HISTORY LESSONS.
This winter I've been trying to catch up on some reading and lately the theme has seemed to lead to a simple conclusion: you aren't just what you eat, you are, unequivocally, what everyone eats.I'm currently reading Timothy Egan's "The Worst Hard Time," on The Great American Dust Bowl. This is a period of our history when the government pushed Native Americans (masters of husbandry, those guys) off their land and encouraged farmers to move West. Millions of acres were soon plowed on what was traditionally, and naturally, perennial prairie grass. Wheat was planted heavily throughout the late 1920's with the blessing of the government, a booming economy and good weather. Then, suddenly as if by punishment, the economy crumpled and the rains stopped... for nearly 10 years.
Far too many parallels can be drawn between how we were treating the land and the economy in the 20's vs. now––i.e. roaring 20's/Great Depression/Dustbowl vs. Roaring 2000's/Great Recession/Great Drought––and that might not seem so scary if I weren't a farmer now. In a situation like the Dust Bowl, it simply does not matter how one treats the land if everyone around them is plowing it up like idiots (sound familiar?). And we can now throw pesticides, herbicides and fungicides into the mix and arrive at not only the possibility of a brutal air assault, but a lasting and effective attack on our ground water, our local wildlife and our health.Last week, in fact, the New York Times had an article about that very subject, how at least one community in California could no longer drink its water for the poisons it contained from the runoff of a nearby commercial dairy (somehow tainting ground water is legal?). I know a natural farm whose spring––which they rely on entirely for their drinking water––was recently compromised when the neighbors decided to plant their wonderful pastures up the hill to corn, an act which requires loads of herbicide. Herbicide will seep into the soil, then the ground water, then build up in our bodies if we consume it. When we eat anything commercially farmed, we have to acknowledge there is a family somewhere who can't drink their own water because of it. And increasingly, a country that can't either."At present," writes Wendell Berry in a recent piece for the Atlantic, "80 percent of our farmable acreage is planted in annual crops, only 20 percent having the beneficent coverage of perennials. This, by the standard of any healthy ecosystem, is absurdly disproportionate." If we as a culture continue to depend on big agriculture for our food, all food will suffer, because all farmers will suffer. Everyone loses. We need proper husbandry and land practices, absolutely, but we farmers can only do so much. If our neighbors are still getting subsidies and the corn and soybeans are still flying off the shelves (and freezers), they will continue to plant them with gusto. And if mother nature decides she wants to cut the rain for a while (seen any terrifying droughts around lately?), then we might not see a trickle down effect, the effects might just roll over us like dirt in the Dust Bowl. All of us.- Jesse.
WENDELL WEDNESDAY!
Wendell is temporarily having to adjust to life in the big city, but here is a picture from a few weeks ago at his more permanent home in Bugtussle. This was in the midst of a giant leaf pile fight with his new best friend and neighbor Rascal the chihuahua - who can barely be seen in the photo, squashed under Wendell's enormous right foot. I think he's going to be happy here.
WINE SHOPPING.
With the overwhelming quantity of work ahead of us back in Bugtussle, it's hard not to be at the farm right now. But the reality is - we have our cabin money (CONTINUED THANK YOU'S!), just no real money to live on, thus our little sojourn to Nashville. We'll try and earn enough cash over the holidays so, come February or thereabouts, when we head back to the farm, we can stay put. For keeps. That's the goal, and so far so good!As Hannah mentioned a few days ago, I'm doing some shifts at a great local wine shop called Woodland Wine Merchant here in the city. I worked there almost two years ago over the winter and the owner, Will, offered me some holiday work which I couldn't pass up.Their selection is wonderful, on par with any big city wine shop and in many cases, better. Beyond their expansive selection of items like bitters and amaro, they carry much of what got me into farming in the first place: natural, organic, and biodynamic wines. It is deeply satisfying to turn people onto these wines, wines I believe in and stand behind, from farmers I wish to support. So although it's a bummer on nice days to not be on the farm at the moment, it's nice to feel good about the work I'm doing, and the shop I'm helping.So if you're in Nashville, stop by! We'll talk shop and I'll introduce you to some of my favorite people (the staff) and favorite health tonics (the wines).À votre santé, as they say in French––to your health.- Jesse.
(photo courtesy of Woodland Wine Merchant)
LARD LOVE.
Yesterday we headed over to the Porter Road Butcher in Nashville to see what we could find in the way of lard. Lard is quite possibly the most important food product in our diet––almost every meal begins with lard. Google "the health benefits of lard" and you will be fully supplied with enough enthusiastic and favorable sources to write a small dissertation on why everyone should hop back on the lard wagon. For me it's about flavor and cooking, but could just as easily be about health. High in monounsaturated fat, the kind which actually improves blood cholesterol levels, lard is not only tasty but a nutritious alternative to products like butter, and definitely to things like margarine.You don't want to get your lard from just any source though: it's buying meat and you should know the animal was raised humanely on a natural diet. The butchers didn't have any lard rendered at the time, but kindly offered to sell us some pork fat to render ourselves. I love rendering lard, admittedly because I enjoy eating the resulting pork cracklings––like fatty pork rinds––but also because we prefer to be involved in the process of everything we eat as much as possible.The process of rendering is essentially cutting the fat into small pieces and putting it in a large pot with some water and letting it cook on medium heat for around an hour until the cracklings are a nice brown. Then strain and let cool. Et voila!––lard! It keeps really well and we'll probably get roughly half a gallon of lard from 5 1/2 pounds of fat at $11. And, since you use less lard, that amount will last us longer––several weeks cooking three meals a day––than the equivalent in olive oil or butter. Plus, we'll save at least $10, not to mention all the fossil fuels, etc., involved with the olive oil process. Hopefully, next year we will have our own pigs....one step closer to sustainability!- Jesse.