Shetland Food Challenge — Introduction
I remember the day my Shetland Granny told me the story of her first experience of eating a tomato. I was in my early 20s, on one of my holidays from university visiting my grandparents and working bank shifts as a cleaner at the Gilbert Bain Hospital. It was my day off and we were out for a walk together in the sunshine, along Twageos Road in Lerwick, where she lived, and out around the Knab.
She told me she was 10 years old at the time, which would have put the date at 1946. It was still during the time of rationing, but I suspect wartime Shetlanders didn’t have too much of a problem feeding themselves well, on the traditional diet consisting of neeps, tatties, oats, kale, carrots, eggs, dairy, mutton and fish. Sugar, flour and tea had long been imported and would have been in shorter supply but now the war was over, a new world beckoned, and for my Granny, it beckoned in the form of a smooth, red tomato, that a pal of hers had somehow got hold of.
The two lasses were on their way back from school and the pal had ushered my Granny to the side of the road and from her coat pocket had drawn this bright red, spherical object. With a penknife she cut it open, around its equator, to reveal the beautiful, glistening pattern of the tomato’s innards, garnished with tomato seeds. Gleefully, they each bit into their hemisphere, hoping the sweetness of this exotic tomato would live up to the promise of it’s appearance — but alas, this first taste of tomato was underwhelming. They both grimaced at the sourness but that didn’t stop them, pragmatic lasses as they were, from going home and finishing off the tomato with a generous sprinkling of sugar.
Like many Shetlanders, my Granny was wary of the huge changes that globalisation brought to Shetland, particularly with the start of the oil and gas boom which began in the 1970s. Modernisation brought convenience, improved comfort and health but it also changed Shetland’s social fabric. Many folk lost a connection with the land and social connections often weakened, as people no longer depended on one another to such a degree. My Granny would often denounce new projects as being motivated by greed, “It’s aa aboot money, money, money” she would exclaim.
Of the projects that frustrated my Grandmother, one that resulted in arguably the biggest change was the opening of supermarkets in Shetland. From a food perspective the effects have been huge; in the space of two generations, Shetland underwent a transformation from a community that produced the vast majority of it’s own food to one that now ships most of it from overseas. Supermarketisation has massively improved the cost and convenience of food — but at the price of homogenisation and, increasingly, of environmental destruction.
Food is a basic human need and nutrition is a key determinant of health. A resilient food system, that provides everyone with an affordable, sustainable and nutritious supply of food, is a vital aspect of any society. Without food security, societies become vulnerable to social unrest and conflict.
Right now, our food systems are under threat from many different angles — droughts, soil erosion, extreme weather, increasing price of fertilisers and other inputs. Many of the drivers of these changes, such as the war in Ukraine and climate change, show no sign of abating soon. Increasing rates of obesity and increasing use of foodbanks are, in different ways, evidence that our creaking food system is unable to provide adequately for our population.
We are slowly waking up to these existential problems we are facing with food. “Eat less meat!”, “Go vegan!” “Grow your own!” are all slogans that we hear more and more frequently — but do these work in a Shetland context? How can Shetland be food secure? Could we survive without supermarkets? How will we feed ourselves in an uncertain future? What can we learn from the past?
All of these questions, and many others, have prompted me to take up the challenge of, for the month of September 2022, only eating food that has been produced exclusively in Shetland, using Shetland ingredients.
I’ve set myself some pretty strict rules. There’ll be no coffee, no chocolate, no tea, no sugar, and no bread, other than anything that’s been baked using grains grown in Shetland. I’ll have to make do without pasta, peanut butter on toast, or the oat milk and cereal which has become my breakfast of choice. But I will be able to eat Shetland grown vegetables, honey, fish, meat, eggs and dairy. Polycrubs and greenhouses throw up lots of surprises too — plums, cherries, raspberries, peppers, sweetcorn and aubergines will hopefully be available. An old family friend has given me a precious bag of oatmeal with which I might be able to use to concoct a 70th birthday cake for my Dad and maybe even a 41st birthday cake for me — we have a lot of family birthdays in September. Ice cream might not be beyond the limits of possibility.
I hope that the experiences I have will help me reflect on all of these issues and I’m looking forward to meeting food producers and learning more about crofting, farming and fishing. I look forward to learning to cook in new ways, and I hope that by the end of the month, I’ll not only have kicked my caffeine addiction but also gained a better understanding of what the future of food looks like.
