, smallholding life, piglets, and the challenges of eating meat you’ve named… it’s all in episode 4 of the FoodScape podcast.

⬆️ listen now ⬆️

18/10/2024

An apple with a spooky past…

Spotted at the BOG Apple Day and featured in the FoodScape Podcast, episode 3 - The Bloody Ploughman has been added to the Slow Food Ark of Taste, as a variety worth saving from extinction.

From Slow Food:
“The story goes that a ploughman was caught stealing apples from the Megginch Estate and shot dead by a gamekeeper. When his body was returned to his wife she found some of the stolen apples in his pockets and threw them onto the rubbish heap. One of the seedlings that arose from the heap bore apples of a deep, blood red. This tree was rescued and gave rise to the variety that was named after the unfortunate ploughman.”

Hear more stories of our favourite fruit on Substack, Spotify, Apple and beyond.

17/10/2024

Apples Apples Everywhere!

There were well over 100 varieties of locally grown apples on display at the Borders Organic Gardeners’ Apple Day this month, but that is only a few of what we used to grow in this region, a portion of the 2500 grown in the UK, and a mere fraction of the 7000 varieties grown worldwide.

Hear why that matters for culture, commerce, nature and deliciousness in the recent FoodScape Podcast episode.

🍎🍏 link above 🍏🍎
And listen on Substack, Spotify, Apple and beyond…

16/10/2024

“We’re custodians of our orchard, really.”

Andrew and Graham left busy professional lives and took on a walled garden containing around 200 varieties of apple at Anton’s Hill in the Scottish Borders.

Looking after an orchard is no simple task, and it may have become a full time job for them, but they recognise the value of this precious resource as more and more old apple varieties are grubbed up.

You can see the work and care required

This is Andrew at the Borders Organic Gardeners’ Apple Day at Woodside, using a particularly lovely apple press to make a very fine blend 😋

You can hear him - and many other Apple champions - on the recent episode of the FoodScape podcast.
⬆️ link above ⬆️
And on Spotify, Apple and elsewhere.

15/10/2024

“Community orchards are a gathering of trees that invite us to gather, too. It’s a welcoming and slightly wild space that holds nature, but can hold us as well.”
- Clare Pencak, from Crailing Community Orchard.

Although we’ve lost the majority of our orchards in the Scottish Borders, along with their associated knowledge and skills, new Community Orchards have formed in Crailing, Kelso, Selkirk, Norham, Drygrange, and more - and are proving to be important spaces for connecting people with nature and one another.

🍎🍏Hear more about how local community orchards are changing our relationship to food and land, in the recent FoodScape podcast episode on Apples. 🍏🍎

Listen on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and Substack ⬆️link above⬆️

14/10/2024

“We’re allowing these trees to still have a purpose…”,

By pressing and preserving apple juice from century-old trees and old varieties from across the Borders, Laprig Valley juices hope to keep old orchards relevant.

Without a purpose for their fruit, nor the skills to maintain them, the majority of orchards in the Borders were grubbed up. But entrepreneurs and apple enthusiasts are finding new ways to keep these valuable spaces alive, which is great for local biodiversity, communities and for us!

Hear more about all things apple in the latest FoodScape podcast episode

Listen on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Substack, and
⬆️ via the link above! ⬆️