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Ponderings of a Freezer Hugger

by Expat Chef

Lately, I’ve had the urge to hug not a tree, but my freezer. You see, stashed inside this unimpressive white box is meat. Real meat that came from animals that made more real meat in the way that animals do. As opposed to, say, strands of DNA being inserted into an egg in a laboratory somewhere.

I’ve stayed calm and quiet on the whole cloned animal thing, since it looked as if common sense would prevail and cloning would not. I guess I should know better than to under, or rather, overestimate the FDA. So here we are with cloned meat being approved. No labeling required as yet, either.

Now, the no labeling thing is not a shock. Big Dairy and Monsanto are currently waging state-by-state war against “no growth hormone” labeling. Thus, not having cloned meat or milk labels either is par for the course. Indeed, It’s been status quo to keep consumers pretty much in the dark about the origin of our food, even though we know where our TVs, blenders and (non-edible) underwear were made. In fact, we probably DO know where our edible underwear came from, which would be one of the few edible items we can buy that are labeled. If you’re into that kind of thing. Which I'm not.

The overwhelming question in my mind is “Why?” As in, “why cloning?” It’s simply not necessary. Animals have not had any trouble breeding on their own (except for commercial turkeys which is a good lesson here), and farmers have managed selective breeding for some time with artificial insemination. Why turn to an expensive process that has a high fetal mortality rate and can cause issues for the surrogate mother?

Another “why” is why hasn’t the industry embraced this new technology either? Likely because of consumer disgust with the concept, also because of the lack of approval for it on the international level which would limit the sale of the products to U.S.-only. It’s very odd to find myself on the same side of an issue, for differing reasons, with Big Ag. But cloning is just that kind of issue.

The only beneficiaries I can identify would be the biotech companies and those who hold the “patents” on “desirable” genetic material, which further removes the idea of an animal being an actual sentient and natural being toward being just a “product.”

Regardless of the mechanism, limiting the gene pool is never a good idea. Since 1900, we’ve lost 75 percent of the diversity of our food plants. Some GMO varieties threaten that remaining diversity. Additionally, farmers whose neighboring crops were cross-pollinated by GMO crops have been sued for “planting” a patented seed. Livestock diversity has been equally decimated effectively without the “help” of cloning. Many breeds of livestock raised in industrial agriculture can neither breed or survive outside of the factory farm environment.

Diversity is one of nature’s defenses to survive great changes in the environment. Changes such as the ones our planet will experience with global warming. Why should we put our own survival at risk by willfully eradicating some of the very genetics that could help us all survive the changes?

What About The Celery

By VI

Baby it's cold outside.  Around me, there's a limited growing season and no year-round farmer's markets.  Yet, thank you very much, I still manage, some oranges aside, to eat local.  The hardest thing about eating local in Chicago: not managing your stock of root vegetables or wondering where you could put fifty pounds of potatoes. No, it's not having to eat all those root vegetables and potatoes.  While my family and I allow exceptions for things that do not grow around here, those oranges; we will not dabble in stuff that we can get, at least in season.  So, no matter how bad our apricot crop was this year, we will not get an outta region apricot.  Which gets us to the celery.  That's hard.  I got a head of celery this week, and it made me really happy.

Bread meets conceptual art

I live in an area with some extraordinary bread: complex naturally-leavened creations from Acme or Semifreddi's, surprisingly light 100 percent whole wheat from Vital Vittles and many other great offerings. And yet I still bake most of my own bread (even sourdough on occasion). 

The transformation of the uninteresting ingredients of flour and water into something that is alive and aromatic is a magical experience for me.  Bread baking is a physical act, an observational act, an exercise in patience, and eventually a wonderful sensory experience.

Bread presents a locality problem for Northern Californians, as not much wheat is grown in California. There are a few sources of wheat, to be sure, like Full Belly Farm in Yolo County.  And bread doesn't have to be one-hundred percent wheat -- loaves can loaded with goodies like nuts, seeds, grains and fruits.

So for the past year, I've been experimenting with what I call the "local loaf," a loaf of bread made using many ingredients available at the Berkeley Farmers Market or from local sources:  whole wheat flour from Full Belly Farm in Yolo County, pecans from Sonoma County, honey from Napa County, milk from Straus Family Creamery in Marin County and brown rice from Massa Organics in Butte County (the locations are mapped after the jump).  In the end, around sixty percent of the raw ingredients (by weight excluding water) were from local sources.   

As I worked on this project over many months, I thought about conceptual art.  In conceptual art, the concept behind the work takes precedence over the aesthetics of the piece.  Tom Marioni's Walking and Drawing a Line as Far as I Can Reach, for example, are explorations of human activity -- the actions of walking and reaching, respectively.   If I wanted to stretch some words a bit, I could almost call the project of making bread from local ingredients "conceptual baking."  That is, the concept of using local ingredients took precedence over flavor and texture (but not too much precedence -- the bread is quite tasty).

After the jump, I present my recipe for this bread and a map showing the source of the local ingredients.

Going to Grow Your Own?

by Expat Chef

I've been reading All New Square Foot Gardening and planning. This is my year to end the curse of the "Black Thumb." Yes, it is true, EVERY houseplant I have ever had dies. Merely crossing the threshold of my home and handing me said plant is issuing it a death sentence.

No more, I say. Tired of looking to my child's expensive private day care to put in a school garden program, I've decided that we should have a small garden at home. I've never been one to believe that kids are going to learn everything they need to know in school, anyway. Education starts at home, and this year, extends to the backyard.

Brian Halweil on Word of the Year

Brian Halweil has a great piece on Serious Eats called "Food Words for Thought: 'Locavore' as 2007's Word of the Year."

Big players up and down the food chain, from Wal-Mart to Whole Foods, are figuring out how to transport food a couple of hundred miles instead of several thousand—a challenge, since the current spread of farms and existing shipping infrastructure can make it easier and cheaper to purchase long-distance food. Industry surveys peg "local" at just a few percent of national food sales, although it's a sector soaring at 22 percent a year, according to consumer research firm Packaged Facts.

So don't call us a Locavore Nation just yet. Now is more like the amuse-bouche stage.

But one word really doesn't capture the tectonic shift that is happening in America's alimentary affairs. We are becoming more gastroliterate, as a blossoming culinary lexicon sets us a bright, new place at the dinner table.

Read the entire post here.

Shut Up & Eat?

by Jen Maiser

Amy Stewart's commentary on NPR's All Things Considered this week was a topic of conversation among ELC blog authors this week.  While Ms. Stewart believes that we should all "shut up and eat," I hardly think that many of us will be following her directive anytime soon.  Michael Pollan often speaks about the magic of voting with our forks.  Unlike major, huge, unsurmountable issues that our world faces, food issues are something that we all decide on many times a day.  I personally choose to put my hard-earned money in the hands of local farmers and local cheesemakers and local artisans over international conglomerates and mega-corporations. 

Ms. Stewart suggests that instead of focusing on where our food comes from, we should try taking public transportation or turning down the thermostat.  Most of us who are conscious enough to focus on where our food comes from don't turn off that consciousness when it comes to these sort of things -- we tend to tread lightly on the earth in many ways.

While I suspect that Ms. Stewart was trying to be sensationalist and contrarian about some of the pedantic, minutia-oriented conversations that can occur around food (and that many of us tire of at some point), I don't think that an overarching declaration against eating local is the answer.

Below, you'll find some opinions from other ELC authors around the nation.  Check them out -- I think they're fantastic.

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from Liz (Maine):

No doubt local eating is old news where you live in California, the land of plenty. But it is an absolute triumph that the rest of America is finally paying attention to what goes on its dinner plate. Please don't begrudge us Mainers or Michiganders or Minnesotans for finally catching on to what you savvy Californians have known all along: that fresher foods taste better. What's more is that we're finding we can produce our food just as well, if not better than your fine state, cutting out the factory farms, middlemen, and days of travel on the way.

I don't often dole out advice, Amy, but it seems like you need to either find some non-foodie friends or start talking up some new cause. If it goes well, the rest of us should be buzzing about it in 2013. Until then, I will continue to celebrate the foods of my state with my friends and family. Don't worry, I'll make sure not to invite you to the dinner party.