We are all king Midas

A long time ago a man was rewarded by the gods for being a nice chap. He could choose his reward freely and chose to get the magic touch to transform anything into gold.

Maybe you remember what happened to the fragrant flowers that lost their scent as soon as they were picked? And the food on the table that turned into useless lumps of yellow metal? Did you know that the favourite daughter froze in an eternal embrace?

Anyways, that was a long time ago, in a country far, far away. In these enlightened times, we would never do anything so foolish.

We would never turn rivers into polluted sewage ditches, just to gain some grains of gold. We would never spray poisons over our fields just to increase profits. We would never clear cut forests and wipe out fungal species just to earn more money. We would never expose our kids to chemicals and slowly toxic foodstuffs just to save costs.

Or would we?

What is needed to break the spell?

In the old story, king Midas had to go to the source of the river and dive into the cool pool of fresh water to lose his magic powers and his greed. It seemed to work. Or he died there. Who knows. According to legend he lived a happy life with the poor people in the woods. At least he never came back to the royal castle, that much is clear.

Is there a way for us to metaphorically dive into the pool and clear our heads, collectively? What would it take?

Isolated individuals have been railing against greed and overconsumption since at least year 395, when Evagrios Pontikos formulated the seven capital sins, and proposed to live frugal happy lives. He did lead by example, which is not bad.

A string of books, from the holy book to Thoreau's Walden Pond, Nearings' The Good Life, Rowland&Grubb's Art of Frugal Hedonism all claim that happiness comes out of living with less consumption and more collaboration and family production.

In the days of Evagrios, just like in our times, most people who have a choice seem to not heed the advice.

Nuts

Obliquely related to collective stupidity, autumn is a time for harvest of the crackable bounty of the nut trees. Hazel season is over, now in October the walnut harvest is in full swing and chestnuts are just starting to rain.

We organized the first ever Nordic Nut Championships, to share that there are great nuts grown in the Nordic countries.

Nordic Nut Championships

We invited nut growers to bring their best nuts to compete. We also included a category of "nut dish", something made of at least 50% locally grown nuts. The expert jury are three amazing people - Titti Qvarnström - michelin-grade chef, Lars Olesen - the largest walnut grower of Denmark, and previously jury in world champions of tobacco snuff, Philipp Weiss - author of the best book in swedish language on nut growing.

We had 15 competitors and approx. 75 in the audience.

The location is in the former people's house (Folkets Hus) in Malmö, in their old library. Now the walls are covered with book-looking wall paper. (What is wrong with people? Who wants to have a faux-library?)

The expert jusy and the competing nuts.

There were five kinds of nuts this time - hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds, pine nuts and in the dish also chestnuts.

Kristoffer from Denmark won the category "nut dish" with his hazelnut burgers with chestnut mash.

Sidsel brought the second best hazelnuts from Bornholm.

Nut Day at Holma

At the Holma community college (Folkshögskola) in Höör, we organize every year a meetup for nut people. Last year we were almost hundred people, but this time we had an unfortunate storm event in the night before so many trains were not cancelled and there was a recommendation to avoid certain roads.

Nevertheless, we were fifty unstoppable enthousiasts who met up and sampled delicious nut foods, talked about growing experiences and harvest techniques.

Colleague Janne who runs a fruit- and nut tree nursery Räveboda. He has found a bush with giant hazelnuts.

Janne brought jars with sample nuts of the varieties that he sells. Fantastic diversity.

We also had some machine demos.

Jouke demonstrated the polish electric nut cracker that he bought. It works for hazelnuts and dried acorns.

We also demoed nut rollers.

Samsö Chestnut Festival

In October each year, some friends on the island of Samsö in Denmark organize a chestnut festival. We had heard about this event, and were curious to go there with some nut friends.

Birgit Rothmann is one of the organizers of the event and she sold chestnuts from her own tree.

Chestnuts 'Bouche de Bétizac'.

One guy was roasting fresh chestnuts, to have the classic French style experience. There were also local products with chestnut theme, like chestnut beer, likeur, syrup and bread.

Locally brewed chestnut beer.

Likeur.

We went there together with some friends and colleagues, to work out a plan for an upcoming project that we hope to get funded soon.

The project team of the upcoming "Nötverket" project.

Collecting chestnuts

In Sweden, there are still very few chestnut trees. Maybe a thousand. Three good trees are in a restaurant garden some twenty kilometers away, and during the last week of October I went to pick more than thirty kilos of chestnuts there. I went three times, with a few days between each visit, and each time I could collect more than ten kilos in an hour or so.

Some of the nuts I will sow for new trees, some are peeled and eaten.

The tree with plenty of chestnuts.

Back home - running the chinese chestnut peeling machine.

Veggies

It is also the end of veggie season. The only ones alive outdoors are the swiss chards and spinach, and in the ground we still have some potatoes and small carrots.

Tomato vines dying due to a few nights of frost. Next year a new season!