Page 19 - Simply Vegetables Autumn 2021

Speaking in Public
In an earlier life I was an instructor, I had a long course on instructing and then went onto instruct. Many people dislike speaking in public; singing is regarded as making a fool of yourself! NVS members often give talks at DA meetings or other gardening clubs or organisations to promote the NVS and / or vegetable growing. It is important to give a good impression, so I have set out a few tips below:
Are you a ring or watch person? Do you tweak these and don’t know you are doing it? Are your waist coat buttons O.K. Mannerisms can be distracting to the audience.
Where are you focused? Not
on the lady or gent on the front
row I hope, it will make them feel uncomfortable. Look at least 3 metres back and speak as if speaking to someone downstairs so that you can be clearly heard even at the
back of the room, unless using a microphone.
Avoid using the same words, phases or umming and erring as this can be very distracting and some of the audience will start to count how many times you use the words or umm.
Is there a speaker’s lectern, do you grip it for assurance? My trainer
shouted “get away from that bl***dy lectern!” when I did my course.
Give the audience some eye contact, not too much or you might be taken for Ant and Dec!
In one talk I went to we sat in a dark hall as the speaker was showing slides, the speaker sat at the back; the talk went something like this: This Hydrangea grows 5000 feet
up the Himalayas, this one is on Bournemouth seafront, not sure about this one and on and on. Not the most interesting of talks. A bit like when Woody Allen said he had speed read War and Peace and was asked what it was about, Russia he
replied.
Have a joke ready but choose it to
suit the audience or you can upset some members.
Have you checked the PowerPoint, laptop, projector etc. have a test run before your talk.
Look at the audience’s eyes if they are wandering you have lost them.
I attended an organic club evening on Cuba and the young speaker dropped the slides all over the floor, the fill in on eliminating Japanese Knotweed for fifteen minutes can be a long time!
Roger Clements
Midland Branch
I found the article on the storage
of fruit and vegetables (‘Fruit and Vegetable Storage’ Simply Vegetables Summer 2021) an interesting read and the summary table a useful guide to the options for each variety.
However, I was struck by the omission of one significant preservation technique: fermentation. Whilst I’m sure NVS members are aware of fermentation being the
basis of wine and beer production, where yeasts convert sugars into alcohol (ethanol) and carbon dioxide, they may not be so familiar with it
as a technique for preserving a wide range of foods, primarily but not exclusively fruit and vegetables. You can, if adventurous, and you follow the correct techniques, ferment meat, fish and eggs. Note of caution: if you get it wrong with fruit and vegetables and you eat these, you’re unlikely to do yourself much harm, but with animal products you could end up with a potentially fatal dose of botulism! (Some readers may recall the tinned
salmon scandal of many decades ago.) Fermentation as a preserving
technique relies on immersing fruit and vegetables in a salty environment, typically a brine solution of around 5% by weight (i.e. 50g per litre) but up to 10% for meats, whilst excluding air (anaerobic fermentation). This allows halophilic (salt loving) bacteria to flourish whilst excluding other micro- organisms (bacteria and moulds)
that cause food to spoil. One of the principal halophiles is Lactobacillus, which produces lactic acid during
the fermentation process giving a sharpness to the finished product that is much milder than when you pickle foods using vinegar. This provides the acidic environment which prevents the growth of food spoiling micro- organisms.
Cabbage preserved this way creates Sauerkraut/Choucroute but the technique works well with root crops such as turnip, carrots and beetroot as well as fruits in the cucurbit family (I’m currently fermenting a glut of cucumbers as an alternative to more conventional pickling). Fermentation is also the basis of in vogue drinks such as Kombucha and Kefir.
For any NVS members who would like to explore fermentation further I strongly recommend the fermentation ‘bible’: The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz [Chelsea Green Publishing].
Roy Leach
Simply Vegetables 19