Eat Ethically Donna Air keeps it real

Date Published:

07/05/2009

Hannah Williams caught up with Donna Air to find out why the TV presenter is keeping food real at the Real Food Festival

We know you from a number of TV roles, but when did you first become interested in 'real food'?

Well, I've been working with the Soil Association for a long time now. It became known - my interest in all things organic and local - and they thought I'd be a natural spokesperson for them, having banged on about organic food for some time. I was only supposed to be involved for a few weeks but I'm still doing things six years later. I've really enjoyed my journey with them, I've learnt a lot from them and I think they're a great society that's very much needed in today's world.

But what first sparked your interest in the 'real food' debate?

Over the time I was making bread there was a large change in people's reaction to organic bread. A lot of people were coming out and saying they couldn't digest conventional bread.

Heavily processed breads have a much shorter fermentation process. There are also a lot of hidden additives not included on the labels that are in there to keep it soft and squidgy. Ideally bread needs a fermentation time of a minimum of four hours. If you let dough ferment for a minimum of four hours, that's when all the good stuff starts to come out. The fermentation time for processed bread can be zero hours, it's called no time dough; it's popped straight in the tin and the most amount of time it has to ferment in the tin can only be 20 minutes.

What is the Real Bread Campaign and what are you campaigning for?

I'd been gravitating towards a healthier lifestyle and then, when I became pregnant, that accelerated again. I think for a lot of women your consciousness changes when you become pregnant, because you're suddenly responsible for someone else and you ask a lot more questions.

How did you come to be involved in the Real Food Festival?

We've just published the Grown in Britain Cookbook and the Real Food Festival seemed a good place to launch. Allegra [McEvedy] is cooking at the festival and she's contributed a recipe in the book.

Is there any of your own cooking in the book?

Yes I've contributed a recipe and I wrote the foreword and was editor on the book.

We talk a lot about 'real food' but what does term actually mean for you?

I think real food is good food, good quality food, whether that be organic or local. For me organic food and local food is about getting the best quality taste and product, with maximum health benefits.

What do you think people should take from the festival?

It'll be a good way of raising awareness and it'll be really good fun. It's a way for people to be able to sample new producers, be introduced to lots of new ways of doing things and find better ways of doing things, so it should be very exciting.

Do you think people are under more pressure when they do their shopping at the moment given the economic climate?

Absolutely - it's not the credit crunch people should be worrying about, it's the food crunch. Every cloud has a silver lining and I think one of the great things to come out of the economic downturn is that it will bring everything back to basics. We've been importing lots of food when we don't really need to; now we'll have to start supporting our local economies. It'll also make us focus on a more sustainable and energy efficient way of doing things. It's a shame that we've been forced into doing it economically but it's a good thing. People started focusing on quantity as opposed to quality, things got mass produced, processed and we don't really need to be doing that. So it will be nice to go back to the way it used to be a lot more.

What would you say to people who are tempted to turn away from 'real food' while money is tight?

In the long term it is actually more cost efficient. A lot of people are getting more excited about growing their own food and we are going to have to start working out where we can get our food from. We can't all grow our food - we're all busy, we're all working - but there are really great ways in which we can team up. We've got so much access to gardens and land around us that there is no reason why we can't chip in have a little bit of space, and have people who are green fingered growing our food and supplying us locally.

Do you grow anything yourself?

No, but I'm looking into some spaces nearby and getting neighbours together so we can all chip in and have a plot that supplies us all. I would be really interested in ideas like that and I think it would be more cost efficient.

So many of us have lost the appreciation for our food. If we bought a little less, and bought better quality, it's not going to cost us more. When you spend a little bit more for something then you have more appreciation for it and you make it go further, so there's less waste.

What's your number one tip for cooking on a budget?

I think planning ahead and thinking about what you're going to cook is a really good way of cooking on a budget, because then I don't just buy loads of stuff that I'm not going to use - and I don't throw away as much. So I'll sit there on a Sunday and say, 'right, we'll have this on a Monday, we'll have that on a Tuesday, we're out on Wednesday '– it's just forward planning and forward thinking, instead of going into the supermarket and panicking and buying everything.

Also, if I'm making roast chicken on a Tuesday then great, we'll have a soup on the Wednesday because we've got stock and then we can reuse any leftover soup in a pasta sauce on a Thursday. You could probably get three meals stretched out of a basic chicken.

Does the cookbook have a British focus?

It's all stuff that's grown in Britain. It's really simple - it's basically a month by month guide of what you can get locally, what's in season and what to do with it. There's a selection of really simple ideas for what you can do each month to eat stuff in season.

British cooking has a bad rep in the rest of the world - should we be proud of our nation's cuisine?

Absolutely, it's all about creativity at the end of the day, finding new things and exciting things to do with it. I'm very proud to be British and I'm proud of our produce. Let's be honest, we've got everything at our hands that we need to have a good, healthy, nutritious diet.

So what's your number one British dish?

I think chicken broth actually, with potatoes and carrots and whatever veg you've got lying around. Simple, hearty, rustic food - that's what I like.

Find out more about the Real Food Festival

Enjoy recipes from the Real Food Festival

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