|
Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
|
|
UK: Tune In, Turn on, Eat Up Lauris Morgan-Griffiths The Times
Saturday 25 Jan 2003 A group of university friends are just saying no to hemp's druggy associations, and promoting it as the latest wonder food When you first hear about a group of university friends hanging out on daddy's country estate and experimenting with hemp, you might think they're following in the British tradition of the upper classes blowing their trust funds on a life of indolence. But the younger generation on the Firle Estate in Sussex are no respecters of tradition. Far from turning on and dropping out, they have embarked on the task of rehabilitating a non-narcotic relative of the marijuana plant, viewing it as a great culinary cash crop of the future. This is not some dilettante group playing at business. They understand hard work, and there's not an illegal high in sight. "People are genuinely interested, until you say it is a food, and then they rapidly lose interest," says Henry Gage of the ups and downs of promoting the hemp oils, pasta, pesto and ice-cream that he and four friends produce from seed on Lord Gage's estate. I have been invited down to Motherhemp's Sussex headquarters at Firle House for an alternative lunch. Sarah Yearsley has picked me up from the station. It is a beautiful sunny day. We drive in front of the house past the overgrown lake and I'm led straight into the kitchen. Gradually the other Motherhempers drift in to help. Lunch preparation is, apparently, a concerted effort. Sarah bustles around talking and making an autumn smoothie. Tania Lowry quietly gets on with the bulk of the meal -she has already made some hummus and hemp butter in a beautiful shade of green. Of them all she is the real cook, formerly a chef at a well-known London restaurant, Clarke's. Jake Yearsley, Sarah's brother, quietly ambles in and gets on with building an artichoke and orange salad. Lord Gage appears. This is not his project but he is not going to be left out. His initial scepticism has given way to enthusiasm and pride. Henry Gage watches benignly from the sidelines. He started Motherhemp in 1998 with Will Stevens after leaving Bristol University. They were looking for an ecological business. Will had discovered the versatility and potential of hemp, Henry conveniently had access to the odd thousand-acre estate, and they were off. At first they adopted a scatter-gun approach, producing textiles, paper and moisturisers as well as food. Then the Yearsleys joined them and the focus shifted on to food. Both abandoned stressful careers in London -Jake in the music business, Sarah as a travel documentary producer -because they felt that it was detrimental to their health. They have Crohn's Disease - an irritable digestive condition -which makes healthy diet of paramount importance. Jake says, "I would never go back to London, even if they paid me millions of pounds." Will Stevens, who has taken this one step further and now lives in France with his wife and children, is now a "virtual" presence through the wonders of e-mail. Meanwhile the noise is deafening as Sarah whizzes up hemp seed with water ( one part hemp to three parts water ) in the blender to make hemp milk. Raspberries, blueberries and a scoop of their vanilla-flavoured Hemp Ice are blitzed together. We all drink it, even Lord Gage -mainly because of the ice, to which he is particularly partial. Jake has put himself outside Tania or Sarah's cooking jurisdiction, and is doing his own thing. While peeling the orange and chopping the artichoke, he explains, "Hemp is a complete vegetable protein and is excellent for building up muscle." Then it is time for the pasta -hemp and spelt fusilli. It only takes three minutes to cook. The table is laid. Jake leaps up to make the hemp dressing. Sarah examines the salad, and there is a discreet brother and sister altercation. "Do you think that's enough?" "It'll have to be, there isn't any more." Sarah takes matters into her own hands and assembles a green salad. Having seen them all at close quarters I suspect the kitchen dynamic plays back into the office: Miss Busy, Mr Independent, Mr Observant, Miss Quietly Capable. Everyone sits down to wholemeal -not hemp -bread, hummus and hemp butter. Served with the pasta is both green and red pesto. The salad is dressed with Jake's dressing. Hemp oil is cold-pressed from the seed; the pasta flour comes from the residue, or "cake". Nothing is cooked in hemp oil because it degenerates at quite low temperatures into harmful trans-fats. I preferred the green pesto to the red, but then I am a bit of purist. The hummus was nice and smooth. The pasta was gluten-free and extremely good - brown, wholesome, and not at all stodgy and bloating in the way that wholemeal pasta can be. But you certainly have to like hemp -the nutty, seedy taste pervades everything. After the main course Lord Gage waited expectantly for the ice-cream. However, ice-cream was off. They had all naively assumed that the five tubs that had been left in the fridge would be enough. However, they had reckoned without Lord Gage. Only one tub remained -which had serious Lord-like inroads in it -and that had gone into the fruit smoothie. Henry stepped into the breach and rustled up a chocolate drink -hemp milk mixed with cocoa. The meal might have been a bit too green and brown, too open-toed sandals for some. But it was certainly incredibly healthy. Hemp oil is a complete protein, firmly associated with the current health buzz words: EFA - essential fatty acids, omega 3 and omega 6 -in the perfect balance; GLAs, Gamma-Linolenic Acid. All are essential for a good metabolism and rarely found together in one seed. Hemp is cholesterol-free and has been shown to improve skin disorders such as eczema and psoriasis; inflammatory conditions such as arthritis and Crohn's Disease, and cardiovascular problems. Although the finola variety of hemp they harvest looks identical to cannabis, you could smoke a whole field of it with no effect ( apart from probably feeling rather sick ) as it contains no THC, the mind-altering chemical present in cannabis. Even so, it has to be grown under Home Office licence, and Motherhemp is the only company in the UK allowed to grow it commercially for seed, which they then sell to approved farmers. Henry had to be approved as an upright citizen, undergoing rigorous police checks, before he was given the go-ahead. "I was 23 when I started and immediately had the Home Office and the local bobby on to me," he says. "The hemp has to be grown in a field hidden from the road and away from public footpaths, in case anyone decides to harvest it and sell it as something else. "Even so," he adds, "I have found plants carefully removed from a field." Hemp grows extremely well in Britain, it is GM-free and does not require pesticides or herbicides. For the first four years, Henry grew 30 acres yielding approximately 20 tonnes of seed. This year they will grow up to 2,000 acres, though not at Firle as it tends to grow better in the north than the south of the UK. The Motherhempers are all passionate about hemp as an ethical, organic, environmental, sustainable, healthy food, although Henry's enthusiasm is moderated in a very English way. He wants hemp to enter the agricultural mainstream as soya and linseed have done, and in the present dire agricultural climate feels that farmers should have a chance to diversify with a viable, valuable, sustainable crop. Just before I leave, Henry confides self-effacingly, "I feel very lucky because I wouldn't have had the imagination to come up with an idea like this. But I feel very privileged to be part of it." Motherhemp: 01323 811909; www.motherhemp.com Seeds of inspiration Hemp-seed Tahini 1 cup hulled hemp seeds 1 tbsp hemp oil 1 tbsp water ( optional ) Toast the seeds and finely grind them in a blender. Combine them with the oil and mix to a smooth paste. The mixture may require some water to keep it moist. Add the resulting tahini to home-made hemp-seed hummus. Hemp-seed Hummus 3/4 of the hemp seed tahini above 1 can ( 425g ) of cooked chickpeas 1 tbsp hemp oil 1/2 cup lemon juice 3-4 cloves of crushed garlic 1 tsp soy sauce Freshly ground pepper A pinch of cayenne pepper ( optional ) Puree the chickpeas in a blender, add the other ingredients, and blend until the texture is smooth and creamy. Hemp Pesto 1/2 cup toasted hulled hemp seeds 2/3 cup sliced almonds 1 bunch of basil 3 tbsp hemp oil 3 tbsp olive oil 2 cups grated parmesan cheese Crush seeds, almonds, basil, hemp and olive oil to a paste with a pestle and mortar. Mix in the cheese. Serve with pasta. John E. Dvorak, Hempologist The Boston Hemp Co-op's Online Hemp History Library and Museum http://www.hempology.org
After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.
|
This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.
Feel free to link to this page!