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Tasteofthetopend

Entwining a love of place, plants and people in the tasty sweaty north……. Em Lupin

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Taste of The Top End

Taste of The Top End

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As the rain falls in the Top end, I have been typing. I had the great pleasure last year to be with some beautiful women in a migrants ladies program and help them share their stories through Local plants and the sharing of food. Some of these and their recipes have just been sent to print; so we can share these with you too. #foodstories #migrantladies #multiculturaldarwin #tropicalplants #growyourown #backyardplants #connectingcommunity

Rain on our red stuff! Festive fruits and flowers that are ready right now, native and non native, merry monsoon, at last it may be coming... #merrymonsoon #darwinlife #festivefruits #monsoonmood #tropicalfruits #growyourown #wildfood #itsraining

No merry monsoon is complete without pineapple posing. I wish you a fun filled time with friends, family, food (not food waste) and forward thinking ! I am off to make pineapple salsa...I recently stated that it’s a bit confusing / weird living in the Tropics (and being human). Our festive season derived from mid winter celebrations, on a continent in mid summer, in a heat wave and on fire. Our longest day in the Tropics is yet to come and happens twice. So what is appropriate celebration. I say no to tinsel, fake snow and hot roasts and yes to pineapples, pools and not many clothes ( thanks to Zoe for my pineapple pinifore pictured). I hope you say yes to great things ! #merrymonsoon #festivefruit #appropriatecelebration #darwinlife

Behind the advent calendar today is an abundance of fruit and veggies. It’s already here and we only covered about half of our amazing wet season edibles. Pictured are rose apples and longans along with rambutans and pineapples. We also didn’t mention our special roots of taro and sweet potato and a whole range of native edibles or even the amazingly important banana. I hope some are featuring in your festive feasts. It’s been quite a lot of energy making sure there is an advent door to open everyday, so I am resting from social media. Have a good one and I hope you are having a great time with people and plants from our community and that the monsoons poor down in ya #localfood #tropicalchristmas #merrymonsoon #fruity

Day 24 of the edible advent and we are doing a little last minute addition of something green and super versatile to add to festive feasts; smaller plant, a vine in fact that is easy to grow, versatile in many dishes and available at several markets Snake bean has the botanical name of Vigna unguiculata ssp., in. the legume family. This bean originates from South East Asia. They grow all year but love the humidity of our wet season, best in the full sun, in a free draining place. It needs a trellis to climb up and will produce beans after at least 30 days of growth. Easily grown from seed, collected from dried older snake beans. Red and green varieties are available. Snake bean is great raw or steamed a little in salads or just in a side dish of steamed greens. It can be used in curries, soups and many dishes- best added at the end not to over cook it. The seed pods contain vitamin C, A, protein, iron I’m the first photo is Jasmine who grows food on her family farm in Humpty Doo. #tropicalbeans #asiangreens #growyourown #tropicalfood #backyardfood #christmasveggies #darwingrown

Jackfruit flashback ! So I said 10 years ago we planted the Jackfruit in our front yard food forest! This is a photo 8 years ago of the first harvest and a photo of Jon looking cute and very pleased with himself. On the right he is also looking cute and pleased with himself, but that photo of his first home harvest vegetable hugging years, which goes back 40 years. So keep the fruit and veggie love alive everyone and don’t forget to hug your fruit and appreciate your harvest! #foodlove #growyourown #veggieharvest #jackfruitlove #tropicalfruit #vintagephotos #growyourown #loveyourveggies #plantlove

On this 23rd day of the edible advent as we hopefully near a glimmer of monsoon, I present a very important plant, one that still does OK with minimum love and can grow huge amounts of fruits, which can be used in a whole host of ways. It is the largest tree fruit in the world—Did you guess what it is yet? The Jackfruit. The Jackfruits mature from theend of the dry season. And into the wet. Today my friend Biji came to collect a Jackfruit from our tree and we are about to make curry together. The thing about Jackfruit is that they are quite a big job to cut up, so it is best to do with friends. Many people in Darwin have trees and don’t like to harvest or do anything with them and others are super keen to get hold of them, so I still have ideas of how this could transpire into a great dating ap. Anyway some Jackfruit facts… Jackfruit (Atrocarpus heterophyllus) originates from South India. In Moraceae (the mulberry family) The fruit is versatile and can be used in many forms- ripe or unripe.It is commonly used in South and Southeast Asian cuisines.[14][15] Both the ripe seeds and the unripe fruit are consumed. The jack tree is widely cultivated around the world in the Tropical lowlands. It is the national fruit of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and is processed into many products. It is a massive source of vitamin B6 and vitamin C, A and high in fibre and protein- the nutritional content of course changes, depending on how ripe it is. It is a food security plant in many countries and also used as a. wood for carving and as a dye plant. Karunika is one of the Jackfruit queens of Darwin and ran a Jackfruit workshop at Lakeside Drive Community Garden this year, showcasing at least 20 ways of cooking it… We have plans to repeat this and dedicate a day to this important plant. #jackfruit #tropicalfruits #growyourown #localfood #backyardplants #tropicallife

After living on a boat for years I am obsessed with sun angles. “Soltice” is passing and now the sun is heading back to be more directly above us again. Solstice is not our longest day.. that is still to come. Right now the sun at its noon point is 79 degrees angle and once again increasing to be overhead. I cycled to the beach- a snap from old cracked phone with no filters to show I do leave my house and do things that are not photographing fruit and roots. A time to reflect, a 5 minute bike ride from the ocean and and a breeze to momentarily releave the sticky skin... Soltice in the Tropics is different. If you live in the Tropics, between 22.5 degrees N or S of the equator it means the sun will be directly overhead at 90 degrees, twice in a year, unless you are right on 0 degrees. Solstice- The Latin literally means the standing still of the sun, which is true...but our summer is still to come, Here in the Tropics at 12 degrees South what does it mean?. Well it isn’t the longest day, it means the sun reaches to be directly overhead on the Tropic of Capricorn, it means the earth starts to tilt the other way, it means it has gone as far to the South of us as it will and it is heading back (from our perspective, we of course are spinning and tilting). The sun will be directly overhead of us and our longest day will be in February (16th) and then the sun will head toward the equator in March and cross to the Northern Hemisphere to be directly overhead of the Tropic of Cancer in June (21st ish) (our mid winter) when the sun is furthest from us. It will then track back and once again be overhead in November...a time of reflection still, a time to tune in to the track of the sun, to the tides and the earth’s strong forces. If you haven’t always lived in to the tropics, tune into the suns track and flow (which reflects in the landscapes and flows on to how you plant and sow) The Solstice has passed and our longest day and overhead sun is still to come. Let’s hope for rain ! Timeanddate.com is a great website if you want to geek this out! #tropicalsun #solstice #tropicalcycles #hometosunandwarmth #tropicalliving #sunoverhead #tropicalsummer #sunandmoon #timeanddate

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