Sorry it's been so long since I posted. As it often does, my life got in the way of my life. Various family members came to visit, we had to do two quick days in New York, etc. etc. The following post was actually begun before all this activity. I'm not exactly happy with it, but I'll improve it later.
Up here in Farm Country, it becomes really obvious how food can encourage community. I’d been having trouble articulating this until I saw a wonderful post on the online magazine Grist, celebrating Iowa farm markets. In the middle of a dissertation on how people socialize at the Farmers’ Market while they move as quickly as they can through the aisles of the nearest Wal-Mart, heads down, the author concludes, “It is another way that real food brings us together, while mass-produced food-like substances further divide and isolate us.”
But wait, you’re protesting, I’ve had fun times at McDonalds. I’m not saying you haven’t. But most of the time, McDonald’s—and most other processed food meccas, including the frozen food aisle of your grocery store—exist to indulge people’s need to eat fast and on the run.
Consider Michael Pollan’s description in The Omnivore’s Dilemma of a typical modern American family meal: “Over the course of half an hour or so, each family member roams into the kitchen, removes a single-portion entrée from the freezer, and zaps it in the microwave. . . After the sound of the beep each diner brings his microwaveable dish to the dining room table, where he or she may or may not cross paths with another family member at the table for a few minutes.”
OK, so we’re not all that bad. But lots of processed food is designed to be eaten conveniently in front of the computer or the television, or in the car, and is not conducive to conversation. According to Pollan, in fact, the new holy grail of the processed food industry is a meal you can eat with one hand, presumably with the other on the steering wheel.
Increasingly, we eat alone—as fast as we can. There is little room for dinnertime conversation, or even for savoring the food we eat. In this context, I can better understand the lure of the masses of starch that now masquerade as food. After all, it’s just fuel.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
Looming heirlooms-- and why sometimes it's best to leave the pests alone
Reason that real food costs so much, #489: real vegetables are not bred to last.
I am talking here about heirloom tomatoes, which everyone has heard about while very few people actually know what they are. I went to the Wikipedia site on heirloom tomatoes for a straightforward definition-- and was thwarted by the "some people say this; some people argue that" tone of the article. Apparently the construction of simple declarative statements is a lost art. (Check out the Wikipedia site anyway-- it's got some good information on specific varieties.)
But I digress. Heirlooms are varieties of tomatoes (or whatever other "heirloom" plant you're investigating-- this wikipedia site is much more helpful) is essentially a cultivar that was commonly grown during earlier times in history, (i.e., pre-industrial agriculture) and is not used in modern agriculture. Of course, the cardboard-tasting red balls you can buy in the supermarket are not the only alternative to heirlooms-- there are many varieties grown by organic and small farmers that are also modern-day hybrids, which are easier to grow and store. The big point to remember is that heirlooms are quite a diverse lot-- they're all sorts of colors, shapes, sizes-- and eye-popping flavors.
So why do they cost so much? First off, the seeds are more expensive. More importantly, however, you can put tons of effort into growing heirlooms and get very little yield. There's a very small window between ripening and spoilage. Out picking heirlooms yesterday, I was initially excited to see all the splashes of red peaking out of the green stems. But going through an entire 100 feet or so of heirloom plants, I probably had to junk about half the ripe ones I found. Many had split, and many more displayed a black spot on the bottom that belied the beginnings of "blossom end rot". (In that case, you can often cut off the black spot and eat the tomato yourself. But forget about displaying it at a farmers' market or getting any actual profit from it.)
I also had my first encounter with the dreaded tomato horn worm. These caterpillars are not only the ugliest thing you're likely to see on the farm (compared to them, earthworms are positively gorgeous), but are some of the most destructive. In addition to actual tomatoes, they munch on new growth at the tops of the plants, leaving naked stems in their wake. I'm also told that their--ahem-- excrement is about the size and shape of goat droppings, but thankfully I have yet to encounter this particular sight.
My mother, who always grew a few tomato plants in her backyard garden, used to get these things, too. At the time (this was 30 years ago), she simply hit the whole plant with some kind of pesticide. This is, of course, a no-no now, particularly on an organic farm. Instead, we get to pluck the thing off the plant with our (preferably-gloved) hands, drop it on the ground and step on it. At least that's the simplest way. If you have a lot, you can apparently also drop them all in a bucket and then burn them.
Probably not the preferred method for the animal-rights community, who would have been gleefully laughing at me later anyway, when I looked up tomato horn worms on the Internet and made an interesting discovery. The particular horn worm I saw had a bunch of white fuzzy things sticking to its back, which made it look even more like something I really didn't want on my plants. Another farm worker (who will remain anonymous to protect his/her identity) told me that they were eggs. (See this web site for pictures of the normal horn worm and scroll down a little for a picture of the white egg-like things.) Turns out that they're actually cocoons of a small braconid wasp called contesia congregatus, which is a natural parasite of the horn worm. Apparently, once the cocoons hatch, the wasps will actually kill the horn worm-- and then go off and seek more to parasitize.
I realize that none of this is very appetizing. But the point is that the standard advice is to leave parasitized horn worms as they are-- they'll die soon enough anyway and the wasps will live to chew on another of its kind.
On the other hand, I'm still not sure I could have left the thing there to munch, even knowing its days were numbered.
I am talking here about heirloom tomatoes, which everyone has heard about while very few people actually know what they are. I went to the Wikipedia site on heirloom tomatoes for a straightforward definition-- and was thwarted by the "some people say this; some people argue that" tone of the article. Apparently the construction of simple declarative statements is a lost art. (Check out the Wikipedia site anyway-- it's got some good information on specific varieties.)
But I digress. Heirlooms are varieties of tomatoes (or whatever other "heirloom" plant you're investigating-- this wikipedia site is much more helpful) is essentially a cultivar that was commonly grown during earlier times in history, (i.e., pre-industrial agriculture) and is not used in modern agriculture. Of course, the cardboard-tasting red balls you can buy in the supermarket are not the only alternative to heirlooms-- there are many varieties grown by organic and small farmers that are also modern-day hybrids, which are easier to grow and store. The big point to remember is that heirlooms are quite a diverse lot-- they're all sorts of colors, shapes, sizes-- and eye-popping flavors.
So why do they cost so much? First off, the seeds are more expensive. More importantly, however, you can put tons of effort into growing heirlooms and get very little yield. There's a very small window between ripening and spoilage. Out picking heirlooms yesterday, I was initially excited to see all the splashes of red peaking out of the green stems. But going through an entire 100 feet or so of heirloom plants, I probably had to junk about half the ripe ones I found. Many had split, and many more displayed a black spot on the bottom that belied the beginnings of "blossom end rot". (In that case, you can often cut off the black spot and eat the tomato yourself. But forget about displaying it at a farmers' market or getting any actual profit from it.)
I also had my first encounter with the dreaded tomato horn worm. These caterpillars are not only the ugliest thing you're likely to see on the farm (compared to them, earthworms are positively gorgeous), but are some of the most destructive. In addition to actual tomatoes, they munch on new growth at the tops of the plants, leaving naked stems in their wake. I'm also told that their--ahem-- excrement is about the size and shape of goat droppings, but thankfully I have yet to encounter this particular sight.
My mother, who always grew a few tomato plants in her backyard garden, used to get these things, too. At the time (this was 30 years ago), she simply hit the whole plant with some kind of pesticide. This is, of course, a no-no now, particularly on an organic farm. Instead, we get to pluck the thing off the plant with our (preferably-gloved) hands, drop it on the ground and step on it. At least that's the simplest way. If you have a lot, you can apparently also drop them all in a bucket and then burn them.
Probably not the preferred method for the animal-rights community, who would have been gleefully laughing at me later anyway, when I looked up tomato horn worms on the Internet and made an interesting discovery. The particular horn worm I saw had a bunch of white fuzzy things sticking to its back, which made it look even more like something I really didn't want on my plants. Another farm worker (who will remain anonymous to protect his/her identity) told me that they were eggs. (See this web site for pictures of the normal horn worm and scroll down a little for a picture of the white egg-like things.) Turns out that they're actually cocoons of a small braconid wasp called contesia congregatus, which is a natural parasite of the horn worm. Apparently, once the cocoons hatch, the wasps will actually kill the horn worm-- and then go off and seek more to parasitize.
I realize that none of this is very appetizing. But the point is that the standard advice is to leave parasitized horn worms as they are-- they'll die soon enough anyway and the wasps will live to chew on another of its kind.
On the other hand, I'm still not sure I could have left the thing there to munch, even knowing its days were numbered.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Oniony entities and how to feel rather silly
"It's shallot day!" exclaimed Bob the Farm Manager, as I arrived to the first bright blue sky in days.
Evidently all the rain we'd gotten over the last week took a toll on Katchkie's shallots, which were soaked and in danger of rotting under their healthy-looking green stems. They needed to come out of the ground, even if they weren't ready yet. When I asked Bob how much longer they should have been in the ground, he replied, "I don't know; I've never grown these before." Huh.
I spent the next few hours pulling stems out of the ground, most of the time taking the shallots with them. Every few plants, the stems came up but most of the shallot stayed put-- it was rotted through and just broke. Or an entire shallot would come up, wet and mushy and hosting some very well-fed worms. The presence of worms does, indeed, prove that the soil is healthy, so the farm's ecosystem is working just fine-- the only losers are the humans who need shallots in their recipes.
Not to worry. The good shallots still filled three crates, which I promptly took back to the greenhouse and spread out on two tables to dry further in the heat.
But I wasn't finished in the "spicy herbs that people peel" department. There were three rows of garlic that also had to be pulled up. I had been out in the field a few days before, snipping garlic scapes, and just for fun I had tried pulling one out of the ground. No go-- it was embedded in there.
(In case anyone is lost, both shallots and garlic-- and all oniony entities-- are roots. The stalks that grow out of them are often edible-- as in the case of garlic scapes.)
This, I learned, is why farms have tractors. Or one of the reasons anyway. Bob went over all three rows with the tractor, cutting low enough that the earth was disturbed and the garlic came up easily. We then pulled up great bulbs of the stuff, often with lots of mud and the occasional earthworm. (Happy happy earthworms.) Getting all that healthy mud off the garlic bulbs turned out to be a chore-- we shook the bulbs, knocked them together, and sometimes just raked cakes of mud off with our fingers. Finally we piled all this garlic on the truck bed (also attached to the tractor) and drove it back to the greenhouse, where it was spread out on tables next to the shallots.
One of the garlic bulbs did go home with me, and Jeff spent the next two days trying to figure out why it was dry enough to cook with. Until, that is, Bob said something two days later about hanging the garlic in the greenhouse to cure.
Yet another tidbit from vegetable processing land: one must cure garlic before using it. It can't be pulled out of the ground and cooked the same day like an onion, no matter that it vaguely resembles one. Am I the only person who didn't know this?
Evidently all the rain we'd gotten over the last week took a toll on Katchkie's shallots, which were soaked and in danger of rotting under their healthy-looking green stems. They needed to come out of the ground, even if they weren't ready yet. When I asked Bob how much longer they should have been in the ground, he replied, "I don't know; I've never grown these before." Huh.
I spent the next few hours pulling stems out of the ground, most of the time taking the shallots with them. Every few plants, the stems came up but most of the shallot stayed put-- it was rotted through and just broke. Or an entire shallot would come up, wet and mushy and hosting some very well-fed worms. The presence of worms does, indeed, prove that the soil is healthy, so the farm's ecosystem is working just fine-- the only losers are the humans who need shallots in their recipes.
Not to worry. The good shallots still filled three crates, which I promptly took back to the greenhouse and spread out on two tables to dry further in the heat.
But I wasn't finished in the "spicy herbs that people peel" department. There were three rows of garlic that also had to be pulled up. I had been out in the field a few days before, snipping garlic scapes, and just for fun I had tried pulling one out of the ground. No go-- it was embedded in there.
(In case anyone is lost, both shallots and garlic-- and all oniony entities-- are roots. The stalks that grow out of them are often edible-- as in the case of garlic scapes.)
This, I learned, is why farms have tractors. Or one of the reasons anyway. Bob went over all three rows with the tractor, cutting low enough that the earth was disturbed and the garlic came up easily. We then pulled up great bulbs of the stuff, often with lots of mud and the occasional earthworm. (Happy happy earthworms.) Getting all that healthy mud off the garlic bulbs turned out to be a chore-- we shook the bulbs, knocked them together, and sometimes just raked cakes of mud off with our fingers. Finally we piled all this garlic on the truck bed (also attached to the tractor) and drove it back to the greenhouse, where it was spread out on tables next to the shallots.
One of the garlic bulbs did go home with me, and Jeff spent the next two days trying to figure out why it was dry enough to cook with. Until, that is, Bob said something two days later about hanging the garlic in the greenhouse to cure.
Yet another tidbit from vegetable processing land: one must cure garlic before using it. It can't be pulled out of the ground and cooked the same day like an onion, no matter that it vaguely resembles one. Am I the only person who didn't know this?
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