Finally got to check out my library's copy of Eating Local (finally - I say that like the book wasn't just released on June 1), and overnight it's mysteriously sprouted a mohawk of pink post-its marking the 1,000 recipes I need to photocopy before I send the book back.
I've been reading a lot of cookbooks and books about local eating over the past few months, and I have to say, this is by far the most attractive of the bunch. If I was going to buy local food books as gifts for friends, this would be at the top of my list. The tone of it is more celebratory than preachy, and it's just so beautiful to look at, I can't imagine any decent cook not sighing once or twice while looking through it.
It's got a lot of good-sounding recipes - sorted by the main produce used in each, thank goodness, so if you need a beet recipe (and who doesn't?) you just go to the beet section. I haven't had a chance to try any of them yet, despite the mohawk, but I have many, many planned for this next week, CSA and farmers' market willing. *** UPDATE - I tried several recipes, and they're all hits. You can find one here.***
Interspersed with the recipes are profiles of some of the farmers who run CSAs across the nations, with lush photos of their farms and produce. It's interesting to see how the selections of produce vary across the country - macadamia nuts? limes? Oh, how I wish we had some of those in Cleveland ...
Seriously, this is more of a coffee table book than a cookbook, the pictures are so awesome. Use the Amazon link and click the "Look Inside!" thingee to see some of them ... they're so fresh and lush and vibrant and appealing. It's like porn for foodies, only you don't have to be embarrassed when your kid starts paging through it.
I highly recommend that you check this one out, whether you're into the whole "local eating" thing or not. Just remember to wipe the drool off before you put it back on the shelf, okay?
Showing posts with label reading list. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading list. Show all posts
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
"Remember when I tried that bite of green pepper?"
I'll be honest with you - my family is not entirely on board with the whole idea of eating sustainably for the summer. I'm fairly sure my husband is only tolerating the idea because it means more cooking at home and less eating out, which appeals to his stingy side. And my daughter started a vocal rebellion when I pointed out to her that goldfish crackers aren't exactly made down the street from stuff she can pronounce. I believe her howl of "I DON'T WANT DO TO THE PROJECT THIS SUMMER!!!!!!!" could probably be heard wherever it is that they actually do manufacture those yummy little aquatic snacks.
In an effort to drag Liza on board the bandwagon, I've been trying to share some of what I'm learning with her, toned down a bit to appeal to the sensibilities of a five-year-old. She loves talking about methane and global warming ... she just doesn't know that's what it's called. Composting is good, for example, because it helps make a nice home for worms and bugs while they help our garden, and keeps stuff out of the landfills (which produce the same gas as cow burps, which is helping heat up the planet and hurting the polar bears). Thank you, Planet Earth!
I'm also trying to come up with some homemade versions of some of her favorite snack foods, things we can make when we just can't face another bag of carrot sticks as playground fuel. Our first attempt was granola bars, which Liza was very enthusiastic about making. She was particularly in favor once she read the recipe and saw the part about how it's best to mix the ingredients together with your hands. If there's anything the kid loves more than worms and cow burps, it's messy hands ...
As you may be able to tell from the picture, these are not strictly locavore-approved. But it was a convenient way to use up a whole bunch of the leftover Easter candy - did you know that if you chop up hollow chocolate bunnies, nobody will notice that you were running short on chocolate chips? And I figured that for a first try, the more familiar stuff we could cram in there (Reese's Pieces, anyone?) and the more control I gave her over the recipe, the more likely she would be to eat them.
And I was right. I think if I could manage to package these individually (rather than in one ever-congealing lump in a Tupperware bowl) they'd be perfect grab-and-go snacks. A little bit of sweet, a little bit of stealthy fiber, and she didn't even complain when I threw in some sunflower seeds for protein. I think I'll go for dried fruit instead of chocolate in the next batch - maybe with a chocolate drizzle over the top to keep Liza happy ... I think we still have a hollow bunny haunch up in the cabinet somewhere.
In the meantime, Liza has been very excited about the fact that the strawberry plants she bought already have strawberries on them, and she's ready to start grazing right. this. minute. She asked me this morning if we could go strawberry picking today at Fitch's, which gave me the perfect opportunity to talk with her about fruits and vegetables being "in season."
I've been listening to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver as I do my training walks, and one recent chapter was the perfect introduction to the rough order in which you can expect to harvest various types of foods. So this morning we sat down and read "Stalking the Vegetannual," and we talked about what kinds of foods are leaves vs. fruits vs. roots. In a fit of creative genius, I grabbed a sheet of poster board and the estimated harvest schedule for Fitch's, and we made a calendar of when we should look for various veggies for the rest of the summer. Veggies and fruits were drawn with gusto if not skill, and we even ended up with a bunch of smiling summer squash holding hands with some very pale zucchini, not to mention the Largest Potato Ever.
Yep, that poster's going to be in the place of honor (otherwise known as "taped to the end of one kitchen cabinet") for the rest of the summer. After all, we still need to research and add drawings for when the raspberries and blueberries will be ready for picking, not to mention when that guy up in Avon is likely to have those funky Concord grapes with the eminently spittable seeds ...
Friday, May 7, 2010
A Tale of Two Pollans
One of the first things I did when I decided to look into eating locally was order a some books from the library. Somebody there has been buying up a storm in the "sustainablility" section of the catalog, because I ended up with a thigh-high stack of books on eating locally, cooking seasonally, and shopping consciously. I've been chipping away at the stack for several weeks now, and it occurred to me today that there are pretty much two reasons why people choose to eat locally - one that's all soft and fuzzy and cuddly, and one that's all cold hard numbers and dire warnings. The funny thing is, you can illustrate these two different points of view pretty handily with books by the same author.
Second Nature by Michael Pollan was published almost a decade ago, and it chronicles the author's experiences as a home gardener both as a child and an adult. It's a humorous approach to the subject, complete with woodchucks that end up being firebombed and "natural" gardens that end up as weed-infested as you would expect. I listened to the audiobook of this while I was walking, so I'm sure I missed some of the details and nuances of it. But it was, to my ears, quite bucolic and picturesque and attractive - gardening as a hobby, a vocation, an interest. Readers are invited to laugh along with the author at his early attempts at gardening, maybe learning a bit about the subject and its history along the way. It's not designed to convince you of anything, except perhaps that it would have been nice if I'd gotten some photographs to go along with the audio, because I'd really like to see Pollan's gardens after hearing about them for 8 or 10 hours.
This is the book that probably typifies the "fuzzy" reason for eating locally - subtly supporting a general desire to do the least harm for the environment while supporting local businesses and eating really, really well. People in this camp are liable to speak of the benefits of local produce - how it can be raised for taste rather than transportability; how it is picked at the peak of freshness rather than chemically ripened; how you can trust its safety because you can talk to the farmer who grew it, and maybe even stop in to visit the farm where it was grown. They like supporting small farmers, enjoy the atmosphere of a farmers' market, and enjoy trying new varieties of foods.
The other reason people may choose to eat locally is their overall disgust with how the current food system is run. Dirty, unhealthy meat raised in inhumane conditions; vegetables robbed of their nutrients by the long, pollution-producing trip from field to table; small farmers run out of business by evil agribusiness conglomerates. The world is going to hell on a road paved with government-subsidized corn and soybeans.
Nothing typifies this more than another of Pollan's books, The Omnivore's Dilemma, which I was greatly relieved to find had no photographs to illustrate the text. The author does extensive research into what, exactly, it takes to grow food "conventionally;" that is, on factory farms using all the wonders that chemistry has to offer. Manure-filled feedlots, pesticide-laced groundwater, organic produce that is shipped across the country in pollution-spewing trucks - it's all there in lurid detail. He visits farms where grain is raised for feedlots, and he spends time on farms that are set up using more sustainable modes of farming. He's not squeamish about shoveling manure, or gutting organic chickens, or hunting wild pigs. He hits conventional farming pretty hard, with a seemingly endless parade of appalling facts and figures about the amount of energy it takes to raise our food like commodities. But he doesn't hold back on the "greener" farms, either, discussing the drawbacks to their approaches, and the difficulties involved in running them on a larger scale. It's a book that's filled with facts and figures and persuasion, even though the author doesn't pretend to have all the answers.
The two books might as well be a cuddly blogger and a strident vegan, one calmly reassuring you of why eating local is the right thing to do while the other yells about all the reasons the current system is the worst thing we could possibly be doing. In reality, both are probably right - it is fun to shop at farmers' markets, supporting local farmers and getting the tastiest tomatoes. And conventional farming is anything but sustainable, with negative consequences that are downright frightening when you think about them. If you think about them.
And that's the point, really, to both of the books - most of us don't think about the consequences of the choices we make at the grocery store, butcher shop, or farmers' market. When was the last time you contemplated the ecological ramifications of corn-fed beef before you pulled into a drive-thru and ordered a burger? Do you really know which is better for the planet, conventionally-grown tomatoes from the farm down the street or organic tomatoes trucked in from California? Were the workers who picked your grapes exposed to pesticides that will hurt their health, and is there any of that residue showing up in your fruit salad? Do you even care?
I didn't, or at least not enough to change my habits, but I'm starting to come around. I agree with the older book - gardening is fun and rewarding, and is something that almost anyone can do and enjoy. And I agree with many of Pollan's points in Dilemma, although I wish he'd found a less dry way and more concise way to present them. Conventional farming can be disgusting and brutal and unnecessary. There are other, gentler ways to raise animals and produce, ways that can be expanded to serve a much larger portion of the population. Whether these practices are sufficient to produce enough food for the entire country - or the entire world - remains to be seen, but there certainly is no harm in trying.
Second Nature by Michael Pollan was published almost a decade ago, and it chronicles the author's experiences as a home gardener both as a child and an adult. It's a humorous approach to the subject, complete with woodchucks that end up being firebombed and "natural" gardens that end up as weed-infested as you would expect. I listened to the audiobook of this while I was walking, so I'm sure I missed some of the details and nuances of it. But it was, to my ears, quite bucolic and picturesque and attractive - gardening as a hobby, a vocation, an interest. Readers are invited to laugh along with the author at his early attempts at gardening, maybe learning a bit about the subject and its history along the way. It's not designed to convince you of anything, except perhaps that it would have been nice if I'd gotten some photographs to go along with the audio, because I'd really like to see Pollan's gardens after hearing about them for 8 or 10 hours.
This is the book that probably typifies the "fuzzy" reason for eating locally - subtly supporting a general desire to do the least harm for the environment while supporting local businesses and eating really, really well. People in this camp are liable to speak of the benefits of local produce - how it can be raised for taste rather than transportability; how it is picked at the peak of freshness rather than chemically ripened; how you can trust its safety because you can talk to the farmer who grew it, and maybe even stop in to visit the farm where it was grown. They like supporting small farmers, enjoy the atmosphere of a farmers' market, and enjoy trying new varieties of foods.
The other reason people may choose to eat locally is their overall disgust with how the current food system is run. Dirty, unhealthy meat raised in inhumane conditions; vegetables robbed of their nutrients by the long, pollution-producing trip from field to table; small farmers run out of business by evil agribusiness conglomerates. The world is going to hell on a road paved with government-subsidized corn and soybeans.
Nothing typifies this more than another of Pollan's books, The Omnivore's Dilemma, which I was greatly relieved to find had no photographs to illustrate the text. The author does extensive research into what, exactly, it takes to grow food "conventionally;" that is, on factory farms using all the wonders that chemistry has to offer. Manure-filled feedlots, pesticide-laced groundwater, organic produce that is shipped across the country in pollution-spewing trucks - it's all there in lurid detail. He visits farms where grain is raised for feedlots, and he spends time on farms that are set up using more sustainable modes of farming. He's not squeamish about shoveling manure, or gutting organic chickens, or hunting wild pigs. He hits conventional farming pretty hard, with a seemingly endless parade of appalling facts and figures about the amount of energy it takes to raise our food like commodities. But he doesn't hold back on the "greener" farms, either, discussing the drawbacks to their approaches, and the difficulties involved in running them on a larger scale. It's a book that's filled with facts and figures and persuasion, even though the author doesn't pretend to have all the answers.
The two books might as well be a cuddly blogger and a strident vegan, one calmly reassuring you of why eating local is the right thing to do while the other yells about all the reasons the current system is the worst thing we could possibly be doing. In reality, both are probably right - it is fun to shop at farmers' markets, supporting local farmers and getting the tastiest tomatoes. And conventional farming is anything but sustainable, with negative consequences that are downright frightening when you think about them. If you think about them.
And that's the point, really, to both of the books - most of us don't think about the consequences of the choices we make at the grocery store, butcher shop, or farmers' market. When was the last time you contemplated the ecological ramifications of corn-fed beef before you pulled into a drive-thru and ordered a burger? Do you really know which is better for the planet, conventionally-grown tomatoes from the farm down the street or organic tomatoes trucked in from California? Were the workers who picked your grapes exposed to pesticides that will hurt their health, and is there any of that residue showing up in your fruit salad? Do you even care?
I didn't, or at least not enough to change my habits, but I'm starting to come around. I agree with the older book - gardening is fun and rewarding, and is something that almost anyone can do and enjoy. And I agree with many of Pollan's points in Dilemma, although I wish he'd found a less dry way and more concise way to present them. Conventional farming can be disgusting and brutal and unnecessary. There are other, gentler ways to raise animals and produce, ways that can be expanded to serve a much larger portion of the population. Whether these practices are sufficient to produce enough food for the entire country - or the entire world - remains to be seen, but there certainly is no harm in trying.
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