Search the Guide



Browse the Guide

- by product type
- by category
- by brand
- by company




Follow us

Share us

The 100 Mile Trial

Kim - Trial Reflections


The 100 mile diet, from the point of view of a Melbourne resident, is actually quite a gourmet prospect. Getting in and giving something a go, is surely the best way to learn for most of us, and it certainly rang true for our household. On reflection, my greatest learning came from doing a simple pantry audit at the start of the group’s preparation for the 100 mile diet week. I had already figured fresh foods would constitute the majority of a 100 mile diet, so investigating what was in our pantry of non-perishables seemed an important place to start. After filling two pages of my A4 notebook with items and noting where they came from, I discovered that there were only 4 items labelled ‘Product of Australia’ and the rest were labelled ‘Made from local or imported ingredients’. Gulp. This was not leaving many items for our 100 mile diet week.


 

 

Then I realised that 2 out of the 4 ‘Product of Australia’ items included golden syrup and sugar, neither of which come from Victoria, let alone within 100 miles.

During one of the earlier meetings of the group taking on the 100 mile diet, we were asked to share what things we would miss. I was (quietly) bemused that most folk only mentioned one or two items, because when it came around to me, all sorts of things came tumbling out… sugar, tea, coffee, soy sauce, fish sauce, rice, curry pastes, cumin (and all the other dozens of spices sitting on our spice rack), and so the list went on.

However, as the hunting and researching continued, together the group sourced heaps of good food, and I was increasingly impressed at how the week’s menu was shaping up. As our start date loomed closer, breakfast still seemed like a big gap for me. I’m a bowl of muesli in the morning type. I decided to make oats my goal. I googled an Epicure article in The Age which mentioned oats farmers in Bullarto. I looked up this family’s name in Bullarto in the white pages to find a listing of an easy dozen people with the same surname. I picked one, and asked for John and Shirley. ‘Oh yes,’ said the voice who answered, ‘they’re down the road a bit further, I’ll get you their number.’ You beauty. A few minutes later, Shirley was asking me how much I was after. Thinking there were up to 20 people in the group, and that they would all want some local oats, I told her we could be possibly looking at 100kg. Unfortunately, after a few more minutes of conversation, my hopes began diminishing… mostly it was after she said we usually supply by the semi load, and what kind of stock was I looking to feed… hmm, oats was not on the menu. Damn.

So breakfast became strawberries and yoghurt, followed by homemade toasted sourdough with honey. I guess that doesn’t sound too bad. Lunch most days was homemade sourdough with Buxton smoked trout (yes, it was delicious), and an assortment of tomato, lettuce, rocket, cucumber, mushrooms, fresh peas, gouda cheese, Tatura butter, eggs from home, and Castlemaine honey. On our last day I made flat bread and broad bean falafels with fresh coriander and lemon. Snacks during the day included apples, scones, fritters, and raspberries from our brilliantly timed and magnificently prolific raspberry bushes in the backyard. We also harvested our first crop of homegrown garlic about a week before the trial week, so this was a thankful addition to our cooking.

And our evening meals? Spelt pasta with tomato sauce including onion, garlic, olives, mushrooms and silverbeet… Roast Bendigo chicken stuffed with rosemary, chives, sage, lemon; silverbeet sautéed with garlic and butter, roast carrots & potatoes, and broccoli… Otway Pork Pie (made the pastry) including garlic, onion, mushrooms, asparagus, with roast potatoes… Homemade Gnocchi with tomato sauce as above including Otway bacon… Bendigo Wild Rabbit stew and roast pumpkin, potatoes, beans… Bendigo Chicken and vegetable pie.

It’s probably time for me to confess what I didn’t go without for the week. Well, there were three things: coffee, salt and yoghurt. I did try to make yoghurt but after twice failing I gave up and decided Victorian yoghurt was going to have to do. This was also the case for salt. We bought a pack of Murray River salt flakes, deciding that salt was pretty essential to cooking, and Victorian sourced salt was pretty close. Coffee, well basically, I wasn’t prepared to undertake the withdrawal headache.

So what did I miss most this week? When Sunday morning came around, I have to say, I have never quite looked forward to a bowl of muesli as much as I did that morning. Mmm. Muesli.


Other Quick Facts:

Where did I shop?
Wangara Game, Flemington
CERES Organic market, Brunswick
Pompello fruit & vegie store, Seddon
Biodynamic Marketing – through our local food co-op
Local supermarket

What came from our garden?
Tomatoes bottled from last summer
Coriander, rosemary, chives, sage, oregano
Garlic
Lemons
Raspberries

Back to Intro page