Wired’s version of the next food revolution

From Weasel Food by Jake Benner

April 7, 2009

I’m probably a little late on this, since it was published October 2008, but did anyone else catch it (I couldn’t find it in a search of Culinate’s archives)? Some amazingly talented graphic artist produced some unique visualizations of food statistics in Wired Magazine.

I love the data, but I’m not sure what they’re advocating. Since this is a tech magazine, they obviously favor scientific solutions, some of which I wholeheartedly agree with (e.g., sound soil and water conservation strategies with real-time data from remote sensing), and others I’m not too sure about, such as global food supply chain management.

They begin with a chart showing world food demand v. production, indicating a widening gap in the present day. Apparently, global populations are demanding more food, but crop yields have flatlined. Wired says science and technology will solve the problem of how to get more crops out of existing cropland. I didn’t read anything about shrinking amounts of cropland in production of human food, or the fact that fewer people are farming.

Not to defile engineers (certainly the bent of those writing/editing the article) but they tend to seek solutions without addressing the roots of the problem. I realize the roots and the branches probably need simultaneous care, but let’s focus on a few, more sustainable solutions:

1. Addressing global population growth (which seems to have taken a back seat of late to other pressing issues, like global climate change)
2. Local food supplies (shift from global to local sources, unless your place of origin has become desertified or is underwater due to GCC...)
3. Growing food people can eat
4. Encouraging young people to become farmers

Of course, it’s hard not to get depressed when corporations are patenting hybrids that will out-produce conventional varieties yet not have fertile seeds. Read about the case against heirloom tomatoes!

My Struggle with Mise en Place and Other Sins

From Weasel Food by Jake Benner

March 28, 2009

This is a confession, of sorts: I don’t do mise en place. Have I sinned?

I have watched cooking shows since I was 12 or 13 (for those of you counting, that’s like 20 years). In that time I’ve seen more tiny prep bowls filled with just the right amount of this or that than I can count. TV chefs seem to have everything so together, and then, just when the ingredient is needed in the recipe, BAM! It goes right in, right on time. Genius.

Why can’t I do this? Why can’t I take the time to prep each of my veggies, spices, herbs, separating them into neat piles of just the right, measured amount? It would be so convenient! So much less flying around the kitchen grabbing what I need as cooking progresses. So much more time to talk and drink. Instead I am never at ease, always having to wash, peel, chop, dice, toss at the last second. Sometimes, I find I didn’t even have something I needed--too late!

Is it the amount of time it would take? I do feel rushed after work to get started making dinner right away because I know it will often take an hour to produce. But, I am sure the same result could be achieved within the same amount of time even if I took the time to prep everything before cooking started. I don’t think it’s the time.

Let’s get to the root of my problem. It’s because I don’t know WHAT I want to prep. I mean, all I have is an idea of what I want to use in the “recipe”...which leads me to my next sin: I hate recipes.

OK, I don’t hate them. I read them all the time (I’m even queuing several here on Culinate). I love the ideas they provide--things that I would not have thought to combine or techniques I didn’t know. I have many books and cards full of them, but I do not follow recipes. (This is why I am no longer allowed to bake in my house--ingredient amounts seem to be far too touchy in baking for someone like me to interfere). I never make the same thing twice (even if I wanted to) because of this complicated relationship with recipes.

Before I ask for forgiveness, let me get something off my chest: I think people should cook without following a recipe more often. Part of my disagreement with recipes is that they are little 3 x 5 inch prisons. I encounter people wandering the isles of the grocery store, recipe in hand, looking for “two cups of diced green pepper” more than I should. Folks it’s not rocket science--it’s food science, and scientists need to experiment. Nothing is learned without experimentation.

The next time you get hungry for a particular food, look at a few different recipes for it and try to view them as suggestions rather than architectural plans. Don’t write anything down and try to make it without reading a recipe (don’t forget to taste along the way). This allows you to do a couple of things: put your own spin on it, which might make it taste better to you; and use what you have on hand rather than what the recipe calls for, which will save you a trip to the store and possibly some money. I bet by challenging yourself in this way you might become a better, more confident, more creative cook. If you hit on something really good, write it down and save it.

Now that I have said my piece, let me ask for forgiveness. None of the above is any excuse to avoid taking the time to do good preparation or to keep track of recipes. Recipes are valuable. They are a record of our culinary history--each one represents something that someone ate at least once. If I can’t manage to write down my recipes or even follow a recipe someone else wrote, I’m not respecting that history, nor will I ever cook with the consistency of a professional chef. Mise en place is all about the consistency that good preparation can help provide.

As is usually the case, it’s our own guilt that drags us to the confessional, and that’s why I’ve come here to spill my offal. So I recently made a promise to myself that I will start keeping better track of the recipes I create and work directly from recipes at least every now-and-then. I’ve already written down one recipe and stored it on Culinate! More importantly, I will decide what I need before I need it...and maybe I’ll even use a measuring cup!

DISCLOSURE: I’m the “spouse”!

From Weasel Food by Jake Benner

March 21, 2009

Until we joined this meat CSA, I had been avoiding pork for about 4 years because of the brutality of slaughter operations. I know that this is an issue for more than pigs, but I saw one too many documentaries several years ago, and I can’t get the image of live, conscious, screaming pigs hanging by one hind leg from an overhead conveyor belt. We can buy our meat with confidence in the grocery store if we are concerned with quality of life issues for the animals: free range, natural feed, antibiotic use, etc. But if we’re also concerned about the unnecessary, prolonged suffering inflicted on livestock at the slaughterhouse (and on the trip from farm to processing plant), then we’ve got a problem... because I’ve never seen a “humanely slaughtered” label.

So when “weasel” returned from a trip to our local farmer’s market with news of the meat CSA, I was skeptical... He handed me a brochure, and the answers I needed weren’t there. So I went to the farmer’s market alone the next week to find out for myself. It was obvious from the brochure that these farmers did all they could to ensure that their animals lived well, but how were they dying?

I found the farmers’ daughter (on summer break from college and a farmer in her own right) staffing the tent. I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask her about how the animals were slaughtered, but I took a deep breath and said something like:

“When I was a kid, most of my family were farmers, and I spent much of my childhood getting to know the animals that we were eating. I often knew the ‘name’ of my hamburger. My family was committed to making sure that the animals were slaughtered humanely. I know that in most slaughter operations animals are surrounded by the sounds of suffering as soon as they arrive, and so they are terrified and frantic before they even begin the physical suffering. How are your animals slaughtered?”

By this point, I was almost in tears... ridiculous, I know... And when I looked up, the young woman standing in front of me had tears in her eyes too. She told me that she was a vegan for three years because of her own concerns about the needless suffering inflicted on so many animals at the end of their lives.

But she wasn’t a vegan anymore. She said she’d toured the facility where her family takes their animals for slaughter. Each animal has its own appointment time at the slaughterhouse - I don’t remember the details of how that works... What I DO remember is that the animals die peacefully and quickly.

I was convinced: a teen whose family livelihood depends totally on raising animals for food had been so concerned about the treatment of animals at the end of life that she stopped eating all animal products... and seeing the way that their animals were slaughtered eased her mind, and even allowed her to feel good about it.

So I announced to my very excited spouse and friend/neighbor that we should join (and that I would eat the pork). We got on the waiting list, and 6 months later, we got in... and there’s no going back!

For the love of meat...

What would you pay?

From Weasel Food by Jake Benner

March 21, 2009

It’s 5:30 Wednesday evening, just after work. I’ve been anticipating this moment for a week. I am the designated dealmaker. Eighty dollars cash from the ATM. I meet my dealer in the parking lot who’s working out of the back of a nondescript white van. I hand over four twenties, nothing but small talk between us. He walks away and comes back with a red and white Igloo cooler. I open it to check the contents. Everything is in its place. Others are beginning to gather around me. I make my exit before things get too heated...

No, it’s nothing remotely illegal--I’m just making my monthly pickup from my meat CSA, an animal-friendly, organic, community supported agriculture operation located in west-central Massachusetts.

A pork chop prepared with tomatoes in the Italian style.

Each month, my spouse, a neighbor and I receive ten pounds of assorted meats from this beautiful, humanely operated farm. They keep us up-to-date with regular newsletters on animal doings and (sometimes) dyings, making us feel as if we’re intimately connected with the successes and (sometimes) failures of the farm.

Since we started in December I have been thinking about how I might justify the hefty $8/lb. price tag for this meat when a similar package of cuts and grinds may average $5-6/lb. at the non-wholesome grocery store. Wouldn’t buying cheaper meat make sense with the economy and all?

Below are the benefits I figure we get for our $8/lb. Maybe those of you who are participating in a meat CSA or co-op could suggest more.

1. By supporting this farm, we save its >100 acres of pasture and woodland from being subdivided and developed. As we all know, much agricultural land in the US is under development pressure from encroaching suburbs and bedroom communities. See the American Farmland Trust for more information.
2. We are paying for the additional care required of animals that are raised with enough space, sun and natural food to enjoy their brief lives and that are killed as quickly and as humanely as possible. My farmers often observe how their animals are killed, many of them their personal favorite pigs or cows, and make sure that its done right (See The Center for a Livable Future’s Industrial Animal Production Program reports). Yeah, I’ll pay for that.
3. We are eating less meat! I know meat is not an important component of everyone’s lives, but we enjoy it. We also have always known that we enjoy too much of it. By restricting our meat consumption to that we buy from the CSA we’re able to put a limit on our intake. I’m not saying we’re 100% successful yet, but that’s the goal. Divided by 3, that’s only 3 1/3 lbs per month per person (I tend to sneak a little more because I’m the cook). Come summer I may inquire about special cuts for smoking, etc., so we may kick it up to 5 lbs. per month, but still...many people where I’m from (the Midwest) eat 5 lbs. of factory meat per week!
4. By giving our money directly to the farmers, we can provide them with a living wage. This is not unique to a meat CSA, but it cuts out the middle of the supply chain and means more of my money goes to support the food I want to eat and the farmers I admire.
5. By buying meat locally we reduce the amount of transport used to get meat to the table, which reduces use of fuel. Although, by supporting animal agriculture we’re supporting methane production...but what can you do...

So, for our $8/lb. and with a full-cost accounting of the disadvantages of industrial animal husbandry (read any of the detailed reports in the links above), I think we’re getting a pretty good deal.

In this economy it is tempting to want cheaper and cheaper food. Cheap food is killing us, just like cheap gas, and leading to the downfall of American agriculture. Cheap food isn’t cheap. Pay a little more for what you really care about and eat a little less of it. Use the tips elsewhere on Culinate to rewrite or learn new recipes for a more economical use of ingredients at home.

Well, I have to go to the freezer now to decide which piece of happy hog we will eat tonight...the chops, ham steak or sausage?

Editor’s note: Read “DISCLOSURE: I’m the ‘spouse’!” for more of the story.