Suppporting good food

Our food system in the U.S. is complex. It's burdened with subsidies for production of foods that are perfectly good in their 'whole' state (corn, soybeans, wheat, etc.) but are increasingly difficult to justify in their refined and remixed versions, in the plethora of processed foods available in the average American supermarket. Lots of folks have been trying to redirect this; the last Farm Bill authorization saw a big push to refocus encouragement of industrial agricultural production to at least some support to more locally-focused agriculture.

I went to a meeting of a local chapter of the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association this afternoon. It was impressive because of the number of folks who showed up (at least 75 of them): local growers, local eaters, people interested in fresh food, people interested in delicious food, people interested in encouraging kids to eat nutritious food instead of junk, and folks interested in good, fresh food, period.

We met in a local historic setting, Farmer's Hall in Pendleton, SC, which has been a gathering place for people interested in promoting agriculture for almost 150 years. It was the gathering point that provided the genesis for the University where I work today.

How do we encourage Americans back to eating real food (that is, at least whole food, but hopefully fresh and local food)?

I really have no answers, but it definitely would be helpful to eat more delicious vegetables and fruits (whether your own, from the farmer's market, or locally fresh at the neighborhood supermarket). There are always delicious things harvested elsewhere (currently, fresh nectarines from California, for example).

Knowing where your protein comes from is a good thing, too. I'm working on trying to be more sustainable in my milk, cheese, egg, chicken, beef, and pork choices. Currently, good eggs are the easiest and most available, followed by milk and cheese.

But fish and shellfish require another level of sleuthing to be sustainable. I've stopped buying farmed salmon and shrimp, most wild-caught fish populations are in a downward spiral, so it's hard to justify buying many species of wild fish, whether local or from Asia. Wild Alaska salmon are from apparently well-managed fisheries, so presumably they're OK, but they're an exception.

We've been to many distant places well-known for seafood dishes that have not had much to offer in terms of locally-caught fish. Their fishing grounds have collapsed due to overfishing, often because of outside 'industrial' trawling, but just as often from local overfishing, too.

I didn't mean to start on an essay about sustainable food, but that's really what I'm thinking about.

Local food

The closest thing to local is from your own garden -- there's obviously nothing fresher than harvesting just before lunch or dinner.

But in the flurry of interest in local food, my home state of South Carolina has recently launched a Palmettovore program (we're the 'Palmetto' state), encouraging purchase of SC-grown produce (fresh fruits, vegetables, and other state-made products), to accompany last-year's certified SC grown campaign.

This is a quite nice idea, but the farms of Western North Carolina (a hotbed of small, locally-oriented farmers) are within two hours of Clemson, compared to the 4-5 hrs down to the coastal plain fields that support tomatoes, soybeans, and increasingly many more crops.

I'm a member of something called Upstate SC Locally Grown Market, and dutifully try to get fresh eggs and cheese from them, along with freshly roasted coffee (uh, not locally grown). They're a new network, and are trying to connect Upstate local farmers with buyers. I'm not a good buyer for fresh veggies (I have enough of my own, thanks!), but would like to see them thrive.

In the mountains this weekend, we had a delicious dinner this evening of 'local food' - thanks to the North Asheville Tailgate Market. It's hard to beat such a dinner, even in the great local restaurants in Asheville. Fresh new potatoes, patty pan squash, Chiogga beets, beet greens, red onions, local lettuce, bluefish and shrimp from the Outer Banks, along with shitake mushrooms, were delightful with fresh garlic from home.

And isn't that the essence of local?

And I'm looking forward to returning home and harvesting young squash!

Preserving and storing food

A blogging friend in England mentioned that storing food is a bit of a lost art; I'm certainly guilty about not thinking (and doing) more about food security and self-sufficiency.

I've been promoting vegetable gardening as a fun, creative activity in my work; laudable, to be sure, but maybe there's more that I should focus on.

My two vegetable garden areas produce enough fresh vegetables for us to eat for six months of the year, but I'm also buying things at the supermarket, now in winter. There are greens to be harvested, to be sure, so that's good. But I'm buying potatoes, lettuce, spinach, and broccoli.

But I avoid any (long-traveled, or excessively fossil-fuel enriched) tomatoes or peppers, but I get demerits because my gardening companions loves bananas, and I buy them for him (and eat a few myself).

Growing your own veg

I went to a Upstate Locavore meeting this evening -- the topic was a spring event to encourage people to try growing some of their own vegetables. What's encouraging to me is that many of the folks interested in this are quite new to vegetable and herb gardening (and maybe gardening in general) and, in addition, there's a thread of food security running through the conversation.

I'm all for encouraging interest and supporting individual efforts. The RHS gardens in the UK have an expansive program called 'Growing your own veg' accompanied by all sorts of useful information for beginning gardeners.

A developing New Victory Garden movement includes Kitchen Garden International's Eat The View campaign and this garden planted as part of the Slow Food convention in San Francisco, CA this fall; these represent just a 'tip' of the explosion of interest in growing food, promoting local food, and supporting local farmers and sustainable agriculture.

And whether we're able to grow some of our own food, can purchase locally, or donate some of the excess of what we grow, why not add more vegetables and fruits to our home landscapes, if we have the space?

Growing food

Michael Pollan had an excellent piece in last Sunday's NY Times Magazine, an issue focused on food. He wrote a letter to our next president (here in the U.S., coming soon) which outlines what he needs to think about and act on.

Our 'food system' in the U.S. is definitely in need of reform, and I'm tremendously pleased to see a resurgence of interest in local food, home vegetable gardens, and 'growing your own.'

There's a wonderful initiative (that Pollan comments on) to transform one of the White House lawns to an organic food garden, just like Eleanor Roosevelt did with a Victory Garden push.

My gardening companion and I have an acre and a half of land in our (semi)-rural small college town. In these challenging times, why shouldn't I expand my vegetable garden (with rotations) and consider having 'city' chickens, even if they might have to be in a 'chicken tractor'.

Local foods

More than fifty varieties of bananas grown in Mto Wa Mbu, Tanzania

I went to a meeting today of a newly formed local foods group. What fun and how refreshing for folks in a conservative state (and formerly largely agricultural) in the Southern U.S. to think about how to encourage locally-grown foods. As our (previously farm and pasture land) is being gobbled up for subdivisions and development sprawl, it's a welcome trend to try to encourage promoting local producers and growers, providing an incentive to grow vegetables and fruits for local markets.

Schoolteacher carrying bananas in Amani, Tanzania

I love to 'grow my own,' of course, but I'm reluctant (so far) to get on the freezing and canning track, and my gardening companion LOVES his daily banana with cereal. I don't have the heart to explain to him about the global cost of banana production, the exposure of some farmworkers to pesticides, the risks of a single major banana variety, etc. Oh, dear, I probably at least need to always buy organic bananas or seek out the small varieties that support diversity of bananas.

Bananas, Hoi An, Vietnam
My own personal fruit passion is apples. I love apples -- and the idea of not having an apple each day after lunch is not a welcome one. I'm not keen on buying an apple from Chile or New Zealand, and we've got fabulous local apples now until early November, but that leaves a lot of open time in which I'm interested in eating apples.

But, I think I'll get a small energy-efficient freezer to start storing the growing season's bounty -- why not have roasted tomatoes for sauce, fresh-cut green beans, or onions and peppers?

A perfect peach

My dad's parents lived in the northern end of California's Central Valley, a productive farming area for fruits, nuts, rice, and other crops. Summer peaches always remind me of our childhood visits, and my grandmother saying that 'she was going to fix some peaches' for dessert.

This meant peaches from an orchard in nearby Red Bluff, large rosy peaches picked at their peak, carefully peeled and sliced, served with a bit of sugar and cream.

I had a perfect peach for breakfast this morning. I bought some at our local farmer's market yesterday afternoon from an older couple. This was an extraordinary peach -- perfectly ripe, sweet, and delicious. It bore limited resemblance to the 'local peaches' that I've bought at the grocery recently.

still life with peaches...

I had bought some red-fleshed plums from them several weeks ago that were (almost) as good, and wanted to ask what kind they were -- the answer was 'oh, we just call them purple plums.'

Eating more local food

I love the idea of local food (and growing my own) -- the benefits were clear in our dinner tonight, a lovely squash medley with garlic, a fresh tomato, basil, garlic and onion sauce (all homegrown) for some homemade semolina pasta, and some baked chicken.

Our regional Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (North and South Carolina, USA) has issued an eating local challenge for the coming week (July 7-13) -- for folks to try to eat locally as much as possible (more challenging here in the Southeast than in some parts of the U.S.)

The chicken was probably from somewhere regional (there are lots of chicken farms in the Carolinas), but it wasn't organic or free-range, the eggs in the pasta were from regional free-range chickens, but the wheat flour was from a midwestern source (King Arthur flour). The tarragon and thyme that flavored the chicken was homegrown. But the black pepper came from the other side of the world, and the coffee I had this morning came from South or Central America or Africa. And the 'big organic' milk I had in my coffee was certainly a mixture of milk from a variety of sources, and probably not regional at all. And the parmesan cheese we sprinkled on our pasta was American-made, but certainly not local, and the Braeburn apple that I ate after lunch was from Washington State, and the raisins and nuts in the homemade whole-grain bread in my sandwich were certainly from California, but the tomato was homegrown, but the lettuce came from California, too. The fresh mozzarella was produced by a New Jersey-based company.

For lunch, my gardening companion had leftover organic rice (probably grown in the Central Valley of California), with leftover corn (grown somewhere in the Southeast), with pesto made from roasted cherry peppers (origin unknown), homegrown garlic, balsamic vinegar from Italy, pecans from the local coop (presumably from the Southeastern U.S.), cilantro from somewhere in the U.S., and grated parmesan (maybe from Wisconsin?), and a bit of the fresh mozzarella. Hmmm. It's illuminating to be mindful of where our food comes from! I remember seeing some years ago in a Central Market in Austin, Texas garlic labeled as from Argentina, and finding it a revelation. We import garlic from Argentina? Who knew? Of course, now we're much more aware of how much food is imported from all sorts of places (I saw Chinese garlic in a local produce market).

I can't help but think that we've had world trade in food and spices for centuries, if not millenia for good reason. But eating more locally is always a good thing, and there's no reason to have out-0f season fruit flown in from South America considered as a 'staple'. Or to mindlessly buy whatever is available, just because it's there.