Seeds

"a small, round or oval object produced by a plant and from which, when it is planted, a new plant can grow" Cambridge Dictionary

"the beginning of something which continues to develop or grow; all the children, grandchildren, etc., of a particular man" Britannica Dictionary

To go to seed - "To become less attractive, effective, etc., because of age or lack of care" Britannica Dictionary

This was going to be one of my bits and pieces posts, I have been gathering a few, but now that I have begun, and now that I look at those definitions at the top of the page, I suspect I shall be rambling long enough for it to be a whole post of its own. So I shall have to think of another bits and pieces synonym for my next oddments post.

Let's perhaps start at the beginning with growing them - seeds that is. Remember my recent post The most wonderful book about Nigel Slater's book Tender Vol. 1 which stemmed from his gardening efforts? Well I just now found his introduction to the book on The Guardian website - On growing and eating your own veg which waxes lyrical, as he tends to do - maybe a bit too much sometimes - about growing things from seed and how it begins very early in our lives:

"cress seeds sprouting on wet blotting paper. It is a smell I first encountered in childhood, a classroom project that became a hobby. Cool and watery, fresh yet curiously ancient, as you might expect from a mixture of green shoots and damp parchment, it has notes of both nostalgia and new growth about it. Sometimes, when I have watered my vegetable patch late on a spring evening, I get a fleeting hint of that scent. A ghost-like reminder of how this whole thing started.

I guess I have always grown something to eat: that cress on a blotter when I was still in short trousers; beans in a jam jar; carrots and candy tuft in a forlorn strip of my parents' garden. There were the tomato plants precariously balanced on the window ledge of my student digs; orange and lemon pips and other unmentionable plants nurtured under grow lights; salad sprouters; a bucket garden on a balcony."

It was mustard and cress for me and I still remember the joy it gave me to eat them in a sandwich of white bread. I can still almost taste them. Maybe I should buy a packet of seeds and do it again. I might be able to manage growing them. I'm not very good at growing other things. It's one of the things like being able to ski with abandon, or sing like an opera diva that I wish I could do but are completely out of my reach. It's an urge - to grow things - isn't it? I always remember one of my pupils in long ago Hackney, whom I found scrabbling for some dirt in the gutter so that he could grow something at home in his flat.

So yes, seeds can be grown into food, and we all really should do more of it. Yesterday one of my friends told me of how, having spread compost on their garden last year, a multitude of tomato plants grew everywhere, so that they feasted on many varieties of tomatoes all summer. That happens to me too - the growing seeds, but alas they don't produce many tomatoes, and those that do grow get eaten by something. Nothing is going to eat mustard and cress from your kitchen surely?

However, still on food, there are a vast number of seeds that we eat in one form or another. Indeed the basic foods of the planet - rice, soy, grains and corn are all seeds. Grind them and you have flour which becomes bread, pasta, noodles, cake ...

Then there are the seeds that make our food taste yummy, either just as they are, mixed with other seeds, ground, whole, toasted and soaked. Scattered on top of other food, mixed in with it, or even being the main ingredient mixed with others - health bars being the supreme example here. Not to mention the vast number of spice mixes that we use to make our food sing. Virtually all of them are made from seeds.

Remember nuts are seeds too - as are berries. And with the taste comes the texture - the crunch that we love so much, and that possibly ruins our teeth.

The larger fruit hides its seeds within, because if left to fall to the ground and provide food for the seed within to grow into new fruit. Some of these seeds within - as in pumpkins, passionfruit and pomegranates, we eat for themselves, to add flavour and texture to our foods and add various minerals, vitamins and other chemicals to our diet. Some, as in the apple, we just discard. Unless perhaps you are a small boy in Hackney who wants to try and grow an apple from seed. (painting by Mindi Oaten)

"Not only do they add texture, but seeds often have subtle yet distinctive flavors that can make a meal pop. In addition, they add visual texture as a garnish and can make even a scoop of white rice go from boring to exciting." Tasting Table

Then there are beans, peas, legumes - actual vegetables in their own right. If you broaden the definition of seed to include tubers and swollen roots, from which new plants grow, then you include other basics - like potatoes, cassava and yams.

Enough of the plants - onto the metaphorical usage of the word - 'the beginning of something which continues to develop or grow"

The seed of an idea I guess. Something I look for every time I sit down to write a post on this blog. The whole idea of the blog in the first place I guess. And here I will insert a phrase from a long ago university friend of ours (Mike Mansfield), who had an illustrious career as a barrister, and who is featured in the university's celebratory 75 year alumni magazine which arrived in my inbox yesterday. He commented that it was his years at Keele that "bounced my brain into action". And when I read those words, I thought that yes, maybe it did mine too - although not in such an outstanding way. Mine didn't bounce very far. But it did bounce. A kind of seed in the brain was nudged into growth.

The seed of an idea or the beginning of something need not be so significant however. It could be as simple as thinking of what to cook for that dinner. Nothing alas today. I am fasting. But I can sift through ideas for tomorrow. A fridge leftovers beginning I think. Maybe some samosas from that leftover curry. There isn't really enough to just reheat as is and David is not going to eat it for his solitary dinner tonight. So boil it down to thicken it a bit, add some peas, or broccolini or Brussels sprouts perhaps, and encase in samosa pastry. Serve with salad. Yes that could do it. I even once made a quiche with some leftover tandoori chicken, but I don't think that would work with curry - it's too liquid.

Next definition - "all the children, grandchildren, etc., of a particular man". And yes I know we do describe descendants as seed, but really it's the seed from the man - his sperm that is the real seed. And is an egg a seed?

So far, so positive - let's finish with going to seed. "Less atrractive and less effective, because of age or lack of care." Well I definitely qualify for that, and I shall say no more on the topic. And yet little seeds in the brain continue to expand now and then.

Going to seed is also one of my major gardening problems. If you don't continually harvest the outside leaves of herbs and leafy vegetables they do indeed go to seed putting all their energy into producing the flowers and then the seeds - so that they can continue to live. At the moment my very small veggie patch is full of tiny parsley plants produced from the seeds, scattered from the flowers which I left to bloom when I ceased being able to keep up with harvesting last year's leaves. But that's wonderful - you can never have too much parsley.

It's a circle - a bit like the chicken and the egg. Which came first? The seed or the flower adn the fruit?

"Once in a golden hour, I cast to earth a seed,

And up there grew a flower,

That others called a weed."

Alfred Lord Tennyson

And really we should be cultivating the dandelion for its leaves in a salad. Its flowers and roots too. And also, I saw, one writer say, as food for wildlife.

But yes, I'm going to see if I have any mustard and cress seeds. I have a vague memory of buying some.

POSTSCRIPT

Those years gone by - I almost forgot - August 20

2023 - A fridge-raid tart - which begins with this quote - of relevance to 'what's for dinner?': "There's a universal sweet spot by the fridges familiar space in which we've all stood, door ajar and locked into a staring match with the fridge's contents. It's existing in that limbo between yourself and the next meal, waiting for inspiration to strike." Tara Wigley/OTK Shelf Love

2022 - Tonnato - not what it used to be

2021 - Cream buns

2020 - Back of the pantry - pickled cherries

2019 - What's going to go off?

2018 - Dried sage and dried herbs in general. Well fresh sage too.

2017 - Life and leisure for the uber rich and glossy food magazines

2016 - Nothing