Never realised I could make titles

The Berfooda Triangle is a tripartite ramble of tenuously interconnected art forms. You can expect a synesthetic mush of art, music, food, and not much else.

Some people, after experiencing a particularly traumatising or emotionally unsettling event, will turn to writing to offload their thoughts.

I am one of those people, and my problem is compost. Or, to be more precise, my problem is MY compost. MY compost that I am trying to cultivate, to the extent whereby I physically plunge my grebby little hands into the bin, fishing out other people’s potato peelings and apple cores and depositing them back into my specifically designated bowl. ‘Specifically designated bowl’ can in this case be taken to mean an upturned microwave lid (fig 1).

I live with seven others, all* of who eat an unseemly amount of vegetables, so have taken it upon myself to become Legume Mulch Representative 2013. It was all going well, and I began to develop particular favourites (orange peel = good, pleasantly fragranced. Onionskin = bad, insubstantial and blows away in the wind. Mouldy celery/spinach/salad leaves = great, adds nice green colour, gives off superficial impression of advanced decomposition. Entire product = shameful, suggests waste and unfinished gluttony etc), but recently I have been led to believe there is a kompost konspiracy being carried out against me.

Just this morning, for example, I was looking for my bowl (lid) of fermented substance to put my tea bag in, and I saw it hideously empty, sitting in the sink, gleaming with fairy liquid. WHAT? Who dares sterilize the fetid mulch? Well, clearly someone, cos that half butternut squash bubblin’ with fungi is now amongst the plastic detritus of the real bin world. I’m going to stop this pre-amble here for the following reasons:

a)     it was about to get repetitive

b)    it brought us to the present day, as I am writing this immediately post sink/bowl (lid) discovery, and therefore have no more factual information to convey.

What I do have, however, is a gustatory (1 point) recipe to kick off this week’s triangle. Naturally (1 point), we’re making it compostable, so expect plenty’o’veg trimmings and maybe** even a few unnecessarily peeled products.

Ingredients:

- An unseemly quantity of mushrooms; a veritable, munificent (1 point) pile

- a slightly smaller, albeit it still significant, mound of new potatoes

- Bunch of fresh thyme

- Bunch of real time (approx 30 mins for prep and cooking)

- 2 tbsp double cream

- 2 tbsp white wine

- Salt and pep

- Greaseproof paper

- Simple string, rustic rope or cute cord

Method:

1)    WARNING. This is a preparatory action: peel, chop, and boil the potatoes until just cooked. Fling the peel into the ostcomp.

2)    Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees sea

3)    Cut out big squares of the greaseproof paper, large enough to hold a hefty portion and be tied at the top with your choice of fastener

4)    Peel the mushrooms excessively, send the shavings to the compost too

5)    Place them either whole or halved in a mixing bowl, along with the cooked potatoes

6)    Sprinkle the thyme (don’t forget to compost those stalks – they look fabulous in amongst the other mulch!!!!111!)

7)    Add the wine, cream, salt and pepper. Stir together

8)    Spoon out portions of each on to the squares. Fasten the squares to make what one could define as ‘parcels’, ‘pockets’ or ‘sacks’, and then place on a tray.

9)    Bake for 20 minutes

10) Devour

So, you should be feeling a little full after that. But we all know full doesn’t mean enriched (unlike the soil, post-compost…com(post^2)…which is endlessly improved by such wealth of vegetable squelch), so to give yourselves the equivalent brain fertilizer, may I suggest the following work, by graffiti artist Narcelio Grud. It is entitled Tropical Hungry (fig 2) and is made entirely out of natural produce, mainly decomposing/overripe he found at the local market. Although not as neatly effulgent (1 point) as his other street art, Tropical Hungry is impressive for its resourcefulness, and clearly demonstrates Grud’s understanding of colour, as he manages to make a squishy carambola actually look useful. 

Although no longer a hostile environment, the soil of your mind could still do with one final mineral: that of music, my friends (awarding myself the right to be over-familiar) Apple Bobbing by Joe Goddard (from the album Harvest Festival) has no lyrics, but does posses the most beautifully appropriate title. It is borderline soft drum and bass, something which should not be held against it in my opinion, and provides the perfect backdrop (or foreground, depending on your personal views towards music’s role) to the Hungry for Mushroom Bobbing experience. If you think this paragraph needs more parentheses, text YES to 778778.

* ‘All’ with the exception of one, who doesn’t know what a grape is. Joking so far aside it has been pushed into the next room.

**definitely

Splendid Adjective and Combined Pun Leader board:

4 points – Polly

3 points – no one, because there is only me in this lonely, lonely game