Tuesday August 26th, 2008
In this issue:
CSA Farm Trip to Catalpa Ridge Farm
by Paula Crossfield
On Saturday,
I joined some of my fellow Community Supported Agriculture members
on a trip to Catalpa Ridge Farm in Wantage, NJ. This farm no longer
serves as our CSA farm, because we have grown too large, and the farmer,
Rich, is able to travel less distance and service CSAs in New Jersey,
but we have maintained a good relationship and have continued to help
out. It is a small farm, growing onions, garlic, cabbage, kale, chard,
sorrel, squash, hot peppers, tomatoes and other veggies. On Saturday,
we did some weeding, and some picking of our own stash of cherry tomatoes
and ground cherries (a delicious relative of the tomatillo) of which
every other one ended up in our mouths. Tomatoes directly from the
vine taste different. Full of the sun's warmth, these were some of
the best I've ever tasted. The yellow snowy bottomed tomatoes were
delicately sweet and I couldn't help eating them one by one. I also
came home with two hot peppers and a bundle of purslane, a plant that
most consider a weed, but is actually a great source of omega 3.
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Seeking Global Food Justice: An Interview
with Raj Patel
by Paula Crossfield
July 28th, 2008
Raj Patel is the author of the book, Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden
Battle for the World Food System. He will be speaking on August 29th
at Slow Food Nation’s Food for Thought. You can read more about
his work on his website.
This is Part 2 of this interview. The first portion can be found here.
Paula: How did the advent of the supermarkets change the way people
think about food?
Raj: It was a slow process. The reason supermarkets emerged was because
in 1917 you were in a situation, much like the one we have today,
where there were sudden food price rises, and retailers were looking
for a way to shift food cheaply, and to reduce the price of selling
food so they could pass those savings onto the consumer and get more
of the market. The way that was most successful was precisely through
the supermarket, a way of presenting food and goods to people without
having an intermediary.
Paula: So this supermarket idea is what made cheap food the standard?
Raj: I think the idea of the supermarket was to bring Fordism to food
production. And what that means is that if you standardize everything
about a way a place looks, functions and the way that the components
pass through it and in that process food becomes another component
that gets trucked through a warehouse and processed. The fact is that
most tomatoes are now picked green, because they can stand the rigor
of the transportation when they are unripe, and then they’re
ripened with ethylene gas. That’s a really unnatural way of
eating. And it’s precisely that taste of the sort of watery
supermarket tomato that makes us remember fondly the homegrown version.
That process of the power of supermarkets shaping the food we then
get to select from is a fine example of how this sort of modern life
that is geared around convenience is geared around fast food, which
has its origins in industrial capitalism and the application of industrial
capitalism for food is destroying the quality of our food and is harming
us.
Paula: And you say its paradoxically eliminating our ability to choose.
Raj: Well that’s it because we are taught that if you go to
the supermarket, and you have hundreds of varieties of cereal or coffee
for example, selecting between them is free choice. But it’s
not. All it is offering is a broader palate of constrained choices,
and thus a constrained outcome. The word choice is what we apply to
that afterwards, but in fact we are being denatured [and] we are being
made to forget that there are broader choices, that there are sort
of strange local fruits and vegetables that require a little bit of
hunting down and a little bit of familiarity with food and with cooking,
but which are fresher, better for you, and cheaper. But those choices
are not on offer in the supermarket because they are not profitable.
Paula: Does that mean that you don’t think that supermarkets
could work as part of a sustainable food system?
Raj: Supermarkets work because they fit into a life that demands fast
food, food that is convenient, and that is pre-cooked. The produce
section in the supermarket is one of the least profitable; supermarkets
are kind of in the business of making us buy other stuff. That’s
why the milk section is always in the back, even in Whole Foods. That’s
the very telling illustration of the fact that supermarkets are not
in the business of being friendly. They’re in the business of
shifting products. The kinds of social relations that are involved
in a supermarket are not the kinds you need for a sustainable system,
and by that I mean knowing your producer. If you look at the Slow
Food founding documents, they are a declaration of independence from
the fast-paced world of capitalism in which food is just another thing
that you need to get through the day rather than a moment of sensuousness
and pleasure. And the founding ideas behind Slow Food look fairly
anti-capitalist, and I think perhaps that’s not a bad idea,
because the reason we need supermarkets is because we are working
so hard for such little money and for such little joy. We need to
reorganize our social system in order that everyone can eat properly.
Supermarkets become superfluous in that more sustainable system, because
actually we do have time to engage with our food more, and we do have
time to go to the farmer’s markets, and we do have income to
do that.
Paula: You suggest that, “poor diets are a symptom of systematic
lack of control over our spaces and our lives.” What do you
mean?
Raj: Certainly in the U.S. and the UK and in Spain you have a situation
where working class people are more likely to be overweight. Now that
translates into a lot of scorn, particularly in the Unites States,
being heaped onto people of color for being fat. I think that sort
of prejudice masks the fact that for working Americans, [there is]
very little choice about how to eat. Just as an experiment, I went
around the East Bay looking for ways to spend a week’s worth
of food stamps, about $21 per person, and the only way to make the
food stamps stretch as far as they could was by buying crap. I then
went to the farmer’s market in the Ferry Building here, and
tried to see what I could get for $21. I got a loaf of bread, some
cheese, half a dozen eggs and a few tomatoes. There’s no way
you can live on that for a week. Too often poverty gets written out
of the equation when we think of both obesity and hunger. But the
reason people go hungry today is not because there’s not enough
food, it’s because people are poor. And the reason that we have
obesity is because the choices that are available to many working
people are very poor food choices. And that means that those low cost
foods have a very high cost in the long term. At the end of the day
poverty means that you are unable to control your environment the
way rich people can.
Paula: Are there ways that we can start to change how people feed
themselves, the choices they have?
Raj: I think that we need some deeper political change around redistribution.
There was a time where you could say redistribution and not be howled
at as a communist. I think its important to reclaim the idea that
redistribution is an integral part of a healthy food system. Because
you can’t have such a food system when people can’t afford
the food.
Paula: Specifically when you say redistribution what do you mean?
Raj: Redistribution is not just about cash in pocket, but creating
other kinds of freedoms to be able to access food. Increasing social
programs, reducing the tax burden on poor people, increasing it on
rich people, and investing in broad social programs like healthcare.
One of the reasons Americans are working so hard is that they need
healthcare, and everywhere else in the civilized world kind of takes
it for granted, and that’s why a healthcare system would reduce
the need for things like supermarkets because people would be working
less. Food is medicine. The Hippocratic idea, that food is a way of
keeping our bodies healthy and at the moment we are poisoning ourselves,
which is why life expectancy is declining in the United States for
the poorest people, particularly women. The reason that governments
in Europe are taking the obesity epidemic far more seriously than
in the United States is because in Europe when the population becomes
obese, it’s the government healthcare system that has to pick
up the tab. And that’s why [the European] governments are very
into preventative measures, which in the United States would be seen
as unconstitutional. Things like banning advertising food to children
would be seen here as an infringement on companies rights of free
speech, where as in the UK the government has no problem with that.
They say if we don’t do this, half of British kids will be obese
by 2050 and we will have to pay the cost, so you don’t get to
advertise near our schools.
Paula: You’ve said that we are not going to change the situation
by shopping.
Raj: Don’t get me wrong, I buy fair trade if there is an option.
Because do you want hostile trade? I don’t want that, no one
wants that. But it is a very American delusion to think that we can
together change the world by shopping. Here we are kind of encouraged
to think that way because we’ve been so denatured as people
that the only way we can think of ourselves is as consumers. But we’re
not consumers, we are human beings. And being a human being is a much
richer, and more engaged and fulfilling idea of what and who we are
than merely people who shop. And I think part of the transformation
is realizing that we are richer and bigger, and more beautiful and
fantastic and more able to change our world than our supermarkets
would like to make us believe. We can change it through engaging with
other people, we can change it by growing our own food and sharing
that food, there’s a range of things that we can do, but there’s
so much that we can be doing that isn’t about shopping and that
you can’t get off the shelf. And I think that’s all for
the good.
Paula Crossfield is a contributing producer at The Leonard Lopate
Show on New York Public Radio. She is a writer on food policy issues
for the blog A Lucid Spoonful, and is currently working on a memoir
about her journey beyond corn syrup.
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Upcoming Events
What: Slow U. - Real Water: Love Your Tap
When: Wed Sep 17 6:30pm – Wed Sep 17 8:30pm
Where: The Study at Astor Center - 23 East 4th St. (btwn. Bowery &
Lafayette), Manhattan
Description
In 1799, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr started the Manhattan Water
Company to provide New York City with an ample supply of clean water.
The company survived the business relationship…in 1804, Burr
fatally wounded Hamilton in a dawn duel in Weehawken. Things got worse.
After an 1828 fire destroyed much of Manhattan and an 1832 cholera
epidemic killed many residents, both consequences of a poor and fetid
water supply, a public agency replaced the Manhattan Water Company
in 1842. Now, 166 years later, New York City has perhaps the best
city water supply in the world.
Brian Halweil, Executive Editor of Edible Brooklyn and the new Edible
Manhattan, will lead a panel discussion about environmental stewardship
and good NYC water (and the folly of drinking bottled water). The
panel will include Challey Comer, of the NY Watershed Agricultural
Council, Richard Giles, of the watershed Lucky Dog Farm, and NY Chef
Colin Alevras, a great friend of regional, sustainable agriculture
and chef of "in-the-works" resto, La Otra. With the talk,
we'll enjoy Great NY Water, of course, and Local Wine and Snacks.
Ticket are available ONLY at:
http://www.astorcenternyc.com/class-slow-u-real-water-love-your-tap.ac
Slow Food Members - $20
Non-member Friends - $30
NOTE:
To receive Slow Food Member and Non-member Friend Pricing, use codes
below:
Slow Food Member: SFNYCMEM
Non-member Friend: SFNYCNON
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Recipes
Plums might be finishing their season, but we've gotten so many of
them I thought people might still have them on hand.
Plum Cake with Rosemary
8 T (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon finely chopped rosemary leaves
5-6 ripe plums, halved, pitted, and cut into chunks
1 cup milk (I used raw milk from the CSA), yogurt or apple sauce
2 eggs
1/2 cup honey
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. liberally grease a 9" cake
pan. sprinkle the brown sugar into the pan. Add the plums in one layer,
and sprinkle over top the rosemary. Set this aside for the time being.
Combine you dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the
melted butter, the honey, the eggs and the milk. Stir in the flour
mixture, combining until smooth. Carefully pour the batter over the
pan of sugar and plums, making sure not to disturb the layering. Bake
for 40-50 minutes, until it is golden brown and a toothpick comes
out clean.
For more plum recipes, look on my blog below.
Thanks,
Paula
http://alucidspoonful.blogspot.com
http://slowfoodnation.org/blog
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Each week from the CSA I've been getting zucchini, and as a result
I had a little pyramid of them on the bottom shelf of of my fridge,
waiting to be converted in to something fantastic. Zucchini bread?
I thought aloud. Yann didn't seem very excited. Zucchini soup! I had
eaten a zucchini, squash and corn soup at Angelica Kitchen, and thought
about attempting to replicate it. It should be a cinch. I investigated
what I had: scallions, sweet corn, thyme and yellow and green zucchini.
Perfect. In the spirit of eating locally, which I will be doing whole-heartedly
for a week in September, I thought this would be a step in the right
direction.
Sweet Corn and Zucchini Summer Soup with Thyme
3 scallions, chopped
3 T olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced
pinch of cayenne
3 medium zucchini, or substitute summer squash, diced
1 ear of sweet corn
1 T of fresh thyme
Put olive oil in a medium pot on medium heat. Add chopped scallions,
salt, pepper, thyme, cayenne pepper and minced garlic and sauté
until it begins to brown. Add zucchini and cook until soft. Remove
1/4th of the cooked vegetables from the pan, adding to a blender along
with 3 cups cold filtered water. Blend until pureed, then add the
mixture back to the pot. Add corn and let simmer for 20 minutes. Garnish
with parsley and Parmesan cheese if you so desire.
