Latest news with #blacksoil
Daily Mail
28-06-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
Olia Hercules: ‘My hangover cure is a bit of pickle brine'
My first food memory is of my mum, Olga, chopping the first cucumber and tomatoes of the season into an enamel bowl. I remember it so well – the intoxicating smell and sound they made as they hit that bowl. We cooked and ate with the seasons. We lived in the south of Ukraine with this beautiful, fertile black soil, so my family grew their own stuff. But there were no supermarkets, and it was really tough in the 1980s. I think one of the reasons why the Soviet Union finally crumbled was because of the huge food shortages. The queues for bread and meat were insane – people would sell you their places in them – but if you knew someone or grew your own food, it was fine. When I was growing up, my mum did the lion's share of the cooking, but my dad Petro was an amazing cook, too. My older brother Sasha and I didn't cook – we just ate. But I was a really picky eater and, in extreme situations, my dad would step in and make his special broth: water, whole onion, carrot, some vermicelli, potatoes, chopped boiled eggs and lots of dill. I'd eat whatever he gave me when I was having those meltdowns. I was at primary school when the Berlin Wall came down, and Ukraine became independent on the first day of my next school in 1991. I remember suddenly everyone was eating 'pizza', which wasn't really pizza at all, but rather Ukrainian dough formed into a small, thick round. It had marie rose sauce on top and some really bad frankfurter sausages, and it was the most delicious thing. We never really had a culture of sweets and snacks. But in the early 90s, little kiosks began to pop up along the side of the road, along with babusi (grandmas) selling chocolate bars. If my parents gave me some money, I'd buy a Lion bar, which I loved so much I would stretch it out, taking a whole hour to eat it. There are very few foods now that I don't like, but avocado is one of them. There was also the boiled milk we were forced to drink at school, with a skin on top – it would make me gag. My comfort food is mashed potato, the way my mum makes it – loads of butter and milk, and served with pickled cucumber. The sourness and the comfort of the potato really whisks me back home. I have a shedload of homemade fermented pickles in the fridge, much to my husband's dismay. Fermentation – which I teach classes in – is a big part of Ukrainian culture. We ferment everything, and so I always have lots of jars filled with anything from watermelon and tomatoes to aubergines and wild garlic flowers. My hangover cure is a bit of pickle brine. It really sorts you out. My dad wasn't a big drinker, but if he came back from a wedding or something like that, the next morning you'd see him take out this massive three-litre jar of fermented cucumbers and just drink the brine. It's the best. My favourite meal was probably the last summer in my parents' house, before the Russian invasion. We made hand-cut noodles, my mum cooked a goose and there were massive peaches and tomatoes from her garden, too. I'll never forget Wilfred, my youngest, eating a peach and being covered in its juice. It was sunny, wonderful and delicious, and a taste of a very different time. FSB [security service] agents have taken over our house now, and our town is occupied by Russians. I don't know if we'll ever be able to go back. My parents lost everything and had to flee. My mum is in Berlin but my father refused to live there on benefits. He is back in Ukraine and turning an old tractor into a minesweeper. My dad always gives me hope. My last supper would be my mother's varenyky [Ukrainian dumplings], made out of syr cheese, and swimming in butter and sour cream. That's my last dish on earth, for sure.
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Yahoo
Caravan dad 'blown away' by sketchy problem at Aussie campsites: 'Bogged for days'
When reflecting on Australia's iconic landscape, it's hard not to picture the distinct dusty, red dirt that stretches across the centre of the lucky country. However, that might not be the case for everyone, with a lesser-known 'sketchy' soil creating big problems at caravan parks and campsites, leaving some travellers 'bogged for days'. When Aaron Schubert, 35, his wife and their two young sons hit the road to embark on a two-year lap of Australia, the dad told Yahoo he was pretty familiar with the 'clay mud' often seen in his home state of WA. But as the family trekked further north and along the coast to Queensland, they were shocked by the stark difference in the dirt beneath their feet. 'We've done a ridiculous amount of 4WDing and black soil was fairly new to us, but it blew me away with how sketchy things can get,' Schubert, who has shared tips about caravanning and camping on his website for 15 years. Black soil, otherwise referred to as a vertosol, is Australia's most fertile soil and can be found largely across Queensland and NSW, especially in agricultural areas. While it is prime for produce, the cracking clay soil can get 'really sticky' and soft when wet, former president of Soil Science Australia Dr Vanessa Wong told Yahoo. Unsurprisingly, this has landed numerous campers in quite a pickle, with Schubert saying it's 'very easy for people to get caught out'. 'I was quite taken aback as to how slippery it was on a number of occasions in Cape York,' he added. One morning, while staying at a caravan park in Karumba, a coastal town in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Schubert told Yahoo he awoke to find some cars 'stuck at the bottom' and wandered down to see what was going on. 'I nearly stacked it in my thongs. You don't even have to sink into [black soil]. There's just zero traction,' he said. 'We went to another campsite not long after and there were cars that were bogged for five or six days. They just had to wait for it all to dry out.' In nearby Normanton, Schubert popped into the visitors centre and learned multiple campers had gotten stuck near a river after ignoring a warning to move before the rain set in. 'They'd rung up asking for recoveries, with some people saying their van started sliding towards the river at night when the rain hit. If you imagine the slipperiest stuff you can stand on, black soil is pretty similar! 'If there's black soil on the surface and it rains, that's it — you're in big trouble.' Schubert, who returned home to Perth late last year, said his family avoided getting bogged by being 'pretty cautious' and consistently keeping an eye on the weather. 'I think that applies in general to 4WDing. You don't want to be at the top or bottom of a mountain if it's gonna rain because you it doesn't have to be black soil for you to end up in a world of pain.' 🏕️ Caravan couple blast 'selfish' act creating major camping issue in Australia 🌊 Camping trip at Aussie beach ends in heartbreak after callous act 💰 Warning as major camping fee hike will 'price ordinary Aussies out' In Australia, there are several kinds of vertosols — black soil is just one of them, Dr Wong said. It shrinks and swells depending on whether it's wet or dry, with some farmers reporting losing entire fence posts in the soil's large cracks. 'Clay soils can be found all over the world but Australia has the largest variety of these shrink/swell soils — it's one of the really neat things about the Aussie landscape. They also make up a large area relative to our land mass which is probably why people keep coming across them,' Dr Wong told Yahoo. 'These soils can be quite deep so once you get stuck in them they get really, really sticky because of the clay contents. There's nothing underneath to stop you from sinking.' Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@ You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
