East meets west for home-grown greens in January XANTHE CLAY

Locally cultivated pak choi is filling the ‘hungry gap’ – and is sustainable, too

Vegan is the buzzword of the month, and most of us are trying to eat more veg. But while environmentalists point to the benefits of cutting down on meat, the foodie fashionistas seem to be missing out on another important part of eating better, more sustainable food.

Scroll through the Instagram pictures of plant-based dishes or the menus of on-trend vegan-friendly restaurants, and you’ll find little home-grown produce. Apparently “seasonal” has been thrown on the food-fad scrap heap. Sure, an avocado on sourdough toast may feel very Veganuary, but locally grown it ain’t – any more than those bright radishes (pink in photos elicits more likes on social media) or sugar snaps to dip in your redpepper hummus are.

To be fair, eating British in January is a challenge – but there’s more around than you might think. Or so reckons chef Nick Deverell Smith of the Churchill Arms in the Cotswolds.

To prove his point, Deverell Smith takes me to visit Sam Campanella, who is growing that Asian favourite, pak choi, just 10 miles away on the outskirts of Evesham. When we arrive, Campanella is surveying a velvety carpet of leaves in one of his polytunnels. Campanella’s father came over from Sicily in the Sixties as a migrant worker and wound up buying a farm, and Campanella Jr changed some production from lettuces to pak choi 14 years ago. They still grow some lettuces, he tells me, but “people want baby leaves now”.

Campanella grows pak choi all year for local restaurants and farm shops, although in winter the plants grow much more slowly. He doesn’t heat the tunnels and still plants in the soil, when many other growers have switched to hydroponics, feeding plants with cocktails of nutrients in water. “This way has more flavour,” he explains.

I’ve seen leafy oriental veg referred to as both pak choi and bok choy. Is there a difference? According to food writer and Chinese food expert Ching He Huang, it comes down to the colour of the stem, which can be white or pale green.

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