Thursday, July 31, 2014

I Can and So Could You

National Geographic is currently doing a serious on Hunger in America, which you can read more about here. I've read every article on the subject that they have published in their past few issues and I'm finding the coverage to be encouraging. They are focusing on awareness of what hunger truly looks like, the steps needed to reverse the epidemic of hunger, and how corporations are cutting out small-scale farmers. These are subjects that the average person doesn't consider in their day to day lives, but which you should consider to be an engaged citizen.

Bread n butter pickles, dill pickles, sweet pickle relish, peach bourbon bbq sauce, and peach salsa. Missing the quart of pickles I gave away, the half pint of pickles that I didn't seal, and the half pint of salsa I already devoured. Not a bad haul for one weekend. ;)
One of the subjects broached in "The New Face of Hunger" is that many people have lost the knowledge, and therefore the ability, to preserve food during the more productive months of the year for those times when food can be scarce. A skill that I gained from my grandmother is the ability to process foods in mason jars (which can be stored for several years as long as they are sealed properly). I actually had a very productive weekend canning several different types of pickles and some peach creations.

A great resource!
I have canned vegetables from the garden since I was a young girl. It was only a few years ago that I really got into canning fruits in jams, butters, etc., however, I always enjoy the process and the rewards of my labor. I actually picked up a spiffy book when I was in Powell's amazing bookstore in Portland, Oregon last year: Food in Jars. I have followed several of the recipes in this book and each one has turned out amazing. The directions are easy to follow and the ingredients are all simple. I definitely recommend buying it if you are looking into making your own "canned" food. Or, if you aren't able to splurge on books like myself, you can always look in your local library. I recently discovered that the Conway library (located on Tyler Street) has a plethora of books on cooking, including a decent section on preserving your own foods. I found a couple of books there that I also used in my canning adventures over the weekend.

Sweet pickle relish or peach lavender preserves, anyone?
 If you are wondering where I got fruits that were perfectly ready for canning, the answer is several sources. One of Wayne's co-workers brought a ton of cucumbers to work last Friday and gave them away. Wayne brought home what was left after everyone got their pick, which was half a 5-gallon bucket of smallish cucumbers. When I saw them, my immediate though was "pickles!". I mean, what else are you supposed to do with that many cucumbers? (Plus I have always had an affinity for pickles.)

That bucket made about ten quarts of pickles and two large bowls of cucumber-tomato salad (which I devoured delightedly).

For my peach creations, my friend Mollie and I spent about an hour Saturday morning picking peaches at the Cadron Crest orchard in Guy, Arkansas. It's only about a twenty minute drive from Conway and has amazing peaches, white and yellow, and nectarines. If you prefer a shorter drive, you can always visit Collins Orchard on Round Mountain, which is my usual go-to. Peaches picked yourself are only about $1.20-$1.50/pound. Be sure to bring a cash or check though! If you plan to can the peaches immediately, make sure you get ones that are already slightly soft on the tree. These are the ripest peaches and make the best canned foods!

My point is, canning doesn't require a lot of special equipment, nor much technical skill. You need a large pot to boil the jars in a water bath to seal them, jars with new lids and rings, and a pot to cook whatever you plan to can. Personally, I'm superbly excited to have dishes with peaches when winter comes around because I'm always craving them, but my desire to eat seasonal means I can only get them fresh in the summer. Canning helps you preserve food picked at it's prime, especially when you can local food (which, of course, is my suggestion). This means that the food you eat later will still contain most of the nutrients from the ingredients.

Peach trees are a gorgeous sight!
As I've mentioned before, food shipped thousands of miles ripens in truck beds and is less nutritious than food picked locally at it's prime. I could go into the science of how nutrients from the sun are transformed by the plant into energy to store in its fruit, but I'll spare you the science lecture. Another aspect about home preservation that I enjoy is the use of glass containers. Canned food that you buy from a store in metal containers are usually sprayed with Bisephenol-A (BPA) resin, a lining that I cannot figure out the specific purpose of. This chemical is especially dangerous in acidic foods, such as tomato based products, as they leech the chemical into the foods. There was a lot of hype recently centered around the harmfulness of canned foods in terms of effects on the health thanks to BPA contamination (read more about that here and here). Needless to say, I try to eat fresh foods as often as possible, but sometimes canned food is necessary. It is quite worrisome that the lining in canned foods could affect me, but the damage was done years ago.

It may not seem this way to someone who grew up in the generations of the world market, but we are extremely spoiled by the ability to buy fresh produce year-round and never have to change our diet with the seasons. I've learned, however, that it is cheaper to buy produce in-season and preserve it than it is to buy higher-priced produce out-of-season. Preserving foods in jars allows us to continue our regular pattern of eating foods out of season, while also keeping the nutritional value of in-season foods.

I recommend that you take the time to try canning your own foods this summer and enjoy the fruits of your labor all throughout the winter. Happy eating!

P.S. Canning can be addicting, I swear. I have too much jam in my cabinets, so I only made a half pint this year, and only because I am already dreading the cravings for peaches I will have all winter. Can never have too many pickles or too much salsa though!

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

We Are Like Geese Bred for Foie Gras...

"Overeating is as American as apple pie."
I recently wrote a short essay on how I feel like I have no culture as an American. The main point I was trying to make was that as Americans, read mutts, we don't have very many culturally inherited traditions; this seems especially true regarding food traditions. (There are a few food traditions though, as Vicki Robin pointed out in Blessing the Hand That Feeds Us.) America is such a materialistic/capitalistic place that all of our traditions seem to be based on the idea that we need more. Our citizens want bigger portions, more calories for their dollar, more healthy foods (stemming from our incessant need to follow the most up-to-date theory on nutrition), more exotic foods shipped from around the world. In the past two centuries our eating practices have changed completely from our ancestors, which I would argue is not necessarily a good development. (After all, there is something to be said for the food traditions of other cultures that have been passed down through the centuries and kept their populations healthy; i.e. Mediterranean's diet, high-fat French cuisine, etc.)

Recently, there has been a shift back towards the eating practices of our ancestors. A new generation of eaters is developing; those who look at what we eat, where it comes from, and how it impacts our lives and the health of the Earth. We've found that eating locally is more sustainable, more nutritious than succumbing to the global marketplace. Organic food is becoming more and more popular because we are finding the detrimental effects on the environment are greatly decreased. People are flocking to farmer's markets and re-creating the lost relationships between what goes on their plate and the person who produced that food for them.

In Blessing the Hand That Feeds Us, Vicki Robin takes us along her journey of eating only local food for an entire month, an experiment she calls the 10-mile diet. For this one-month period, She was challenged to prepare all of her food from her friend Tricia Beckner's farm; going "meatless, fatless, and sugarless for thirty days". Deciding this was too much to ask, Ms. Robin changes the challenge to eating food grown, raised, and produced within ten miles of her home "as the crow flies". Throughout the book, she takes us through her preparations the months leading up to this one-month challenge and the surprising sources of food she finds in the area.

She discovers the many challenges that local producers face which cause local food to be more expensive, or illegal to sell to the public. For example, raw milk was illegal to sell for human consumption at the time the book was written. (I cannot wait to pick up some raw milk from CLG on Friday to make some fresh mozzarella!) She learned about the governmental subsidies that industrial farms receive to keep the prices of their products low. About the unfair pricing farms have to pay, no matter their size, in order to sell cheese or milk, or to be certified organic. She gets around these challenges by illegally purchasing raw milk and fresh goat cheese from locals in a "black market" for local food; it's all about who you know and how much trust develops between you and the producer. She laments our loss of confidence in "our own capacity as both animals and as citizens to make our own choices about something so basic as food". There is something disturbing about having to rely on FDA regulations to tell us what is or is not healthy (purple carrots are just as tasty as orange!).

Ms. Robin successfully completes her month of eating only locally, with four small exceptions: oil, limes, a handful of Indian spices and salt, and caffeine. She later found that these "exotics" correspond with the elements used by Rebecca Kate, former cook for the Commonwealth Cancer Help Program, to balance the taste of food for people who have trouble keeping food down. These elements, known as FASS (fat, acid, salty and sweet), seem to be needs in a human diet.

"A growing sense of not just being in but belonging to my community brought me warm, fuzzy comfort."

The most beautiful revelations came out of her month of eating only local. Ms. Robin becomes an integrated part of the community that she has lived in for years. She develops a relationship with the farmer's who produce her meat, milk, cheese, and vegetables. She learns what goes into the raising of a local organic chicken; why it costs $5/pound versus the industrial chickens she's used to. She gains a deeper appreciation of the animal itself and learns to reduce the amount of protein she has in a meal so that paying more per pound doesn't raise her grocery budget.

Relational eating, is the term she uses throughout the book: eating local ingredients, cooked with love, and eaten with awareness in the company of friends. Ms. Robin examines her independent lifestyle, one that many Americans have adopted, and finds that she is more content with a relational lifestyle. One where her connections to the people who grow her food make that food better before it even touches her plate. One where sharing a meal cooked in one's own home becomes a symbol of the connectedness that exists, albeit behind a smokescreen, between you, the consumer, and the hands that touched the food you will consume (growers, pickers, transporters, marketers, etc.).

In case you were wondering, she was able to create enough variety of dishes to not become bored with the same vegetables every week. Despite cutting down on the amount of meat she ate with a meal, she did not feel deprived (she says 3oz is just as satisfying as 6-8oz, maybe even more so). She went on to another experiment with local eating in February, gathering 50% of her food from within 50 miles "as the crow flies". She describes her preparations for this month throughout the winter: canning chicken, freezing local beef, and connecting with more local farmers. It was much easier to complete her second month of limited eating. (I have to say, I would miss chocolate every four weeks...)

Since this experiment, Ms. Robin, her friends and neighbors, and the farmers she connected with have worked towards making Whidbey Island able to support itself internally year-round. They have come a long way; multiplying CSAs, conducting meetings to discuss food goals and steps to reach them, connecting the food bank with local farmers, starting a micro-loan business (which helps out new farmers), and so much more. Perhaps in the near future they will be able to self-sustain Whidbey Island, even if there is not a dire need in the present.

Bringing this back to my own community, I can see so many parallels. Conway Locally Grown grows larger every year, with new customers and consequently new producers. (There is a correlation between customer growth percentage and the addition of farmers, growers, and producers to the market.) They have a micro-loan system, paid for by a portion of the membership fees customers pay every year. I do feel more connected to Conway because of my connection with the farmers at CLG. I often find myself asking one of the growers questions about regulations in Arkansas regarding Farmers' Markets, backyard chickens, problems with growing something in my own garden, etc. Looking at the huge selection of produce, meats, baked goods, and even coffee, I know that I could easily sustain myself on an all-local diet; especially if you add the variety of products offered at the Little Rock Farmers' Market to the mix. (I visited this market on Saturday and was pleased to see Carpenter's produce thriving as usual, especially since I've recently worked with Abraham Carpenter in my AmeriCorps position.)

For someone like myself, who has been connected with the local food market since 2011, it's so easy to see the connections between my food, it's producers, myself and the health of the earth. For many, who may be caught in the system of fast food, processed food, food without a face, it seems it would be more difficult to understand the connections that food can create; especially if you have never learned how to cook. I want to challenge you to set goals for yourself to eat completely local at least one meal a week. (There is a farmers' market in downtown Conway right next to The Patio Cafe on Front St. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays now: read about it here). Then, you can progress further to three meals or more per week.

Comment below and let me know how it goes! (If you need ideas for what to make out of your local foods, check out www.foodgawker.com).


I wanted to share some of my favorite quotes from the book:
"We all have a food history and food psychology and food values. We each have a relationship with food that isn't necessarily right or wrong, good or bad, but simply part of the narrative of our lives. This history steers our behavior no matter what high-minded course we set ourselves on."
"When you lose trust in yourself to know what is good for you and in your body as a self-healing, self-regulating miracle, you become the patsy for every quack cure and ersatz diet." 
"One of the great wonders of the world is that our bodies can transform just about anything that isn't poison into food for us - day in and day out. "
 "The creepy part is when you realize how deeply you depend on one another - be it a berry bush or a mate - you know your vulnerability to loss. You realize that control is ultimately an illusion. We can delay death but we have not conquered it. We can build levees but we cannot control the vehemence of storms. We can, as farmers know, plant and tend and water and watch, but we only work with nature, not command it. Especially now, as we watch the skies and wonder if the storms sweeping in again and again are harbingers of climate change or just - as we hope - El Niño or La Niña."
"When you have no relationship with food other than the megamart, you seem well supplied but are helpless without that store." 
"What is relational eating - the local food movement - is a precursor of a new era of belonging, when once again homeland security will mean neighbors, not an increasing dependency on a militaristic state? What if turning our attention to "here-ing" through bringing our eating closer to home is not just a good way to eat but also a wise way to age? Perhaps a culture of permanence provides more true freedom than a culture of transience."