Thoughts on Jaffa, oranges and Paddington bear

This blog is about low-carbon family travel. Here's a way to make use of Jaffa oranges and imagine yourself in Palestine or even Jordan's scented orange orchards. Post by Nicola Baird 

Stage 3 of making a Jaffa Cake - add a chocolate layer to the orange jelly layer.

Perhaps it's the time of the year but everyone seems to be talking oranges at the moment (January 2015). Admittedly I did go and see the film Paddington - so sweet, and a fantastic advert to the joys of making marmalade at home.

For the past 10 or more years I've made my own marmalade using Seville oranges available just after Christmas. But this year I've worked out that endlessly cooking boiling sugar and orange pith does my electric hob no good - at any rate I've had to replace two cracked hobs over the years. And though people have kindly offered their gas rings, I just can't imagine how I'd pace myself making marmalade in a friend's house as it seems to be a 24 hour experience!

And so I've turned to creating homemade Jaffa Cakes. Like marmalade making it is a bit of a procedure - lots of putting items to cool in fridge and freezer, not to mention the hunt for Agar flakes (a kind of seaweed that helps turn sauce into jelly).

Stage 1 of making a Jaffa Cake. This is the Genovese sponge base (lots of egg white whisking necessary). I made a trifle from the leftovers that didn't manage to make it into a 5cm disk.

I love Jaffa cakes and I'm always urging my non UK students to try them, claiming they are quintessentially English, and a biscuit. Until now I had no idea where the name came from. Turns out it's all a concoction - they are named after Jaffa oranges which are grown by Arab farmers in what is now Palestine. But you can also find Jaffa oranges growing in Cyprus, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey. A nice thought to have about such troubled areas.

I'm not going to include the recipe of either my marmalade or the chocolate orange biscuits as I just looked on the internet, and recommend you do the same. But I can warn you that it takes a while and is definitely a tricky recipe. What i liked about making them was the little jaunt it gave my head out of my kitchen think and over to warm, scented orange orchards.

Over to you
What does the smell of oranges make you think about? Travel or teatime treats?

Reading the Middle East - my book list

As part of my family's attempt to keep our world outlook broad and carbon footprint narrow books can't be beaten. The challenge was to read a book (translated!) from every country in the world, see this post. Obviously I can cheat a bit as I read around 60 books a year and as I haven't just stuck to books from the UK over the years I can revisit old "friends". Let me know if you have any ideas for books you reckon are a must read (PS I prefer novels!).. The collection below are books with a particular Middle East perspective that I've read recently and enjoyed. My local library has been a godsend, your nearest may well be too.

• Egypt - Diary of a Country Prosecutor
• Iran - Persepolis
• Iraq - Reading Jane Austen in Baghdad
• Lebanon - In the heart of the heart of another country

Clockwise books that focus on Iran, Lebanon & Egypt.

EGYPT - Diary of a Country Prosecutor by Tawfik al-Hakim (1898-1987, a man with an astonishingly long life!). This classic short book was published in Egypt in 1937. It's a darkly comic tale of how an imposed legal system wrecks the lives of legal bureaucrats and the people. I laughed so much and was also reminded of my favourite non-UK title, Tales of the Tikongs by Epeli Hau'ofa from Tuvalu. Both books show how introducing foreign bureaucratic systems (in the Egyptian case, the Code Napoleon) was unworkable unless the administrators tweaked it to suit their particular circumstances. Bribery and sloth figure highly - but most of all in Egypt there's a Kafakesque sense that the system will be the undoing of you too.

Although Tawfik is a man there are some shocking insights as to how women are treated done through the administrator's diary entries of gossip; his own approach to the beautiful girl Rim and a horrifying tale of how a local midwife typically treats a mother to be (both baby and woman die - the mother's vagina stuffed with straw, it's grim).

The story races along - starting with a murder and our administrator hero setting out for the scene of the crime half asleep and deeply resentful. He knows how the case is going to go... and in some ways it does, but there are twists and turns along the way which would outwit anyone. I loved the description of getting to places - especially in a car and on a horse (the rider longs for a safer donkey). The restorative power of a cup of tea or coffee reminded me of the more modern Botswana fashion for Rooibos tea in Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency series starring Precious Ramotswe written by African-born Scot Alexander Mcall-Smith
Should you read it? 10/10 (!) Comic classic.

IRAQ - Talking about Jane Austen in Baghdad by May Witwit and Bee Rowlatt - a compilation of emails from a north London mum and radio researcher (Bee) and an Iraqi university professor (May) which switches from ordinary to extraordinary (teething babies in London via the complexities of shopping in Baghdad). I've now met both Bee and May - they are amazing women.
Should you read it?  Brilliant book club choice as it compares two women's lives without judgement.

IRAN - Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (2000) is a wonderful,well-known black and white graphic novel (originally published in French) by an Iranian woman who documents with great skill the miserable mistakes women especially (but men as well) are forced to live through by being born an Iranian in the 20th and 21st centuries. Outsiders love it: the New York Times voted it in the top 10 books published during 2000-2010 - more than 1,500,000 have been sold, and there's a film of the same name). Yet this book is a peon to the love Iranians have for Iran at the same time as it shows the hideous decisions families have to make to stay alive. I also read the Complete Persepolis - which follows the heroine Marji (it's an autobiography!) through the 1980s in an increasingly troubled Iran and then on to a new life in Vienna, Austria, and finally to France where she lives now.
Should you read it? Yes - ideal for 14 year olds and up, especially girls.It's shocking in all sorts of ways, and there lies its power.

LEBANON- In the heart of the heart of another country (2005) by Etel Adnan (woman) takes an overview of Arab-American perspectives on war in the Middle East, most especially the bombing of Baghdad which starts the most recent Iraq war. She is well known for her Lebanese civil war novel Sitt Marie Rose, but this was the first time I'd read her work. It's not fiction, more a Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998) style collection of poetic journalese written with emotion and insight rather than just facts... I have to admit that I didn't much like this book. But Etel is a stylish writer and her life view is massively different to someone like me who has been brought up in the UK. She talks of chestnut paste, lemon trees and old women washing clothes where I'd write pasta, oak and washing machine. So when I wasn't finding it indulgent I was admiring the imagery.

That said her final section is an astonishing piece of writing - the breakdown of sentences as Etel tries to cope with the lovely pleasures of a sunshine holiday and then back home to safe day-to-day normality in the US (her adoptive home although she has an uncontainable world view) as the Western allies start to bomb Iraq. The truncated style echoes her state of mind, and by this stage in the book you do feel you live in her mind.
Should you read it? If you like poetry yes.

Over to you
Any suggestions about armchair travel via books (or films) are welcome. 

Arab horses are stars

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post is in praise of horses - especially from the Arabian Peninsula. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).  

If people hadn't worked out how to tame and ride horses warfare might never have advanced. That's because donkeys just aren't so obliging. This is the rather upsetting conclusion I picked up from the British Museum's free exhibition, Horses: from Arabia to Royal Ascot, being run (free admission) until 30 September 2012 to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee - and her love for all things horse.

Turns out the swift Arab horses - the ones that eventually are crossed with British native mares to develop the Thoroughbred - come from the area around today's Kazakhstan and Iraq. The exhibition is fascinating - with some items rarely seen that normally reside in Saudi Arabia. There is also an engraving from Mesopotamia (the first image of a horse from 1BC), lots of early chariot bits and buckles; then armour used during the Crusades (c1190) and on to art and racing. many of the objects are tremendously old.


As a horse lover it gives me intense pleasure thinking about how many generations of people have had special relationships with their horses.


Talking horses
I took my 11-year-old Nell, who likes riding (see her in the photo above, cantering Twinkle). Even so she was fascinated by the videos of mares and foals grazing, horses horsing around in paddocks and racing shots. I really enjoyed discovering more:

From Herodotus (484-425BC)The Persians teach their sons, between the ages of 5 and 20, only three things - to ride a horse, use a bow and speak the truth.  Not bad life skills! 

From the Quran, surah 100:1-6"The snorting steeds, which shake first with their hoofs as they gallop to the raid at dawn and with a trail of dust split their foe in two." Terrifying, but astonishing poetry.

FurusiyyaThis is an Arabic term covering horsemanship skills (fighting knights, riding and horse care). Here's a blog that links it's glorious past with newer disciplines (eg, dressage). Looking forward to finding out more about this.

Galloping reads
If you want to find out more about Muslim and Christian horse breeding without just looking at pictures, try:
King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry. It's an old book, which I read as a child, captivated because it is so very different to the "Jill goes to a gymkhana" style of pony tales. King of the Wind starts during Ramadam and takes this famous bay stallion (accompanied by a dumb horse boy and a cat) to the UK where he becomes better known as The Godolphin Arabian, one of the three founders of the Thoroughbred stud book. The others are the Byerley Turk (1684-1706) and the Darley Arabian (born in Syria). My great grandfather Frank Forester who loved horses and racing had a picture of each of these three horses in his bedroom/dressing room. Only two of these pictures are with my family now.

Blood Red Horse by K M Grant - This is the fabulous first in a planned triology that tracks the journey of chestnut Hosanna first as he goes out with Richard 1 (the lionheart) in a bid to capture Jerusalem during the Crusades. But Hosanna is captured and ends up in the stables of the famous military general Saladin, Sultan of the Saracens.

Street grazing

Pete, Nicola, Lola and Nell love to travel. Here are ways they keep their carbon footprint light simply by exploring as they stay put. Post by Nicola


Years ago in Zanzibar Town when I was new to travel, I went to the famous Stone Town night market where loads of stalls serve supper - or bitings - with the most basic of equipment. Fingers for forks, stars for parafin lights.



It was magic picking the best things to eat in the blue-black, super-scented dark. Perhaps because night markets lead to sensory overload - try the salt tang of the Indian ocean, bright Southern Hemisphere stars, crash of surf on reef, charcoal fires, the spit of grilling chilli fish, sweet taint of rubbish piles, ladies' perfume, sweat, mosquito buzz - the food at the original spice island tasted delicious. Just remembering has got my mouth watering.



Fast forward 23 years and I've just raided my own neighbourhood for food. Near my home the street trees that produce fruit (eg, rowans, crab apple, plums, elderberry, pear, sweet chestnut) are dropping their load. Inspired by Finsbury Park Transition Town's fair/fete (where I bought a jar of N4 crab apple and greengage jelly for £2), I decided to harvest what was left of the non-stomped on crab apples in my nearest street.



My first attempt - a half pound of mushy mini apples mixed with my homegrown redcurrants - produced two delicious jars of jelly. Later in the day I zipped around on my bike to pick up the very last of the edible fruit starting to rot along the pavement. Whilst doing this - bike parked by the side of the road, fruit popped into my upturned bike helmet - I had the strangest sensation of what it's like to know food poverty. Two guys in shalwar kameez walked past, oblivious to the rubbish picker (me). One woman plugged into an i-pod attempted to turn off my flashing back bike light (to save money she said!), a dog walker crossed the road. And then a friendly man, Rex, came out with his young son to hand me an orange plastic bag.


"It's alright, " I said quickly, "I know there's a shop just round the corner, but I want to pick these apples to make some really local jam." Rex did his best to humour the mad woman outside his house, promising me empty jam jars next time he saw me...



Really it's me who should feel smug. I now have five lovely pots of old-fashioned crab apple jam sourced spitting distance from my home.



But I'm still disturbed by that out of 21st century experience. It feels very rural - even in a city - to sort through and reject fallen fruit. Secondly I had a taste of what it is like to be absolutely invisible, how I guess a refugee might feel. People tried as hard as they could to ignore a street gleaner. Most looked faintly disgusted as if my parsimony might force them to drop to their knees and fill their own Tesco bags with unpackaged food.



The obvious third thought was how lucky we all are here in the UK with this profligate glut of food that no one fights over. If this was the flooded parts of Pakistan how different our approach to food would be.



The shocking media quiet about how our climate is changing - as highlighted by Bill McKibben who set up http://www.350.org/ - makes chilling reading about the speed our planet is warming, see here. For example Russia, Iraq, Saudia Arabia, Sudan and Pakistan have all set their all-time temperature records during 2010. Big changes like this change how things grow.







I won't be setting up a food stall outside my house yet. Which is lucky as goodness knows what health and safety would make of run over, chewing gum flecked, dog poo avoided fruit jams? But I still think these experiences are going to inspire me to make more produce I can store. What I hope this means is that if climate changes mean I actually have to do foraging for real I won't be an absolute beginner...