Pumpkin Scones
- 2 cups of flour ( home milled)
- 1 oz of butter
- a pinch of salt
- 1 tsp. of baking powder
- 3/4 cup of mashed pumpkin
Knead butter through flour until evenly mixed, add baking powder and salt; then add mashed pumpkin and mix together to form a dough. Push down to form a slab about one inch thick, then cut with a scone cutter. Place scones in cake tin, as close together as possible, then brush with milk. Bake in a hot oven for about twelve minutes.
Men who give no thought to what their wives Are thinking as they stand beside their stoves … Call off their fixtures and prepare for war.
The above quote is taken from a poem written by Douglas Dunn – he is creating a recipe for a ‘stew of love’.
Dunn is one of a number of poets who write poetry which suggests that a concern for a better world begins in the home; specifically, in the kitchen. This ‘home focused’ poetry suggests that a wholesome life contributes more to the aim of world peace than any amount of political negotiation and oratory. Making pumpkin scones has its place in this wholesome vision – the preparation and making of food in the home is a ritual fast becoming lost in the modern world. The act of a family participating in the making of meals together does not have to reflect a romantic ‘Brady Bunchish’ picture – encouraging our children to assist in food preparation is crucial to the future direction of our society and our world. Food has been the most common link between human beings since the origin of man; it is the first fundamental requirement for our survival, regardless of racial, cultural, age or sexual difference; if we lose touch with the growing and preparation of the thing most crucial to our survival, we lose touch with something which is part of our very being. The refinement of natural grain has taken us from the process of using grinding stones to produce flour to our present day commercial milling at very high speeds, which destroys most of the goodness of flour and discards its most nutritious parts, the germ and the bran, preserving only the endosperm, where very little vitamin and mineral substance is present. The availability of home mills now allows us to mill grain in our homes, ensuring that the flour we use contains the complete kernel of wheat and all of the nutrients within it. Home milling of grain also allows for the blending of grain to produce a variety of breads and other flour based foods. One of the advantages of home milling is that you can store grain for long periods of time, whereas flour has a limited lifespan of seventy-two hours at room temperature. Commercially milled flour, already impaired by the high speed milling process, is also subject to a loss of nutritional value by having it’s most valuable part discarded, the bran and germ. Milling grain at home allows you to mill only the amount of flour you need for a given recipe, or excess flour for up to three days usage, as the full grain flour starts to go rancid after 72 hours at room temperature. The above recipe can be made in thirty minutes using the GrainMaster Whisper Mill, from the milling of the grain, through preparation and baking, to the finished product, a tray of nutritious scones. In order to re-engage with the earth and the wholeness of its gifts, we need to commit to maintaining the integrity of natural food products; home milling grain goes somewhere towards this end.