Sometimes I think to myself, now I’m moving to the forest. With soaring electricity prices, living on the moss floor is a tempting option. In addition, chanterelles and blackberries are currently growing. There would be enough food. So. Back to the roots, garnished with wild romance. If our ancestors secured their survival with a bow and arrow, then so can I.
Of course I can’t. I am far from self-sufficiency and too used to the heated four walls. I remember an acquaintance who lived in the woods for two years, but gave up his experiment during a frosty winter.
But even in warm countries it is not very exciting to do without electricity. Unforgettable my trip to the villages in Madagascar. Electricity, like running water, is scarce. In general, around 40 percent of all people in Africa live without electricity. They heat and cook with dung, wood or charcoal – a disaster for the forests and your own lungs, writes the Zeit columnist Andrea Böhm.
While many countries are about survival, some Austrians hyperventilate when they have to go without the internet for half an hour. Very few people think about eating during a power outage. Only when the ceramic hob and the coffee machine stay cold does it get dark. Now it’s getting uncomfortable.
However, some cooks deliberately pull the plug. Hannes Müller from the “Die Forelle” hotel, for example, deliberately does without electricity several times a year and cooks “unplugged” for the guests. Switch off. To reduce. Müller calls it clearing your head.
In the Litzlberger Keller am Attersee, too, a young team showed how enjoyable nine courses can be prepared on the jetty without electricity or gas. Marinated char with tomato and watermelon was one of them: 120 g salt, 80 g sugar, 1 teaspoon ground coriander, zest from a lime, mix well, marinate two char fillets and leave to soak for three hours. Then cut 150 g of mixed tomatoes into small pieces and marinate with lime juice, 1 tsp sugar, salt and 1 tsp fresh tarragon.
Cut 1/4 watermelon into 1 cm thick slices and grill on the charcoal grill until the sugar in the melon caramelizes and gets colour. Cut the melon into small cubes. Rinse the fish under cold water, pat dry, pluck the bones, peel off the skin and cut into cubes (1 cm). Place the tomatoes on a deep plate and serve with the char and melon.
Source: Nachrichten
