Mercantilism

Rhubarb and the Return of Mercantilism…

humanist55

If you have seen my Theme Reveal for the A2Z Challenge 2022, then you will know that I am writing about becoming Vegetarian gradually as a response to the crisis in food supply chains sparked by the pandemic and made worse by the WAR in Ukraine. As well, I am keeping to the theme I originally planned of food which can be eaten in its own right as well as becoming an ingredient in other dishes…

https://gardenerspath.com/plants/vegetables/tips-growing-cooking-rhubarb/

There are two themes running through my A2Z challenge this year and whilst you may think that rhubarb and Mercantilism are pretty random blog-fellows, in fact, the one illustrates the historical application of the other nearly perfectly! Some years ago, I was reading the lengthy series of historical novels – Poor Man at the Gate, by Andrew Wareham when I came across a passage in which the protagonist, by this time a member of the government, was discussing the reasons for a chronic shortage of silver in circulation. The reason given was that the Chinese were insisting on being paid for goods, not in trade for other goods, but exclusively in silver. The goods we so wanted, were silk, tea and rhubarb! I did a double-take thinking “how would you even ship rhubarb halfway around the world?” I had to investigate… The Chinese were acting out Mercantilism, one of the tenets of which, was that you should try to accumulate silver and gold to make a country rich, and you did that by trade restrictions – restrictions on imports and pushing exports for hard currency. The opposite philosophy, which came in the mid-19th century, was liberalism which pushes entrepreneurship and free trade – Liberalism favours individuals getting wealthy whereas Mercantilism favours the State accumulating money. Mercantilism confuses monetary wealth with the wealth that a wide selection of goods offers. The state – which is big in mercantilism, may grow wealthy in money, but the population came off badly. The British tried to get around the import bans by trading with merchants upstream from the government and eventually resorted to selling opium and getting a nation hooked on it – not one of our finest hours… The Chinese government retaliated by completely withholding the rhubarb – of course, it was not the fruit, but the powdered root which had medicinal value – it was touted as a cure for digestive disorders, flatulence and constipation. So much of the medicine did we buy, that the Chinese reasoned that we Brits must be really bunged up and that withholding the vital rhubarb would soon bring us to our knees – perhaps literally! If you want to read more fulsome explanations of Mercantilism then you can find them here and here.

The thing is, mercantilism has never really gone away, indeed the Chinese (and several other south-east Asian countries) have done very well for their economies by practising this economic philosophy whilst in the US and Europe, we have embraced the liberal and neo-liberal philosophies – there has been some meeting in the middle with globalism – China, South Korea and Taiwan exported lots of geegaws to the West which our consumers happily consumed, but with the fallout from the war in Ukraine threatening globalism, a resurgence of protectionist policies – apart of mercantilism is on the cards…

Enough with the economic philosophy stuff – now to the fun bit – Rhubarb as food! Rhubarb is properly speaking, a vegetable that we happen to regard as a fruit. It is the petiole, or leaf stem that we eat, never the leaves which are quite poisonous – containing a lot of oxalic acid – very bad for your kidneys. The fleshy stems can even be eaten raw – especially when young and tender – my partner used to eat it as a child, by dipping the end in sugar… Rhubarb stems contain vitamin K and also the antioxidants – anthocyanins (which give it its red color) and proanthocyanidins. Brought to Europe for its medicinal properties, the increasing cheapness of sugar, meant that by the 18th century, rhubarb was transitioning to culinary usage. It needs sugar because it is quite tart or acid so although it is a favourite in pies and crumbles, it is also (like gooseberries) a good sauce element to serve with oily fish like Mackerel. I have shot myself in the foot for a recipe by talking about Rhubarb and Ginger jam in my post about ginger, for this is a classic pairing. I also talked about how to concentrate young and tender rhubarb stems so they don’t cook to mush and that technique can be used for any soft fruit that has the same tendency – such as strawberries. Strawberries are also sometimes paired with rhubarb – to the disgust of rhubarb purists…

MONTY RAKUSEN/GETTY IMAGES from https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/forcing-rhubarb/

I will leave you with this magical image of the forcing sheds where early season rhubarb is picked by candlelight for early season, extra sweet shoots. We live near the Yorkshire Rhubarb Triangle where such sheds abound, if you live in the US, then half of all rhubarb comes from Pierce County, Washington. Here in Yorkshire, this is the time of year…

Dates, Dehydrators and the Death of Globalism…

humanist55
The Tribute to Jeremy Badge

If you have seen my Theme Reveal for the A2Z Challenge 2022, then you will know that I am writing about becoming Vegetarian gradually as a response to the crisis in food supply chains sparked by the pandemic and made worse by the WAR in Ukraine. As well, I am keeping to the theme I originally planned of foods which can be eaten on their own but can also become ingredients in other dishes…

Globalisation has been rolled back since the banking crisis of 2008, first by the banking regulation that followed, then by Trumpian and Brexit nationalism and mercantilism, then by Covid and now by the shock of war. – From The Spectator

What does this mean? In short, we have all got used to supply chains that bring things from all over the world in a complicated, interlinked, interdependent, just-in-time web of trade. For most consumers, this is most apparent in food. When I was little, we enjoyed English seasonal apples because the rest of the time, the options were small, but now we eat apples from New Zealand (the antipodes of the UK) and many other countries – evening out the shortages of seasonality. In other areas, a factory in Ukraine, that produces a major share of the world’s Neon requirements, has closed down due to the WAR. You may wonder why I keep using shouty capitals for WAR, well it’s because Putin keeps trying to fool (mostly his own people) by denying the reality of what he is doing and calling it a “Special Military Operation”. The unintended consequence of his ill-thought-out WAR, is an acceleration of the death of globalisation. The Neon factory, exists not for the creation of colourful neon signs (whose days is done, in the age of LEDs) but instead, is used in the production of microchips. There is already a shortage of microchips (used in almost every industrial product these days) due to the disruption of production and supply chains by Covid 19. The fragility of these supply chains was further evidenced by one ship getting stuck and blocking the Suez Canal for a couple of weeks and forcing other ships to take the long way around Africa.

We may hope that countries around the world do not return to mercantilism (the opposite of Globalism) but in the light of the WAR in Ukraine, countries will have to consider more self-reliant trading, less dependence on Russian oil and gas for example, more reliable independent defence strategies and more home-grown food strategies. Today’s Food as an Ingredient is the Date, a fruit that is grown from Spain and North Africa, across to the Far East. Are we to face a shortage of Dates in the future? I hope not, and I can’t see a reason why this particular commodity should be affected by a general retrenchment of globalism – let’s hope not anyway, because dates have an important role as an ingredient in Vegetarian and Vegan cooking – which is one response to the coming crisis in food supply chains.

Dates – as an Ingredient…

Dates – little joyous bundles of nutrition…

It is said of Dates, that if you had to survive on one single foodstuff, you could not do better than Dates. They are 75% carbohydrate and have 2% protein and even 1%fat. They are also tasty – especially when freshly dried, having an unctuous, melt in the mouth softness. My first encounter with dates was good, but not as good as the joy of the whole, fresh fruit. My mother used to buy blocks of chopped compressed dates, which she experimentally, (probably a suggestion from Woman’s Weekly) combined with grated apple as sandwich filling! Best eaten quickly before the apple browned… a better experience were the long boxes of dates with rounded ends that we always had at Christmas, slightly dried but glossily sticky. Today, I live near Bradford, which, having a large Moslem population, can be relied upon to supply dates all year round, but with a huge selection of different varieties at either Ramadan or when the date harvest takes place.

From a vegetarian/environmental point of view – getting your sugars from a natural source, as opposed to eating processed sugars, is a great option – true, both have to be transported from afar, but then there is the environmental cost of processing sugar… So considering dates as an ingredient – they add both sweetness and flavour. For example, I love the combination of rhubarb and dates and might not add any sugar at all providing I add enough dates. In my post on apples, the Fresh Apple Oat Cake was topped with a layer of softened dates and think of classic recipe combinations such as Date and Walnut Cake! Indeed you can happily add chopped dates to any recipe calling for mixed fruit – you can add them to salads and savoury dishes where they add a richer sweetness balance than a pinch of sugar. There are, these days, many refined products made from dates – Date Molasses, Date Sugar, Date Spread and read through the ingredients of many chutneys and sauces and you will find dates. HP Brown Sauce (the original brown sauce) was developed in England to sate the taste of British soldiers, returned from India, who had developed a taste for something rich and spicy and the ingredients include date fo sweetness, and tamarind – almost the opposite of dates, for sourness – another unexpected product of British Imperialism…

Dehydrators

Lastly, I want to turn to an aspect of the post-globalism world that might be coming down the line – preserving food. I will cover several forms of preserving that might help us extend the life of our local food products if globally sourced foods are diminished. We have already touched on jam – a form of preserving, and today I want to touch on Dehydrators. Dried fruit, touted as the responsible parent’s alternative to sweets, is expensive – home dehydrated fruit is cheap! I bought a typical dehydrator with six shelves and can load it simultaneously with a pineapple, apples, kiwi fruit and bananas – roughly a carrier-bag full, and reduce it overnight to a few takeaway tubs full of delicious dried fruit! this is the first and most obvious use of a dehydrator, but you can make your own jerky at the meat eater’s end of the scale, and vegan no-bake bread, at the other end of the spectrum – and guess what? The vegan bread can contain Dates – who would have thought it! My Dehydrator cost me £25.00 and has easily paid for itself providing healthy dried fruit snacks to adult grandchildren as well as ourselves.

A dehydrator similar to mine…