Revitalise with Pangoula’s organic produce

Pangoula’s life-enhancing organic produce.

COULD you imagine planning meals for a week without including crisp iceberg lettuce, moss-green spinach and rape, radiant orange carrots, energy-boosting bananas or sweet and crispy apples from the misty slopes of the Eastern Highlands? If these and other fruit and vegetables feature high on your weekly shopping list, there’s no better place to visit than a farmers market, particularly if you’re looking for organic food produced without man-made fertilisers and pesticides.

There are several farmers markets in Harare, the most popular being UpMarket at 12 Maasdorp Avenue in Belgravia, and the Amanzi farmers market just behind the multicoloured totem pole, at 158 Enterprise Road. Amanzi farmers market, popular with ever increasing numbers of shoppers in search of top quality produce, is open every Friday morning between 9.30 am and 1 pm. While many of the shoppers tend to be middle class consumers in search of organic food stuffs, an awareness of the nutritional, emotional and mental benefits of eating fruit and vegetables produced without conventional fertilisers and insecticides is spreading to all levels of society.

Prue Searle of Pangoula Farm in Arcturus, supplies a number of farmers markets with an array of vegetables, all grown on one hectare of land, using the organic farming methods of crop rotation, green manure and composting. Nitrogen fixing legumes such as beans, clover and cowpeas are plowed back into the soil, improving fertility. Prue employs one worker dedicated to making the all-important compost from chicken and cattle manure, mixed with herbs such as stinging nettle and comfrey. More herbs and chicken manure are added to tanks of water to create a liquid feed.

Although the vegetable garden is small, production is labour intensive, and Prue employs eleven workers to weed, dig and mulch the beds. Production falls off during the rainy season, but winter is a great time to grow organic vegetables. At last week’s farmers market, food lovers queued up to buy Pangoula’s lettuce, snow white cauliflower, broccoli, beetroot, snow peas, carrots and sprouts.

It’s widely believed by people with chronic illnesses that the body has a natural ability to heal itself through an organic vegetarian diet including raw juices. The Gerson Clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, treats early cancer patients with a diet of freshly pressed juice from organic fruit and vegetables. Thirteen glasses of juiced carrot, apple, orange and green leaf vegetables must be consumed daily, in addition to various other supplements, including linseed oil. On returning home, patients should continue drinking pressed juice, always prepared from organic vegetables and fruit.

Having filled a shopping bag at Pangoula’s stall, you might be drawn to a display of gouda and cream cheese, produced by Bruce Freebairn of Valley Farm. Located at the end of Enterprise Road, just before the toll gate, Valley Farm is home to Bruce’s much loved dairy cows and goats. Bruce supplies raw cow’s milk, a source of minerals, proteins and vitamins, and a welcome alternative to pasteurized milk, that can be lacking in nutrients and essential compounds. Once the female goats have weaned their young, Bruce uses their milk to make large white goats cheeses. These are especially good eaten with leafy salad greens, pecan nuts and wafer-thin prosciutto. Bruce also sells rich clotted cream, delicious with scones and apple pie.

There are also many delicious, indulgent foods available at Amanzi farmers market, such as home made cakes, spicy samoosas, duck breasts and boerewors. Should we be concerned when science makes conflicting claims about diet and nutrition? In Woody Allen’s 1973 comedy ‘Sleeper’, Miles Monroe, the owner of Happy Carrot Health Food Restaurant, wakes up 200 years in the future to find that science has proved deep-fried food to be healthy.

A visit to a farmers market will give the opportunity to fortify and revitalise your body with organic produce. But don’t walk past the biscuits, jams and pickles without a second glance – there must be truth in the saying that a little of what you fancy does you good.  – A Matter of Taste with Charlotte Malakoff

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