Swiss fondue over the flame – looks like we’ve already eaten most of it by this point!
Switzerland has two strong claimants to its national dish throne – fondue and potato Rösti. Given its mix of cultures and German, French, Italian and Romansh language, perhaps we should expect nothing less (and maybe more). The literal melting pot of cheese fondue, though, seems a good metaphor for Swiss culture and its nature conservation story.
Switzerland regularly hosts high-profile environmental and economic events and working groups (like the one I attended in Geneva). The country is also the seat of various conservation organisations, not least the IUCN and WWF. By and large, the Swiss seem to be quite forward-thinking in ecological terms. However, as a major world financial centre, Switzerland is firmly in WWF’s sights when it comes to ‘greening’ monetary policy. If any changes for the good are made, the impact could have significant positive ripple effects across the world.
Substitutions: Couldn’t find Appenzeller cheese at the time, so used Leerdammer Light instead. Also decided to try sweet white wine instead of dry white + kirsch.
Notes: Seemed as though it needed a bit more moisture, and was quite hard to keep bubbling on the table.
Makes: 3 portions – the recipe says it serves 6-8, but that’d only be true in our house if it was served as a side.
Carbs: circa 17g in total, so circa 6g per person (and less if used as a side).
Rating: 78 – very nice, but gets rather sickly if you succumb to it being so moreish and just keep eating.
Something is heading to the top of the tree. Will it be this gorgeous Welsh breakfast?
I write about wildlife and food. This blog covers a national dish from one or more different countries each time. I then write about the wildlife of those countries. You can find out about the scoring system used to rate the different recipes here.
My blogging is seriously behind my cooking, and I see three possible solutions. Blog more, cook less, or just don’t worry about it. Which would you choose?
I went for option 1, which means that today we’re covering 3 countries. Each one will be abbreviated from the usual format, but if you want the full details just leave a comment in the chat below.
Wales – although the main national dish was banned from competition, my mother gave me some laver and I decided to make a traditional Welsh breakfast instead
What conservation story can possibly fit those three? Not one springs to mind, but two. The countries all have significant mountainous regions and popular coastlines. Over the past 100 years, coastlines have often been squeezed by housing development and tourism. Mountains, on the other hand, have frequently become protected areas. In part, this is because they’re not so much use for something considered more “productive” like farming.
However, as sea levels rise and the cooler climate of mountains begins to heat rapidly, both are in need of looking after. Why not make a donation to the North Wales Wildlife Trust to help?
Moussaka in the making
Ratings:
Greece 77
Montenegro 90 (the top dish so far!)
Wales 70
My rather overbrowned moussaka – still very tasty, though
The barn swallow, Austria’s handsome national bird
I write about wildlife and food. This blog covers a national dish from a different country each time. I then write about the wildlife of that country. You can find out about the scoring system used to rate the different recipes here.
What’s cooking today? Tafelspitz is a clear soup of beef and vegetables from Austria.
Austria is home to multiple conservationist friends of mine, which might mean one of them will pop up in an interview before long. More concretely, the last time I came across Austria at work was during Climate COP 28. If I remember rightly, Leonore Gewessler, Federal Minister for Climate Action, gave a compassionate speech asking for a complete fossil fuel phase-out. She also used the speech to announce €35 million of climate contributions. The day after, Austria joined six other European nations in proposing a framework “to prevent greenwashing and restore integrity” in voluntary carbon markets. A positive showing, all in all.
Substitutions: Instead of parsley root and celery, I used celeriac as per the Kitchen Maus recipe.
Cooking notes: Given some confusion over the number of bay leaves to use, I went with 3½.Doing the main veg prep during the first hour’s boiling time will increase your efficiency.
Makes: 4.
Carbs: Pretty much 0, if served just as the soup, meat and vegetables.
Drink with: I cooked and served this with Lobster Shack 2021, a deliciously tangy South African Sauvignon Blanc.
Rating: 80. Another wintry classic that exceeded my expectations.
Not exactly a clear soup, but it mostly worked!
Thus finishes a very tight Group 6, with Austria and Moldova having to go through to a play-off round of repeat cooking. Hats off to Serbia, though!
I write about wildlife and food. This blog covers a national dish from a different country each time. I then write about the wildlife of that country. You can find out about the scoring system used to rate the different recipes here.
What’s today’s dish and where is it from? Pljeskavica with ajvar and kajmak is basically how they do burgers in Serbia. And boy, do they do it well…
Before raving about the ‘burgers,’ though, I must state that cabbage rolls are perhaps an equally valid candidate for Serbia’s national dish. It’s not the only country without one clear winner. Of course, being a geographer, I decided to represent this in map form (see above).
There are so many trends we could speak about here. For instance:
There is a Central European stew belt;
Dumplings are generally confined to the East;
Potato pancakes are pretty widespread;
Seafood sticks to the western seaboards;
Turkey and the Balkans support a kebab/burger cluster;
Countries at the northern and north-western edges are often just totally leftfield.
Climate, soils, agriculture, trade and politics all play their part. The same is true of wildlife distributions across Europe – though the patterns differ depending on which species groups you look at. Insects and reptiles, for instance, are more warmth-dependent than others.
Substitutions: As I couldn’t get raw milk for the kajmak, I went to the New York Times recipe, substituting salad cheese, sour milk and yoghurt for the cream cheese and ricotta. I substituted shallots out for some onion, which was initially too dominant – until it went into the flatbread, at which point all kinds of delicious started happening.
Cooking notes: To make the ajvar, it’s more about stripping out the flesh of the peppers than removing everything else. The pljeskavica had to be grilled 6-7 minutes per side, perhaps because mine were too thick. I put the grill on 180°C, but it could have been hotter.
Makes: 4 portions.
Carbs: 4g carbs in total for the kajmak, and 28g carbs per pitta.
After the not-exactly-great outcome of COP28, what lies ahead for Eastern Europe?
I blog about wildlife and food. Here, I cover a national dish from a different country each time. I then write about the wildlife of that country, and run a scoring system to rate the different recipes. You can find out about it here.
What’s today’s dish? Mămăligă with jumari, which is Moldovan for polenta with pork rind.
Are mămăligă-filled Moldovans any good at looking after the environment? I think so. Moldova’s statement at this month’s COP28 climate gathering was fairly orthodox, but did make the point that it was one of the countries suffering severe effects from global change. Encouragingly, Moldova’s representative was an environmental activist and law specialist – much more appropriate than the career diplomats or fossil fuel chiefs that some other countries sent.
Moldova is a very poor nation in economic terms, but nonetheless offered to preside at COP29 next year to resolve the Russia-EU impasse about Bulgaria hosting the event. This might have been a better idea than awarding COP29 to oil-rich Azerbaijan instead. However, as that’s exactly what happened, we’ll never know.
Some progress is being made on the international environmental scene, but plenty is still being lost. Azerbaijan may be small, but it’s still over twice the size of a Moldova – and, like the UAE (COP28’s host country), has a much worse human rights record. The global power-players have such influence over big decisions that affect millions of human lives on the frontline. It is so often the defenceless who need our prayers and our advocacy.
Thankfully, though, every positive action taken for them can make a difference. And I’ll eat to that.
An unusual upcycling hack for a wedding invitation – slicing Moldovan polenta
Substitutions: Couldn’t find coarse yellow cornmeal, so I made this with a mixture of fine yellow cornmeal and a few breadcrumbs. Equally, I substituted hard goats’ cheese in for sheep’s cheese.
Cooking notes: Mămăligă is traditionally cut with string… so, me being me, I used some string left over from our wedding invitations to add to the fun (and look after a small piece of the planet).
Makes: 2 portions for the average adult, as long as not too hungry.
Carbs: 36g carbs per portion, i.e., 72g in total
Rating: 80. Another tasty variation on the ‘cheese and bacon’ theme.
My mămăligă with jumari, sour cream and goats’ cheese. I am aware this dish has an element of climate irony.
What’s today’s dish?Pelmeni are little Russian dumplings filled with meat.
Russia’s conservation story in three words: Increasingly disastrous affair. See Ukraine and Bulgaria (third recipe down) for two examples of how Russia’s recent policies have been playing havoc with wildlife across Eastern Europe.
Substitutions: Dried instead of fresh dill. I also replaced 130g of the plain wheat flour with buckwheat flour. Buckwheat is a popular pelmeni filling in some parts of Russia, so I feel it’s not inauthentic.
Cooking notes: Even with only 200ml of water in the dough, it ended up very sticky and hard to roll. This meant I couldn’t roll it so thinly, rendering a mere 32 pelmeni.
Makes: 4 servings of 8 thick pelmeni each.
Carbs: 248g carbs in total, thus 62g per person, plus sour cream.
Rating: 74 (ignoring the thick dough problem, which was of my own making).
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Pelmeni for dinner… served with mustard, sour cream, a parsley garnish and a generous sprinkling of black pepper.
Sarmale – served with sour cream and slices of red chilli pepper…
I blog about wildlife and food. Here, I cover a national dish from a different country each time. I then write about the wildlife of that country, and run a scoring system to rate the different recipes. You can find out about it here.
What’s today’s dish? Sarmale from Romania is pickled cabbage stuffed with a mix of meats, then slow-cooked in a tomato sauce with thyme and smoky bacon.
Wait! Is that all you’re going to give us? Not quite – and I even have a special feature to present this week. My lovely WSP colleague Bianca Mata is from Romania, and kindly agreed to an interview. Look out for it here next week…
Substitutions: I had to use dried thyme instead of fresh thyme and oregano.
Cooking notes: Cabbage leaves are available from a good international supermarket (try Turkish or Kurdish). However, the best I could find near me was to a jar of Polish stuffed cabbage that I then deconstructed to free up the pickled leaves. My wife thought this was very messy of me… and I would say she was correct.
Cooking time in the recipe seems a bit optimistic (unless you are skilled with the dish already). I found that the time just ballooned from step 11 of the recipe onwards.
Makes: 30 rolls – perhaps enough to feed 6 people.
Carbs: 82g in total, giving 14g of carbohydrate per serving of 5 rolls.
Rating: 78.
This means that we have the final scores for Group 5 of Europe’s national dishes. It was a very competitive group – as shown by last-placed Romania, which could perhaps have qualified if it had been in Group 4.
England 89
Slovakia 88
———————–
= Andorra 80
= Ukraine 80
Monaco 79
Romania 78
The sharp-eyed among you may have notice that I haven’t included Lithuania. This is because I cooked it a bit later, so it actually belongs in Group 6. More of that next time!
We’re going to Ukraine today (virtually). I wonder if its famous beetroot soup will prove to be neutral territory in today’s war-struck world?
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Since the fateful day Russia started its “special operation in the Donbas,” Ukraine has never been far from the news. The war in the country has also generated a raft of conservation headlines. Last year, I sat in international nature meetings where Ukraine, supported by most of Europe, criticised Russia for the destruction of Ukrainian ecological areas. Russia responded by accusing them all of politicising the Convention. Months later, the Russian delegation derailed the closing session of the biodiversity COP by raising procedural objections to ‘bias’ in the election of regional representatives. While bias seemed to be short for ‘not electing a Russian,’ the objection was bizarrely successful. It triggered a lengthy voting process that broke down in the early hours of the morning, leaving the elections invalidated. On top of all that, there is the story about grain. The crisis around Ukrainian wheat harvests has led some to call for a new agricultural revolution – which the charity BirdLife has strongly condemned as a ‘Trojan horse’ tactic favouring the agrochemical industry.
Back in simpler times, I found a lovely Russian-rooted website describing how to cook Ukraine’s (extremely red) national dish, borscht. This is a thick, earthy soup, perhaps made more famous by American Jews – but the original recipe is just excellent. Food doesn’t usually stop wars, but friendship within the cooking community is a lovely taste of harmony in troubled times. I commend the recipe to you as I pray once more for peace between these two great countries.
All views expressed in this article are my own – and temporarily covered in delicious bryndza sauce.
What’s the dish? Bryndzové halušky… which is quite like Liechtenstein’s Käsknöpfle, only all baconed up. Bryndza, a sheep’s-milk cheese, forms the basis of a sauce that smothers the halušky potato noodle-dumplings. Depending on one’s level of omnivory, the dish is then topped with a garnish of smoked pork, chives or spring onions.
Slovakia in conservation: Slovakia is famous for bat caves. The country gained a higher profile in environmental circles when anti-pollution activist and lawyer Zuzana Čaputová became the country’s first female (and youngest) President in 2019. She hasn’t made such large international headlines since, but has been leading towards a phase-out of coal power this year.
One of Čaputová’s successes has been a willingness to talk about the country’s environmental problems and plot a way forward. She has also done something few other national leaders have dared – cutting subsidies to harmful industries such as fossil fuels.
Back last November I started looking at five principles for winning a battle, either spiritual or environmental (potentially even both at once). Zuzana Čaputová embodies the principles of ‘withstanding’ – even in the face of death threats – and ‘standing.’ She has done this both by standing for office politically, and by holding the ground that she won for the environment. It is with sadness that I hear she will be stepping down as President when her term ends in 2024.
Back here in Scotland, I recently took a long read through our government’s new National Planning Framework 4. This is due to guide the Scottish development planning system till 2050. Thankfully it, too, is very forward-looking. New policies address “the twin global crises” of nature and climate. There is emphasis on a just and equitable energy transition, and a requirement to maintain – not just consider – local green and blue infrastructure networks. The more-controversial term “nature positive” is also used extensively.
For all its potential risks (mostly centred around greenwashing in one form or another), the term looks here to stay. What, then, does my employer WSP make of it? Well, national ecology team boss and general legend Tom Butterworth recently spearheaded the Nature Positive Business Pledge campaign. The Canadian team also have a very positive outlook on nature positive. Here’s WSP’s André-Martin Bouchard again:
“The impacts of biodiversity loss and climate change are intricately connected and felt throughout global communities, but the good news is that we can become nature-positive.”
“Nature-positive means putting our ecosystems in a state where they are restoring, and regenerating, rather than declining. Becoming nature-positive is more than avoiding or minimizing impacts. We must also enhance our ecosystems, which significantly shifts how corporations, small businesses, investors, and consumers view nature.”
Whether officially under the nature positive umbrella or not, WSP offers a range of sustainability services across the world. The good news is that there really are some very encouraging outcomes for nature where a skilled, dedicated team works together with a focus on achieving meaningful change. So, whether you’re in Slough, Slovakia or south-eastern South Africa, feel free to get in touch with project requests – or share your own success stories and solutions!
Substitutions: I ran out of plain (= all-purpose) flour, so ended up using a 4:1 mix of strong white bread flour and spelt flour. It worked.
Cooking notes: For the dough, using the back of a teaspoon to push it through the larger holes of a potato stamper worked better than the cheese-grater approachI used for Liechtenstein.
Makes: 3 to 4 portions.
Carbs: 192g in total; 48g to 64g carbs per portion.
Rating: 88. Comforting and utterly delicious, the best national dish so far.
Time to discover a little-known fact about ‘spag bol’ – and wonder if the Iberian lynx has ever eaten paella (pictured above)…
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What is it we’re starting with? Luxembourg’s Judd mat gaardebounen is smoked pork collar in a herby broad bean stew.
Go on – hit me with a Luxembourgish conservation fact. While Luxembourg is Europe’s second smallest country, it has 271 protected areas – more than one per 10km2. In fact, over half the country is covered by protected areas.
Substitutions: Ground cloves instead of whole cloves.
Cooking notes: I first served this to guests with unsmoked pork, only to get a complaint about a lack of authenticity. In light of such damning criticism (well, it was more of a gentle ribbing), I decided to make a second version – this time with home-smoked meat. Having found a handy guide to hob-smoking and adapted it for my own kitchen, I gathered local pine, rowan and cherry twigs and set to work. The results were worthwhile, and the process was an adventure in itself. I would, though, emphasise the need to line your pan VERY WELL with tinfoil… unless you want a lot of cleaning afterwards.
Makes: 7 portions
Carbs: 18g per portion (thus 125g in total)
Rating: 73.
The finished judd mat gaardebounen, plus Sauvignon Blanc.
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What’s next? Koupepia me Ampelofylla, stuffed vine leaves from Cyprus. Also featuring rice and a lot of tomato.
Cyprus still has a massive problem with illegal songbird trapping (and eating), but international conservation efforts are making headway. The number of birds caught this way is down from over 10,000,000 in the 1990s to “just” 345,000 last year. There’s also some good work going on in turtle conservation – another area close to my heart – so I have to give the Society for the Protection of Turtles in North Cyprus a shout-out.
Cooking notes: Stuffing the leaves is a rather delicate technique, and leaf size was rather variable. I found myself having to spread my filling across more vine leaves so as not to burst them.
Makes: 4 to 5 portions
Carbs: 21g carbs for a one-person portion of 18 leaves with 150g yoghurt. 66g carbs for the whole batch of stuffed leaves – so just over 1g per leaf, depending on how much filling you get into each one.
Rating: 74.
Nascent koupepia me ampelofylla.
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Next up, then? The Bulgarian national salad shopska salata.
With a Black Sea coast opposite south-eastern Ukraine and the adjoining parts of Russia, Bulgaria is being dragged into a rather grisly conservation row. Excess noise from the war’s missile bombardments may be among the causes of high levels of dolphin and porpoise deaths in Bulgarian waters.
Rating: 40. As a child, I liked cucumbers. I still like the concept of cucumber, but less and less the execution. However – I did find that shopska salata dressing is UTTERLY MAGNIFICENT on tortilla chips. Rather unexpectedly, it tastes like a healthier version of something from the chip shop (if not quite so warm).
Bulgaria’s shopska salata is one of the few national dishes – perhaps the only one so far – to stick strictly to the colours of its country’s flag.
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Next… is ćevapi, a Bosnian dish of tiny kebabs.
Bosnia & Herzegovina is earning quite a reputation in river conservation circles. In 2021, for example, Maida Bilal won a Goldman Environmental Prize for leading a successful grassroots campaign to protect her local Kruščica River from damming. Last year, an international team of scientists also gathered for an urgent survey of the Neretva River basin. The Western Balkan area in which Bosnia lies is home to almost 70 endemic fishes, while the Neretva basin alone is threatened by 70 hydropower projects.
Substitutions: None. The vegetable mix allows a bit of creativity, so I used some of the herbs I had available – parsley, coriander (powder), paprika, mint and savory.
Cooking notes: Save some of the beef broth for grilling the bread.
The Chasing the Donkey recipe says one should use a mix of 2 meats or the result will be too dry. This may well be true – I only used 12% fat beef, with a dry result (somewhat improved on day 2 when I moistened it with the previous day’s dripping).
Makes: A nebulous amount – somewhere around 4-6 portions, but some people can go on eating it all night.
Rating: 66. While my guest loved čevapi, these wee kebablets were surprisingly underwhelming to me. I thought they were going to grind the Turkish version into the dust. Perhaps the (debated) original is the best, after all.
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Where to now? Sunny Spain, and a classic paella.
A few months ago, I would have used this as a launching point for discussing EU fisheries policy. However, it’s time for a more positive story – starring the gorgeous Iberian lynx. This shy but charismatic predator was down to 94 individuals in Spain just over 20 years ago. Thanks partly to a successful captive breeding program, the wild population has now risen to more than 17 times as many.
Substitutions: Double pork instead of pork and veal. Veal is increasingly hard to find in the UK nowadays, largely for animal welfare reasons – and getting hold of ethical veal is harder still.
Cooking notes: In the Cooking Light recipe, ground round (a nicely rhyming US term) is roughly equivalent to rump mince on this side of the pond.
My version used rice milk, and a bit more meat than the above recipes (due to package size). On day 3, I added bacon to try and bring the dish closer to the Accademia’s official version. This made it less tasty – perhaps because it wasn’t real pancetta, though, so I won’t mark it down.
Makes: 6-8 helpings.
Carbs: 48g for 1/8, 63g for 1/6, and 381g in total.
Rating: 79.
Ragú alla bolognesein prep. Contrary to popular British opinion, the dish is never officially served with spaghetti – other pastas are used instead.
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All in all, this crop of dishes plays out quite like an actual football qualifying group (albeit with Luxembourg dominating a weak Bulgaria). Larger, more populous countries such as Italy and Spain do probably have more chance of hitting upon a winning dish. That didn’t work well for France or Germany’s national offerings, though, so let’s give credit where it’s due.
Snowy Owl header: Tambako the Jaguar http://www.flickr.com/photos/tambako/8494616379
All other pictures (C) Daniel Flenley or Adobe Stock, unless specified otherwise. Requests for use of my photos will not be reasonably rejected – just leave a comment under the relevant article.
Chipmunk Kalahari 
Very Fond of Ue
Switzerland has two strong claimants to its national dish throne – fondue and potato Rösti. Given its mix of cultures and German, French, Italian and Romansh language, perhaps we should expect nothing less (and maybe more). The literal melting pot of cheese fondue, though, seems a good metaphor for Swiss culture and its nature conservation story.
Switzerland regularly hosts high-profile environmental and economic events and working groups (like the one I attended in Geneva). The country is also the seat of various conservation organisations, not least the IUCN and WWF. By and large, the Swiss seem to be quite forward-thinking in ecological terms. However, as a major world financial centre, Switzerland is firmly in WWF’s sights when it comes to ‘greening’ monetary policy. If any changes for the good are made, the impact could have significant positive ripple effects across the world.
Recipe: Authentic Original Traditional Swiss Fondue (Old World Recipe) Recipe on food.com.
Substitutions: Couldn’t find Appenzeller cheese at the time, so used Leerdammer Light instead. Also decided to try sweet white wine instead of dry white + kirsch.
Notes: Seemed as though it needed a bit more moisture, and was quite hard to keep bubbling on the table.
Makes: 3 portions – the recipe says it serves 6-8, but that’d only be true in our house if it was served as a side.
Carbs: circa 17g in total, so circa 6g per person (and less if used as a side).
Rating: 78 – very nice, but gets rather sickly if you succumb to it being so moreish and just keep eating.
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