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Please forgive me for that.But this is such a great episode of seven ancestral swaps that will save you money.Now, I am assuming you are already well on the way to eating an ancestral diet.
So these are not swapping ancestral foods for conventional foods.These are swaps within the ancestral food paradigm that Allison and I have utilized to save money within saving money.
Everybody's tightening up the budgets right now and we are no exception to that.The conversation around fats and dairy products and drinks and so much more in this episode is so interesting and the last but most complex swap.
It's a very interesting one that has saved our family thousands of dollars, and it is well worth the time and effort it takes to investigate it.I look forward to enjoying this episode with you today. Welcome to the Ancestral Kitchen podcast.
I'm Alison, a European town dweller living in England.
And I'm Andrea, living on a family farm in Northwest Washington State, USA.
Pull up a chair at the table and join us as we talk about eating, cooking, and living with ancestral food wisdom in a modern world kitchen.
Well, good morning, Andrea.Good afternoon, Alison.How do you like my new husky voice?
Well, maybe he likes it because I can't talk as much.
Sometimes that's actually good for us, isn't it?You know, sometimes that's a good thing for us.We get a bit of peace as well.It's true.
I felt... Hello, you and your husky voice.Yeah, I felt nothing more like it. Zachariah in the Bible, you know, who lost his voice and he had to write, his name is John, to name his son, you know.I keep thinking, like, what am I supposed to be saying?
Just tell me the right thing to say.I'll say it.I'll write it.Give me my voice back.
But it's OK.Oh, I hope it comes back soon.I hope it comes back soon.So have you managed to have some breakfast this morning?
I did, actually. Rather luxurious.I had a steak and eggs.
Oh wow, because you've got the beef.
Well, Gary smoked some flank steaks the other day so we could have lunch with his folks and posted a picture of it in the patron podcast, or patron, what am I saying?Discord. I lost my brain too, Allison.But anyways, and yeah, it's just a feast.
But I think you and I both have talked about this, that we're not as accustomed to just eating like pieces of meat.We usually eat meat in things.Not at all. We had a lot left over and then Gary has been making it into like stir fry.So good.
So the leftovers are just lasting a long time.So this morning I thought I'm going to take a couple of those strips of steak, throw it in the cast iron next to some eggs and it's just about as good as you would expect.It's quite delicious.
So what does smoked flank steak taste like?I've never eaten smoked beef.
Yeah, I don't think I had really heard of smoking flank steak.Gary was like, oh, why don't I smoke this?I was like, wait, what?And so we have a smoker that our friend gave us, our neighbor.
Neighbor, friend, and the gentleman who built and used to live in this house, actually. And he gave us his old smoker and so Gary had it. fired up.Honestly, I think they smoked in like 15 or 20 minutes.It was very fast.
And then he brought them inside and seared them on the stove.He had kind of coated them and like he mixed up a bunch of spices.Like, I don't even know what he put on it first.And so it tastes delicious.It's very tender.And like he didn't
He didn't, like, overcook it, if you know what I mean.So it still had that, like, tender pinkness in the middle that we like and everything.Yeah, it's nice.Yeah, so I don't know.Just really good.You just have to experience it.
You know, I was reading one of Ben Greenfield's cookbooks that both of us have, because hopefully he's coming onto the podcast later in the year.And there's a section on marinades and rubs, and he's got a rub that uses coffee grinds.
And, you know, when you were talking about Gary putting some spices and that on the beef, it made me think, oh, I wonder if he'd like the one with coffee in it.Wow.Because he loves coffee.
That's interesting.Coffee grounds, does he eat the grounds or does he like wash them off?
No, I think he pushes them off, but I don't know, I didn't read it, because Rob would be like, oh, I want to drink my coffee.That's so Rob.
I can so see him saying that.
Yeah, I'm not eating my coffee, I'm going to drink it.Yeah, that's hilarious.Gary's like, I'm just going to inject it into my veins.
Did you eat lunch, Alison? Yeah, I actually only just finished.And mine wasn't as luxurious as yours, but it still felt luxurious.We've talked about that, you know, how the simplest food really can feel completely luxurious.
So I had a homemade burger made from pork, ground mince, ground mince, we'd call it mince in the UK.You'd call it ground pork, I guess.Just that, nothing else.
in the burger, and I had it with some leftover red rice, which I really like, with olive oil kind of drizzled all over it, and some salad veg, which came from the local co-op, which we had grated carrot, lettuce, and red pepper.
And that was absolutely delicious.Oh, that does sound good.But really flavoursome.It was nice.
I always feel like burgers are such a luxury.I don't know if it's just because it takes so much meat.I don't know.Or it takes so much time.
They feel like a luxury to me because, I don't know, there seems to be something different with the fat in them.
You know, if you get ground beef or ground pork that hasn't had the fat stripped out of it, like many minces do now that you see, for example, on a supermarket shelf,
It feels to me that the fat just is wonderful when you bite into the burger, you know, if you can get decent actual meat and then not overly cook it, then homemade burgers or my homemade burgers seem to just be so juicy and so kind of luxuriously fatty that they're a joy to eat.
No, I agree.I agree.We've kind of eaten a lot of beef ever since butchering this deer. Part of the reason was because, you know, it takes, because we're just a slow man operation over here, as we will be actually discussing in this episode.
But we kind of had a basin of ground beef in the fridge for like a couple days while we were working on packaging and whatnot.And so I was just like, well, there's thawed meat in the fridge.I'm going to eat that, you know, just cook it in.
Yeah, well, why not?Exactly.I'm not eating beef at the moment because I am experimenting with a low histamine diet, which is interesting and challenging.But because beef is aged on the bone and all Flavio's beef is aged on the bone,
I've been not eating it.Unfortunately, we'd bought a load of beef because about a month before I'd said, oh, I just want to buy a selection pack that Flavio puts together because I just haven't had enough beef.
And so now half of that's in the freezer and I can't eat it.So I'm doing separate food for Rob and Gabriel and I'm having other things, other protein.
That is the tricky thing now, Alison. with doing some kind of all I'll just use the word special diet because that's basically what it is.Yeah.
When you're also it's the tricky side of doing a special diet with ancestral foods, because oftentimes we do buy things in bulk, like you say, in order to make it affordable.And so you might say, you know, I'm off oatmeal for a while.
And you have like 100 pounds of it, you know, somewhere.
You think, well, that's happened to me over and over again in my life.And it's kind of become a running joke with Rob and I now that if I buy something in bulk, we just joke that for some reason the next week I'm going to decide that I can't eat it.
It doesn't happen that much but it's happened some memorable times that we've committed to buying something and then very soon afterwards something's come to light.
It wasn't so bad with the beef because I didn't buy that much of it and the boys are still eating it.It's just it means it's had to challenge my logistic.
brain a lot more because I'm not just cooking up, for example, you know, a stew and leaving it in the fridge for three days and eating it.I can't do that in the moment.
So I'm having to kind of think, right, I want to use this beef for Gabriel and Rob, but also I want to have this bit of chicken or a bit of pork.So I'm having to make sure that that stuff is available for me.
and that I can plan in time to cook it and not just do a big one pot dish for all of us.
So I'm having to give extra brain space.
Listeners know how you and I love our one pot meals.Yeah, exactly.
And I was about to say that listeners, I'm sure that listeners resonate because I've talked to so many listeners who have done different diets for various members of their family or for themselves while they're cooking differently for the rest of their family.
And so I know I'm in good company with people listening when I talk about having to change my routine up and kind of bringing that into my headspace for a little while at least. If you're into ancestral eating, you'll know that liver is a superfood.
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Speaking of the listeners, you got a note in your inbox, which I love.I did.I wonder if you could share it.
I did.I have a note from Esther.Really nice to hear from you, Esther.And she says, I've been listening to your podcast for a couple of weeks now, and I cannot get enough. It's funny, educational, and above all, inspirational.Thanks to you and Andrea.
You are truly such a highlight in my life right now.
Thank you, Esther.Thank you, Esther.That is so kind.
And I'm glad that Andrea's here to be the funny side of the podcast.
The irreverent American, we can just call it that.
I think it helps so much having someone to chat with, you know?Like I think I've talked about before, when back in the old days of, I don't know, 2019, when I thought, I want to do a podcast and I tried recording by myself.
just there was no ebb and flow, there was no lilt, there was no opportunity for those, for that dynamic and potential funniness to come out.And having found you, everything changed.
I love talking to you and I can consciously feel how you are a like an anchoring force for me, where I can tend to just float away sometimes.But I feel your influence, Allison, in my life all the time. I'm holding you down.Pulling you back.
Supporting you.Put it that way.
Ah, there we go.That's a nice way of doing it.
Oh, so we have a wonderful episode that you've put together today, which kind of leads on from other stuff that we've talked about in the past in the podcast, and I think speaks to where a lot of us are at the moment.
And we're titling this episode, Seven Ancestral Swaps That Will Save You Money. Andrea, do you want to talk about kind of why we decided to do this episode and the ideas behind it?
Yep.Well, if there is anybody listening to this podcast right now who is not trying to save money, then shout out to you, Elon Musk.Nice to know that you're a listener. It is expensive times.
And I know we've talked about it, Allison, you're over in Europe.I'm in America.And I was telling you how the cost of food over here.It's not really.
being talked about in the news that much, from what I can tell, like they do talk about the increase, but the increased percentages that are given aren't quite accurate to what shoppers are finding, which is we're finding sometimes a 50% increase in food costs.
And that's insane, because it means people are still eating and living the same, but their expenses are going up.And I don't know if anybody checked recently, but I don't think paychecks went up by 50% to match this spike.
So, in fact, I've heard a lot of people say in different industries, people who paint houses or, you know, repair cars or things like that, And then also farmers who sell product, they've said our inputs have gone up.
So basically our expense for producing this product has gone up so drastically.However, we can't charge that increase rate because we won't have a single customer.So so people are selling things without getting the profit that they once got as well.
So I just. feel like everywhere I look around me, we're all tightening our belts.We're all trimming the budget.
And you and I already have talked on several episodes, which Allison, we should link some of these in the show notes because they're really, really helpful.Yeah.How ancestral food saves you money.That's a really good episode.And
You and I both feel like eating these ancestral ways already saves us money.So what I'm going to say in this episode assumes you're already on board with eating ancestrally, even if you aren't doing all the things you're mentally you're there.
And if you are already eating ancestrally, even within that, there are swaps Allison and I have tweaked with that have from within that framework made it even more affordable.And that is the subject matter for today.
And you and I have both talked about peasant food, which is pleasant food, I should say.But wherever you live and whoever your ancestors are, if you look back into your ancestry,
There were people who were making resourceful and nutrient-dense and typically very cheap food because most of our ancestors were starving all the time.
And I think that we can learn from the way that they did things and maybe benefit with our own wallets today.
I want to kind of pinpoint those episodes that people can go back to and listen to.So we did a two-parter on how to save money on an ancestral diet, which is episodes 66 and 67.
And then right back in the early days, episode number four is the five most expensive and yet the cheapest foods.
So if you haven't yet listened to those three episodes, there are a wealth of information that you can draw on, and we're going to add to it here.
And if you're in the Discord, Megan Francis started a conversation in the episode ideas thread.Alison, I don't know if you saw it.It got really long really quick.I did.
But just talking about how people were questioning, is ancestral food, you know, elitist? And I'm thinking like, have you ever seen a peasant hut?OK, but is it too expensive?
And I just feel like this is something near and dear to both of us, because neither you nor I could probably see our way to spending the money for all the processed food we would need to bring into our house.
We're just so used to having these economical choices at our fingertips.Yeah.
Absolutely. Shall we away?Yeah, do you want to dive in?We've got seven, as the title kind of suggests.So do you want to dive into them?
And if you guys have more of these ideas, email them to us.We'll make a part two if we need to.I mean, there are probably hundreds of things you could do.And I should say some of these will vary based on where you live.So number one,
is use the regional and abundantly available fats and learn how to swap them for the ones that you see in recipes.The fats you use may vary.So in our household, Allison, we rely on lard more than anything else.So I used to
think, well, we use this much butter and oh man, we're running out of butter and oh man, butter is so expensive.And even if you're milking a cow or making it yourself, it's still expensive because it's still expensive.
Then I just started thinking, okay, why am I buying fat when I have fat in the house, you know?And so I started just switching everything.So there are some things that I like specifically with butter.Like sometimes toast, I just want butter.
And so I try to reserve the butter for those places where it's like, it has to be butter.Like, I can't believe it would be anything but butter. For everything else, I'm just looking to the cheapest fat I have on hand.
So good choices of fat are coconut oil, olive oil, butter, avocado oil, palm shortening, tallow and lard.That's not all the good fats, but that's some good fats.Some of those are really expensive.Olive oil?Yes.That's expensive.For you.
Not so much for me.Different for you.
And that's the whole point that you said regional, exactly.So at the moment, living in Italy, olive oil for me is cheap compared to anywhere else.And I can get good quality olive oil that I'm happy with at a price that's reasonable.
But as patrons already know and will become clear in the forthcoming episodes.I am moving away from Italy later this year and therefore I won't be able to use olive oil in the same way and that will change in my kitchen.
My kitchen will have to change because I'm not going to pay through the nose for a poorer quality olive oil when I frankly can't afford to.I'm going to turn to fats that I can get and process myself locally.
So that's just a absolutely clear example of the regional side of it, for sure.
Yep.And I have heard people say, over here, people who don't have access to lard, you know, or it's harder for them to get. aside from working to build those channels to be able to get it, then palm shortening is incredible.
It has incredible health benefits.It's basically the same health benefits as coconut oil, except it doesn't have the loric acid in it.And palm shortening, historically, has been the world's number one oil.
And outside of Western manufacture, where now soybean oil and other waste products kind of have bubbled to the surface, shall we say, then palm shortening is still very dominant.But Palm shortening is quite economical.
And red palm, of course, you know, colors and food always brings in as long as it's not dyes.But colors and food brings in a more varied nutrient spectrum.And I've used it.
You do want to source cautiously because there are unethical sources of palm shortening.So I should probably throw that out there.We buy ours from Azure Standard or HealthyTraditions.com, formerly known as Tropical Traditions.
Palm oil is very neutral and the shortening can be used.It looks like Crisco, basically, except not as snowy white.I've used palm shortening instead of butter. in lots of baking when I've been baking for dairy-free families and things like that.
And yeah, I've never, ever had a complaint.So it's a wonderful... That's interesting.
I mean, I have not have any experience, I do not have any experience of using palm shortening or frankly, even being available.So it's interesting to hear that.Yeah.I, similar to you, I mean, I just want to
wave the banner for lard because lard is so wonderful and generally you can find, if you try, a good source of back fat to make your own lard and it's not difficult to make your own lard.
So if you can and sometimes it requires work to go out and talk to farmers, see how they're treating their pigs see what they're feeding their pigs.
But if you can find a good farmer and find a good source of back fat, there are instructions on my site for how to render back fat into lard using the slow cooker.And lard is Just wonderful.
I mean, I think that a lot of us tend to think that it's just for cooking.And I do cook with it, you know, I fry in it all the time.So this morning I had a pancake for breakfast and I put lard in the cast iron pan to fry it.
But I use lard in my baking.If I need a fat in my baking, I use lard to grease my baking tins and I spread with lard.And historically lard has been a spread, a traditional spread, in the UK, certainly, and in other areas of Europe.
On bread, sometimes with salt put on the top or on toast with salt.So your thing about swapping out butter for lard, and sometimes you do just fancy butter.And if you can afford butter, then that's a nice thing to put on toast, like you said.
But generally, in our house, we use lard every single day for many things, including spreading on bread, where a lot of people would use butter.So don't think that lard's just for cooking.I think I'm trying to say lard is for everything.
And it is truly economical.
And that's where your savings would come in, not just by adding lard into your diet, but by saying, I typically use butter here.Now I'm going to use the cheap lard instead.So that's a good one.
Next up, this is a milk one.So swap milk-based ferments for the more expensive items like sour cream or cream cheese.So we love sour cream around here and you will never find a home without sour cream, but it is very expensive.
So just like the fats, whenever I have an opportunity, sometimes I make recipes that use sour cream.So dressings, dips, baked muffins, some cakes, things like that, different things that take sour cream.
First of all, I'll use fermented yogurt instead of sour cream.And also, for things like serving sour cream on the table, instead of putting out sour cream, I'll put out strained kefir.So it has a tartness and a thickness just like sour cream.
So you mean you strain it, you're actually straining the already done milk ether through a muslin to make it thicker?
Oh yeah, good point.Double strained, I guess I should say.So yeah, I pour it through a cheesecloth set in like a strainer-ish.And I usually just leave it on the counter overnight covered up and let it kind of drip out overnight.
And if you take a picture of it and you like run a spoon through it, it just looks like sour cream.You know, it has the thick pivots and things.And I was thinking when I wrote this specifically of a big summer party we had last year on the farm.
And I had a basin of that out because we did tacos. And nobody knew that it wasn't sour cream until I said, oh, did you know that's actually in there?Like, what?So it's yeah, it's pretty delicious.
And we all know that milk is easier, cheaper to get a hold of than cream.So yeah, homemade cream cheese also is mostly made out of milk. and not just the cream.
And it's thick and it's tangy like a store-bought cream cheese, but it's cheaper than cream cheese.
And I made a bunch of it one time and passed it off to Colleen and she brought me back a cheesecake that she made with it, which was delicious because we thought you make cheesecake with this?"And Colleen's kind of famous for her cheesecakes.
So, turns out, yes you can.And if you ever bought cream cheese because you're buying fat, it's expensive.
So, in episode... So where can listeners, um, you know, what you're about to say, are you where listeners can find out how to make cream cheese?
Yeah, I was gonna say in episode 68, um, I talked to Robin, about fermented dairy.That was the episode that Rob had to do so much work on Allison because she and I are both living on farms out in the boonies.
Our internet dropped out like 200 times, but Rob fixed it.I don't think you can really tell in the episode. But we talked about fermented dairy and different ferments you can do at home and easy ways to get started with your fermented dairy.
And honestly, after you learn from her and you kind of have some groundwork under your feet, you can find so much stuff on the Googles.And Sally Fallon has fermented dairy recipes in her Nourishing Traditions book.So you will not be without resource.
Yeah, I think once you feel confident that you've got the basics and you know what you're doing, then you can explore further.And the exploration available in fermented dairy is huge, like you said.There's so much.
Hey, you washing the dishes.Been there.You've heard Alison and I talk over and over about her love of rye sourdough bread.Well, I might actually call it an obsession. That's neither here nor there.
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Okay, Allison, totally unrelated to anything we're talking about, but I can hear the lamb upstairs walking around and The kids had pointed out that it sounds like a person in tiny high heels.
It sounds like someone in tiny high heels walking around.
I hope that the lamb hasn't put her shoes on.
I hope so too.Okay, let's go to number three, if you're ready.Number three.Okay.
So this one I already know is going to be near and dear to your heart, Alison, which is use homemade fermented drinks instead of canned sparkling drinks and alcohol.So I love a bubbly drink.I just do.Do you, Alison?You like the bubbles?
Yeah.Yes.And also our kids love bubbly drinks.You know, they're fun.
And I think it's my theory that this is an ancestrally bred craving for the bubbles of our home ferments.What do you think, Alison?
Well, yeah, I've heard you talk about that before, and I won't ask you to get started on your straw theory, but I think I agree with you.
I mean, because we would have evolved, we evolved with fermentation, and therefore we would have evolved with sparkling cups.So I think I can't refute your claim.
Yeah, I think it's just a genetic good craving.And as you and I know, Alison, as we have both done in our life, we sometimes take our ancestral cravings and we're confused because of the context that we live in, and we feed them with the wrong thing.
And there's lots of bubbly drinks out there that are probably not ideal.So here in our house, we often have those kind of canned sparkling drinks on hand.We put them in our campground refrigerator, but They're pretty pricey.
And if you have a bunch of thirsty people and thirsty kids, they'll just run through it, you know, in 10 minutes.And you're like, well, it's nice knowing those dollar bills.
But, and the other thing is, Alison, it's hard to know what's in a lot of these drinks.I don't know if listeners know this.Something I learned from working with Young Living is that,
if an ingredient is below a certain percentage, it doesn't have to go on the label.So when I started buying products from Young Living, I would actually call them and ask them to explain different ingredients on the label.
And I was very pleased and satisfied with everything I learned from them. And also the fact that people will say, oh, well, this other brand over here doesn't have any preservative of, you know, some kind of beverage or something.
And when you're selling products, you have to choose wisely what you use as preservatives.Young Living gets around it by making their own out of their own fruit.
Other brands aren't required, brands generally, Young Living isn't required to put it on the label at all.
And so you might pick up a bottle of something at the store and think, oh, this is good, it's got this, that, and the other thing, and not know that the other thing never even made it to the label.
So especially Allison, I think about you doing this super duper specific low histamine diet where you think you're knowing every single thing you're eating.
And if you were buying something at the store, you might still be jamming the system unknowingly. So, I know.
And you know, the other thing with buying store bought fermented drinks like that is that generally they have a ton more sugar in than the equivalent that you would make at home.
I remember when I first tried kombucha from a shop, I was actually in the US, it was a long, long time ago.And I just, after one mouthful, I couldn't drink the rest of it because it was so sugary.
And yet I've made kombucha at home and it tastes completely different.I mean, it's another reason why you'd want to make that at home, you know, because you can control that sugar quantity that you can't when you go and buy something from the store.
That's true.And if you actually want it to be more sugary, you can do that too, because you can take it off before it's finished fermenting.But I imagine most people don't want that.
But yeah, I bought a kombucha on the way home, Alison, when we went and bought that new car the other day.Well, not new.It's an old farm vehicle.But yeah, I was so thirsty.And I thought, oh, man, kombucha sounds so good.
And, you know, you just you forget.Right.And I bought one.Yeah.Yeah.I couldn't drink it.I was like, well, that was a waste of, you know, five dollars or whatever over price price it was.
That forget thing I do all the time.I think, oh, you know, maybe we could go and get something to eat when we're out because we're rushed and we've got to do this, that and the other and maybe it would be nice.
And then I look at all the restaurants around and I think, no, I've forgotten that obviously there's nowhere we can eat.
I've forgotten that I can't get anything like this from a supermarket because you just, what we cook, we consider normal and then we go out into the real world and we realise it's not normal.
Anyway, so back to home-made fermented drinks instead of canned drinks.
Two of the cheapest.If you can find a tribe of people somewhere, Alison, there's a fermented drink.So there's a lot of... a lot of choices.
But I think kombucha and tibicose, which we would formally call on this podcast Water Kefir until Go Hear Sandor school us, those are very inexpensive.And of the two, tibicose is the cheapest because you don't also need the tea leaves.
But even if you are making kombucha, if, you know, if, if Tibuco is where you're turning it over every day or a couple of days, it's just too much for you. And then it isn't cheaper for you if you're throwing it away.
So if the kombucha is easier for you where you take it off maybe every two weeks, even the tea leaves don't have to be that expensive.We buy high quality bulk bags of organic tea leaves from Frontier Spice and they last forever.
I feel like I've been on the same jar for like the last three houses we've lived in. But you just use a little bit at a time.And you can also grow a Camellia sinensis plant at home.
You know, when you're talking, I'm thinking about rye breadcrumbs and how basically that's just made with the end bit of your rye bread that's probably gone a bit stale when you toast it and then you put that into sugar and that's it.
So again, that's another example of it's slightly more expensive than water kefir. Although you do have to buy the waterkeeper, sorry, the typical grains.But it's not much, it's just, you know, a couple of slices of rye bread.
And if you already have rye bread in your routine and you're like constantly throwing rye bread to your chickens or something, then it is the economical choice to start making it into bubbly drink.
So episode 60, Allison, is the number if you want to go back and hear all about Allison's and my favorite fermented drinks, including that Rye Craft you just talked about.Yeah.
And it's important that I say here, you don't have to make all the drinks.Allison and I do not have 42 varieties available in our refrigerators at all time. We have 45, so I'm just kidding, keep up.
So you just have to find the drink that works for your family and which... Yeah, so at the moment, let me just give an example.
At the moment, the drinks that are available in my house are boza, which is on a kind of a roll at the moment, and beer in the fridge, which is almost finished, a new one's coming this week, and water kefir.Water kefir is also available.
So three, literally, not 47.
oh 47 now okay uh that is delish and here's the thing it it's important that you know which one your family likes so if everybody hates it you know But get what you like and get it on repeat.
And I should also say that the first time I drank kombucha or water kefir, I was like, I don't know about this, but I was still shaping my palate to ancestral ferments.So sometimes it takes a little bit of time.
Our drinks episode has an e-booklet for patrons of the podcast to download.That's an extra thank you for keeping us on the air.And that has some good recipes in it.And then if you listen to episode 54, what have we done to air?That is Alison's.
Alison, that is definitely in my top episodes we've ever done. That is Allison's inspirational historical and health-based research into modern beer and the benefits and pleasures of ancestral beer.
You know, just while we've brought that up, I know that some listeners do want to go ahead and do that and I just wanted to give a little update on that.
I have someone, a listener, a beautiful listener, Rebecca, coming to visit me next month to do a one-on-one on making ancestral beer.
And her prompting me with that has made me kind of figure out writing some stuff down that I hadn't written down before.Let's prioritize that.
And so I'm hoping that that will be a foundation that will help me move towards being able to share my process. whether it will be a course or a book, I don't know yet.
And it has to compete with the outbooks that I'm writing and the work that goes into this podcast.So it may be some time, but don't lose heart if you want to replicate what I'm doing, because it is in my head and I will get to it at some point.
Yes, Rebecca, we are all indebted to you.Get Alison to write it down. I don't know if you've been on Discord since yesterday, but there was a couple of us that were saying, oh yeah, we really, I want to do the Boza course.
Oh yeah, I want to do it this summer.It's my goal.And so we decided to make a thread for everybody who wants to go through the Boza course together, where we can get together and discuss.
And I think we're going to also do some of the lounge calls to talk about, you know, what we're learning in the kitchen and then we can show off to each other what we're doing.
So I think we kind of decided that we're just going to do that for all your classes, Allison. We all want to take all of them.Wonderful.
Yeah, exactly.I'm just there.
The Discord channel is really such a wonderful place to be if people are listening and they would like to support the podcast, but they also want to get support themselves and meet other people who are living this way and loving this way and getting questions answered, then do come and join us on
the Patreon page for the podcast, which is ancestralkitchenpodcast.com community.You can find it if you go to our website and that'll take you through to Patreon.And then you can come and join the fun over on Discord if you want.
Yeah, it's really getting super lively in there and I love it. It's just so much fun.Yeah, I agree.OK, number four.Let's move on.All right.So number four, this is just a funny little one, but one that I lean on every once in a while.
So my kids love having a hot milky beverage in the winter, especially after sledding or, you know, when we're all going outside or we all came in from chores or something.
Cocoa, which is a good quality cocoa, organic and fair trade, is kind of expensive, but still super delicious.And I'll just tell you right now, we will never not have cocoa in our house.
I would have a rebellion on my hands, the peasants revolt, going back in history.But making a homemade chai concentrate is pretty cheap. It's also loaded down with milk or cream, and you can sweeten it too if you want.
So that, I try to mix them up just so that I'm not running through the cocoa in the wintertime like crazy.And I use the recipe from Kate at Venison for dinner, and you can make it in large batches and can it.
I make the large batch and we just go through it.But it lasts for a few weeks in the fridge if you can keep people's hands off of it.And she uses Arubas tea, so her recipe is caffeine free.I just use whatever tea I have floating around.
So then you're mixing that with milk, just like you would cocoa.So instead of having a hot cocoa milky, you're having a hot chai.
So you're making a very strong, steeped spice infusion.She sweetens it with maple syrup because she's Canadian and obviously they use maple syrup for her baths and all kinds of things. But you can not sweeten it if you don't like your chai sweet.
And then we just mix it 50-50 with milk and heat it on the stove.And I can put the links for that in the show notes.Also, spices, I should say, are economical if you're buying them in bulk.
And I get ours bulk and whole typically, then we can grind them in a mortar and pestle if we need to, but we get them from Azure, which is the same place we buy the cocoa actually.And I'll put the link to that in the show notes as well.Yep.
Wonderful. All right, number five.I think you have some input for this one, Allison, because actually this watching you was what sparked my idea for this episode and it was the grains that made me think we need to talk about a couple of these things.
So study the grains that your family uses in quantity And then research if there is a cheaper grain option for you.So what I mean by that is not a reduction in quality of your grain.So I'm not saying see if there's a GMO version.
That will not happen on this podcast.So I would say for many of our listeners, and Allison's family also, wheat isn't even an option, and it's usually the cheapest grain for baking.But Allison, that isn't really a choice you have.
So when you began researching, Alison, you actually, this is in your spelt cookbook.
If anybody wants a really cute story, read the story about Alison and Rob in the beginning of the spelt cookbook, where she basically tricks him into buying her bread.And it's like a fairy tale.
So Alison, you were researching how to make your own sourdough bread at home, and you looked at a variety of ancient grain options, and you chose the one that made the most economical sense for you, which I believe was spelt.
And I would say, don't just do what someone on Instagram is doing.And Alison, you're not on Instagram, but I guess I'll include you in this list.What makes more sense for Alison or for somebody else might not make more sense for you.
So depending on where you are, einkorn might be a better option or rye or something else.You know, there's lots of choices.So Alison, what do you want to throw in on this one?
Yeah I just say it takes a little bit of research to do that but that research is so worth it because you know when you do that research and then you buy in bulk you really can save a lot of money.
Of course, many of our listeners are also buying grains instead of flour, which we've talked about quite a lot, and how that can be more economical on top of choosing the right grain and buying in bulk.
And those listeners are grinding the grains themselves, which I've been doing since I got hold of my wonderful Mockmill.And that step really can save you a lot of money.
If you want to see the mill that I'm using, you can go to ancestralkitchen.com forward slash mill.And you can see pictures of the mill there and kind of details of why I chose that mill.
And if you decide that you want to go ahead and buy a mill, I would totally recommend the mock mill.
And if you purchase through the links on that page, you will be supporting the podcast because we get a little bit of a kickback from any sale that we make. So if you're interested in milling, we have a ton of episodes on grains and sourdough.
And of course, as Andrea said, as you said, Andrea, you can read about my choice of grain, which is spelt in my cookbook, which is on our website in the shop.
And we also have an episode where we did when that cookbook came out late last year, which is number 72, all about spelt sourdough. So do go back into our catalog and pick all the episodes on sourdough and give them a listen.
There's one specifically on milling, which we did with Ellie.We think we're also doing another episode on milling later this year.
So just stay tuned and keep up with all of our past content and you will find there's a ton of information that will support you to make that choice if you want to.
Hey, brilliant.I love it. And you put in your spelt cookbook, you actually wrote out the price difference and why you chose spelt versus other grains that you looked at.
Being you took Spelt and just learned her and her ways, you know, very thoroughly.And that is something you can do if you're focusing on, you know, one or maybe two grains.You can really get to know their quirks and personalities.
Yeah, completely.All right.
Can I go to the next?You ready?
Well, do you want to talk about millet first?I remember you said you wanted to talk about millet as well.
Not that I'm a millet champion or anything.
Yeah.So another economical swap is millet.So over here, we've had millet pop up here and there, but it's not really been a staple.And then, Alison, in our millet episode, which is episode number two, millet, how to use this sustainable gluten
and lectin-free grain.I mean, hello.In that episode, you introduced me to incredible ways that you use millet.
So bulk millet is, I haven't looked at a grocery store, but bulk millet is cheaper pound for pound than rice, which is often used as the example of the cheapest food of all time.
So beans and rice, rice and beans, you know, if anybody in America has heard Dave Ramsey say that, So, again, I'm assuming that you are comparing and contrasting different organic versions of these things.
And if millet is an option in your area, it is worth looking into.You can swap it out for things like quinoa, which can be really pricey. or for rice.And again, kind of like the butter, if you say, I love rice pudding, you know, okay, that's fine.
But look at how Allison makes the stir fry with millet and save the expensive rice for rice pudding and then make a millet stir fry or a millet salad instead of a quinoa salad or millet on the side of your, you know, like the steak and eggs I had today.
It's like the most expensive meal you'll ever see.
Like steak and eggs, it hasn't had lobster.Let's talk about cheaper grains today.Caviar.
Yeah, I was really surprised when we recorded that Minute episode that you looked up and found that literally it's cheaper. than rice.I was, I was shocked by that.
And I think, you know, talking about grain swaps, it's certainly another one that you can look at and see whether it's, it's the same for you and whether you want to give it a go.Yep.
Yep.And you know, okay, I didn't throw out just a money saving tip.Buy a small amount and see how your family likes it. You know, don't buy 500 pounds and then be like, I guess I'm eating birds now.OK, Alison, can you introduce number six, please?
Yeah, I can, I can.So number six is to bulk out your ground meat dishes with organ meats or if your family can tolerate them, pulses.
So I know some of our listeners buy pre-mixed ground meat with organs mixed in, really from a health perspective that they want their kids or their family to be getting the nutrients that are in those organ meats and perhaps their kids don't want to eat liver or heart on their own and so they buy them ground in already.
You can do that yourself, which probably ends up being cheaper.So if you have liver or you have another heart meat and you have a grinder, you can grind those organ meats into your ground beef.
So you're only using potentially like two thirds ground beef compared to one third much cheaper organs. and then just use it for anything.
Use it for bolognese, use it for lasagna, use it for a cast iron ground meat dish like we all find in our cookbook Meals at the Ancestral Hearth.So that's a good option.The other option that I know that some people do
is to swap out some of that ground meat for pulses.So you can soak your pulses in bulk.You don't have to be planning each time you want to swap it out.And then you can leave those pulses in the fridge, just rinsing them every couple of days.
And then you can take some of those out and put them in your dish instead of using 100% ground beef, you could be using 70-60% ground beef and 30 or 40% red lentils or some sort of pea or some sort of mung bean, something like that.
I think some people also freeze their pulses and then bring those in previously cooked but frozen into dishes later on and mix them in.So there are several options there for making that ground meat, which is more expensive, go further.
That's my number six. Do you want to move on to our last one, Andrea, number seven?
I actually want to say that pulse, which is a term meaning, you know, legume seeds that you can eat, actually comes from the Latin word pulse or poultice for thick soup.So y'all's ancestors were like, let's have a basin of water for dinner.
No, no, let's thicken it.Use porch hot.Wow. All right, number seven.I saved for the last.It is the most complex.It is a swap that probably makes the biggest difference for our food budget.
It has made it possible for us to enjoy a lot of good meat, the steak I had this morning, bones and fat while saving thousands of dollars.And yeah, when buying whole animals, This is the tip, Alison.
When you're buying whole animals, which I know many of our listeners do, such as pig, sheep, or beef, do the cut and wrap yourself.This tip comes with some caveats.Are you ready, Alison?
Can you explain to me what you mean by cut and wrap? for people who aren't kind of used to butchery, what that means.
I will break it down, as the butchers say.Thank you.So I know that many of our listeners, because we talk about this in Discord all the time, people mention it to me all the time, are already buying their meat from small farms.
And let me tell you that that is a wonderful thing to be doing.And they're also buying whole animals. which is already an incredible way to save rather than buying a la carte cuts.
So if you listen to the episode on, for instance, Alison, our old chicken, nothing about the chicken episode.
A lot of people have grasped and are comfortable now with the concept of buying a whole chicken instead of, say, a pack of chicken drumsticks.A whole chicken is much cheaper versus a pack of drumsticks.It's the same with other animals.
You can take your savings a step farther than just buying a quarter cow or half a cow. even if you aren't raising the animals yourself, which sometimes but not always can also be a part of savings, but by doing the cut and wrap yourself.
So when you purchase a whole animal, and I'm talking about anything over like, you know, 50 pounds, so sheep and up, basically, there are typically a total of three payments made.First,
you pay the farmer, so Flavio, you pay him the hanging weight of the animal.So let's use a pig as an example.So your pig is a hanging weight of 300 pounds.That means she's hanging and they took out the guts basically.
And what was left hanging is 300 pounds.So the average price might be $5 a pound.So for 300 pound pig, you'll pay $1,500 for the whole pig.
Okay, so the hanging weight of an animal is their weight once they've been slaughtered and their organs are taken out.So when she was running around in the field, she was probably like 380-ish or so.
The hanging weight is not how many pounds of meat you will get.So that's important to take note of.About 75% of or less depends on the pig, but 75% or less of the hanging weight will be translated into meat cuts.
So you'll probably get about 200, 225 pounds of meat from a pig. So if you ask for bones, fat, and organs, which I know our listeners do, you're already getting a lot more of your weight value from the pig, right?
And then you can use those organs, like Allison said, to bulk up dishes.You can use the fat to swap out for butter.You can use the bones to make broth if you have extra protein, right?
So you're already making a huge boost in your budget just by doing that. So that's the first fee, you're paying the farmer who raised the animal.The second, you will pay the butcher a kill fee.
This can run, where I live, I've looked at a couple different places, from about $80 to $200 per large animal.And it does vary widely, but this is just a fee for them to kill the animal. And then third, you will pay the butcher cut and wrap.
This is paying him and his crew for the time it takes to part up the pig, grind meat, shape cuts, trim bones, wrap it all, label it so you know what's inside that paper for you.Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah it does, yeah.
Now the cut and wrap fees can range widely, and they can also vary if you ask for smoked cuts, seasoned cuts, salted beef, you know, stuffed sausage, things like that.So I'll use an average around $1 per pound.
Is that confusing to you in the UK, Allison?
Well, that would be $1 per almost 500 grams.
Okay.So $1 per pound or 500 grams or for a cut and wrap fee for math because it's easier.So the cut and wrap is based on the hanging weight.So you'll pay another $300 minimum to have your pig cut and wrapped.
So if you want smoked meats or brats, the things that we just talked about, you can pay between, say, $1.50 or $12 per pound or more for those cuts.And that's because they take a lot more work and input from the butcher crew.
So that's totally reasonable.I am not saying any of this is unreasonable.Butchers are not overpaid.They are worth paying for their artisan labor and for their skill, their knowledge.
And believe me, after butchering as many animals as we have done, they're putting the labor in there.I can tell you that much.
So when all of this is done, the butcher will call you and you'll come pick up crates of nice, neat packages of frozen meat and you'll pay him the kill fee and the per pound, the weight cut and wrapped. So what's your take?
Today, my alternative at least, what we've chosen to do is we still choose to have a local artisan butcher who we really, really like do the slaughter of our large animals so that we can enjoy the benefits of aging our meat in his huge walk-in cooler.
And he's such a great guy.But we are bringing the whole animal home and then cutting it up ourselves.
This saves us hundreds and even into the thousands of dollars because that is usually where the biggest expense comes in is getting like getting a cow cut and wrapped can be 1200 or more dollars.
It's a project that takes a lot of time, as in several long full days, depending on your crew and your skill level and your setup.I would not recommend starting with a cow. Please don't.We started very, very minimal.
So if you go back, Allison, why don't we talk about this?When we started with our pig, all we had was knives with the first pig.That's it.We had like three knives. didn't even have a saw.
So we started very minimal and we slowly worked our way up to now the last pig we just did, this took three years of just butchering and then acquiring tools, which I'll talk about in a minute, but the last pig we just did, Allison,
We made hot dogs, we made flavored bratwurst, we made like little smokies, like tiny little sausage links.We made bulk sausage, we made bulk pork.So we were grinding meat, we ground organs, like it was much more
polished than our earlier pigs, which were basically, we slapped the pig onto the table, then we cut it up.
Yeah, it's just like, you know, any learning process, you know, my first sourdough breads were kind of a bit ropey, but now I can turn my hand to many, many things.You can and you do.
And I don't want you to think, oh yeah, I'll just take this pig home and I'll have all these packs of bacon and hot dogs.Like, you got to learn all these things.So this is what I'm saying. You want to start low, slow, expectations low.
We didn't have hot dogs for a long time.We didn't have smoked bacon or these other interesting cuts.We didn't have ground meat for ages.I wanted it, but we didn't have it.We just worked with the pieces that we had.
And that was a choice we made to learn.And Allison, we should someday have an entire episode just on home butchery for large animals, just the cutting up part.But tools that are requisite even in a minimal setting are a bone saw, I used to
like a tree saw on our first day.
We have a bone saw now, a breaking knife, which I bought specifically for the pig, sharp knives, a boning knife, which we already had those, a honing blade because you'll be sharpening your knife constantly while you're working, and lots and lots and lots of tubs.
Shout out to Nick, who also said this after he did the pig.He said, you think you have enough containers?I'm here to tell you, you don't.As well as packaging material.So on our first pig, all we just had was a roll of brown paper.
We've kind of upgraded packaging to different versions over time as we found, you know, the brown paper was sticking to the meat, you had to like pick it off.So there's different options for packaging meat.
And then the more totes, tubs, bowls, refrigerator and freezer space you can drum up, the easier it will be.So now in our third year of home butchering, we've added a meat grinder.We've now got lots and lots of same size bussing tubs.
We've added a couple folding tables. a vacuum sealer.I'm trying to think what else is like super interesting that we added more knives because you never have too many knives.
So now we can have those ground meats and organs.And so then last year, we had ground meat And then this year we did the stuffing of sausages.So we didn't try to learn grinding and butchering and seasoning and stuffing all at once.
We broke those up over several butcherings.
So now we have the like I made a meal the other day that Rebecca from a humble place had sent me the recipe for and it felt so luxurious because I made it with bratwurst and we just haven't had those in such a long time.
um and then we watched a lot of youtube videos lots and lots of videos and gary is really kind of the, like when we do canning projects, I'm sort of running that show.
And I tell people where I want them and what I want them to do and timeframes and how much.When we do butchering, Gary runs that show and I'm the support staff.And he says, okay, package these like this.I want this like that.
And then he'll say, I want to do this cut and that cut.And that just works out for us that we both don't have to take on all the knowledge of everything.And he kind of specializes in the meat.
And then I kind of specialize in the gaining side of things.Yeah.So there's that.I want, I want to say something on the tools, Alison, because they can be quite expensive.And so you're thinking, I thought we were saving money over here.
So there's lots more toys that we want to accumulate because after you do something a hundred times, you're like, you know, I'm beginning to see why they invented that thing.
We figured that every year we'll just buy another tool or maybe two, you know, kind of depends.But with some of the money we would have spent on cut and wrap.And that's a good way to look at it from the beginning.
So with the first pig, either we could have paid, it would have been for that pig around $450 or more for the cut and wrap.The first time we did a pig, we didn't.And we bought a bone saw, a breaking knife, and a couple of really sharp knives.
That's not, that did not cost us $450, but the reason we're saving the money was because we didn't have the money.So we didn't like to say, well, should we do this for 50?Burn it?I don't know.
But then every year we figure we take a little bit of the money that we didn't spend on cut and wrap and we invest in a tool that, you know,
Last year we bought a vacuum sealer and then by chance Gary found somebody who was getting rid of a meat grinder, like a restaurant meat grinder that had never been used for like $200.
So we bought that and that was an unexpected early acquisition to our library of tools. But over the span of several animals and several time, you can get quite a library of tools and experience.
And I'm sure that somebody would look at our setup, which now I feel like every single time we do it, like the last pig we did, we said, that was the best pig butchering we've ever done.
And then we just did the cow and we're like, that's the best butchering we've ever done.But I think it's just the experience.And we now know, okay, do this this way, have this on hand.
buy this much ice, be prepared for this, that, and the other thing.
And with, I'm sure somebody could look and say, oh, you're so lucky that you have all these tools, but I can remember all the nights that Gary and I stayed up until three o'clock in the morning, doing everything by hand, earning the right, if you will, in our budget to be able to go and buy those tools.
So yeah, you put the footwork in and you can, Yeah, this is why I say this one's for the last house, because it's kind of more complicated.Yeah.
And also to note, if you are asking a butcher to just slaughter and hang your meat, he may charge you double the kill fee. because he's not making any money off the cut and wrap.Our butcher does not do that.We have gone with butchers before who have.
I don't think it's unreasonable for them to ask it and I did choose, although he told me not to, but I did choose to give our butcher a tip. if you will, each time we paid him a little extra.That's a nice idea.
I would rather have a good relationship with him than save $20.That's an investment really, isn't it?
I mean, just having that relationship with someone who's willing to do that for you, it's worth taking the time and any spare resource you have to reinforce that.
And he's also... He's a butcher who is rare in the world of butchers who can, you know, sometimes be people who don't have a lot of compassion for animals after a long time.
And this butcher, just when you're around him, you're like, wow, why is he so calm?
And the first time we visited his farm, because he has a beautiful farm where he lives, and then he has a shop on it where he does the butchering, and then all his fields and his cows are out behind it.
And after we left, my six-year-old said, that farm is so peaceful.And I thought it was interesting that she observed that.
And I told him that she said that later when I went back and he said, well, we like to keep it calm, peaceful for the animals, so the animals are happy.
And I thought, that's a nice thing for a butcher to be thinking about, because that is not how they all think about it. Yeah.I should also note here that some butchers balk at providing organs, trotters, and odd bits.
They will be shocked if you ask for them, and they will really be shocked when they find out you're eating it themselves, yourself.
And Francine has run into this when she goes to her local butcher.
I was just thinking about that.
We were both thinking about her.She says, well, I think
So Francine's on the Discord and she's told us stories about visiting her butcher each time and how shocked he is that she wants a heart or a head.And not for her dog.What did she say?
She said the next thing I'm going to horrify him with his brains or something.
So do ask the butcher, hey, if we butcher with you, can we get spleen, kidney, the fat, the trotters, the head, you know, go through the list.The butcher that we work with now, he'll give you everything.If you want it, you can have it.
We even took the hide from our steer.
um yeah so yeah and you may need to pick this up the same day your animal is butchered um that is often the case and then he doesn't if you tell him i'll be there with a cooler or bags or whatever i'll pick it up you don't have to package it you don't have to do anything that's helpful um he may prefer you to just come later pick it up frozen
in like tossed into a big plastic bag that I find that much harder to work with because it's a blob or he may he may say do you want them packaged which would be cut and wrap possibly charge if he packaged them because somebody has to stand there and wrap it and they should be paid for that work with the whole animal later so just kind of got to talk that out with them and see what
uh, yeah, what, what he offers.But yeah, I've definitely worked with butchers who are like, no, no, unless I'm standing right there, which I have done stand right there with a bucket in my hand and say, throw that in here.
Um, I have done that before.Um, sometimes they're like, no, that's disgusting and we're not saving it for you.So yeah.Anyways, that's my two bits on home butchery. Wonderful, thank you.
I think that if listeners haven't done that and want to perhaps dip their toes into that, they should go back and have a listen to all the wonderful information you imparted on the poultry butchery episode.
I know it's not large animals, but there's lots of information on there on process, tools, and so they would get a good idea of kind of what to expect and what the learning curve is and in more detail than you've just shared with us.
So we should link that episode in the show notes as well.Yeah, we can do that.Wonderful.Okay, so do you want to add anything before we finish, Andrea?Or do you want to go and rest your voice?
No, I think that was it.That's everything I had.
Yeah, okay. I shall leave you to go and investigate what the lamb is doing upstairs and I expect to see pictures on Discord of it.And yeah, we'll leave it there.
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