The Rural Voice, 2005-12, Page 18A rA, Cr WA RAT
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We just wanted to say
"Merry Christmas",
and "thanks" for calling
on us this past year.
We appreciate your
kind patronage.
from Ron, Betty, Paul
and Dianne
K.M.M. FARM
DRAINAGE
Walton
887-6428 (Shop) 527-1633
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From all of us to you and yours,
thanks and best wishes for the
Holiday Season.
Wishing you a successful New Year.
MULLIN'S FARM
WHITE SERVICE PRwm.
OLARIS
Beiana
( "° Chepstow, Ont.
(519) 366-2325 1-800-561-1801
www.agdealer.com/mullins mullins@log.on.ca
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14 THE RURAL VOICE
1820. There may be other dedicated
organic bakeries that use mini -mills
to grind their own locally -grown
wheat.
There are many recipes for
dressing to stuff your turkey so it's
probably possible to get by without
many things that must be "imported"
from beyond a 100 -mile radius. Sage,
often used in stuffing, can be grown
locally so is available from local
gardeners, though if you buy it in a
supermarket you're almost certain to
be breaking the 100 -mile rule.
You're just plain out of luck if
you want to use black pepper and
stick to the 100 -mile rule. The
principal exporters for black pepper
are India, Indonesia, Brazil and
Malaysia. Pepper is a viny perennial
plant producing berry -like and
aromatic pungent fruits. Dried ripe
berries become black and wrinkled
constituting black pepper. Black
pepper yields both black and white
pepper. Black pepper is made by
drying ripe or unripe fruits under the
sun; white pepper by soaking,
treating and removing the outer skin
of the berry before drying.
Pepper was so precious in
ancient times that it was used
as money to pay taxes, tributes,
dowries, and rent. It was weighed
like gold and used as a common
medium of exchange. In A.D. 410,
when Rome was captured, 3,000
pounds of pepper were demanded as
ransom.
Of course one of the condiments
that often travels long distances to
the family table elsewhere, is in wide
supply in midwestern Ontario: salt.
Throughout Huron County there are
salt deposits left from the days when
this area was once a seabed. In the
late 1800s nearly every community
in the county had a salt processing
industry, pumping hot water down
into the salt deposits, dissolving the
salt, then evaporating the water to
create salt. Wood was the big source
of heat for the evaporation process so
when cheap wood disappeared with
the clearing of the land, so did the
salt industry. The only one of these
operations left is the Sifto Salt
evaporator operation in Goderich. It's
less well-known than the mammoth
salt mine which stretches out under
Lake Huron but the mine produces
salt for highways. The evaporator