Farm Trips: Hawai'i Edition

As you can tell by the title of this post and the map at left, our most recent farm trip was one which took us far afield from Alabama. We were yearning for some local papaya, so we hopped a plane and took off to the island of Maui.

Right.

In reality, we took a family vacation. Rashmi's parents had this trip in the works for the better part of a year, and just because we're eating local doesn't mean you can back out of a free trip to Hawai'i. Anyway, what are we, masochists?

But we did want to bring as much of our local eating habits with us as possible. It's an island, right? Hawai'i must be full of self sustaining local food opportunities. They're 2,000 miles from the mainland! It would make no sense for them to import all their food! Sustainability must be a central theme here on this island that geographically is still one of the most isolated places in the world.

Not so fast. Despite a great climate for growing vegetables and a seemingly unending growing season, Hawai'i imports 90% of their food from either the US or our myriad trading partners in Central and South America. As an op-ed featured in the Honolulu Advertiser during our stay pointed out, if shipping came to a halt the islands would have a 10 day food supply. It may not make sense how this evolution of foodways has occurred, but it has happened nonetheless.

Take, for instance, the mango. Mango trees grow in Hawai'i the way oak trees grow in the south - they line streets and provide shade in public parks. It seems like they're in the front yard of half the houses on Maui. A mango tree, full of fruit, was being cut down across the street from us one morning because it was going to interfere with the powerlines. Another day, as we were eating lunch under the shade of a mango tree, a stiff wind came and knocked loose a ripened fruit that landed inches away from my sister-in-law's head. Would have knocked her out. Point is, there are lots of mangoes.

But, when you go to the store and buy a mango - unless you're in the more expensive local produce section - it's going to come from somewhere else. Like the one purchased unknowingly by my mother-in-law, pictured here, from Mexico. By some logic of capitalism it makes sense how and why this came to be. But the logic of capitalism is completely illogical for sustainability.

While we were on the island, Rashmi and I could not escape our constant thoughts about food. It's difficult to shut off thinking about something that has consumed your life for the better part of two months. This project has infected nearly every aspect of how we live. The guiltless snacking on Wheat Thins is gone. The list of ingredients alone is enough to give pause when our diet has been constructed of things we created from scratch. Seeing the raw ingredients for nearly everything you eat and scrutinizing the sources for every scrap of food changes your perspective. So, we ate as much local fruit as possible. Fresh from local fruit stands or snagged from trees, we partook of the following: pineapples, mangoes, tamarind, guava, macadamia nuts, sugarcane, coconuts, many varieties of banana, papaya, soursop, thimbleberries, starfruit, jack fruit, avocado, lychee and some others I'm sure I've forgotten. We may have been eating only strawberries here in Bama, but we had our fill of tropical fruits on Maui.

We also managed to take a farm trip. We visited Laulima Farm just past Hana on the far eastern tip of Maui. Laulima has 13 acres and has been around for a little over a decade. They grow primarily for a few restaurants in Maui, a grocery store, and the fruit stand we visited. They have 9 apprentices a year, and I must say that if I were looking to intern on an organic farm I would certainly check this place out. The day we were there, they had greens, taro, carrots, beets, ginger, and a huge variety of tropical fruits. The claim to fame at Laulima (in addition to outstanding, organic, GMO-free produce) is a bicycle-powered smoothie machine. Rashmi powered the blender for our two smoothies of banana, strawberry papaya, and coconut milk. We left with two huge bunches of kale and swiss chard, 4 big pieces of taro root, a bunch of cuban bananas, an avocado and a few papayas.

The next night we cooked an all Hawaii meal for the family - baked taro chips with fresh greens and grilled ahi tuna. Top that off with Maui Brewing Company's Big Swell IPA, and I think I could get used to life on Maui.

Because we've recently disrupted our formerly naive attitude about food, this trip presented its own unique rewards and challenges. For instance, unless you're willing to embark on the kind of obsessive "experiment" in eating that we have, it's difficult to explain how and why a peanut butter and jelly sandwich made up entirely of products from the mainland can feel like an albatross around your neck. On the other hand, we found great joy and pleasure in searching out the local foodways of Hawai'i. We'd never seen taro growing and we scrutinized each of the new vegetable and fruit plants we came across. I couldn't help but become intrigued by the variety of articles in the local paper about water wars between traditional taro farmers and the powerful sugar conglomerates. Once you find yourself thinking about food systems, your whole perspective on a place changes. I encourage you, if you've got the time and the interest, to look into eating local on your next vacation. Whether it's to Oregon or to Italy, try and figure out what's grown there and taste a little of what the place has to offer. It'll give you insight into a place that no guidebook can offer.

Also, for those of you keeping score at home, at this point Joe has gone to Cuba and Rash and I have gone to Hawai'i, while Sara has borne the brunt of Eating Alabama staying all by her lonesome in McCalla. If anybody deserves a momentary indiscretion, it's her. Fortunately, she and Joe are in North Carolina this weekend, and I imagine that margaritas are on the agenda...


Here are some photos from our trip:

breakfast _______________________________greens growing at Laulima Farms

sign at Laulima_________________ biking for smoothies


sign at Laulima_________________________ some of our purchases


taro growing_______________________________ Rash with banana tree

Vegetarian or Locavore?

In seventh grade, I made a moral decision to cease and desist with consuming meat.

Until my sophomore year in college, I held to that diet and have been a meat eater only in spells since. In four years together, Joe and I had cooked meat only once and that was a young, superfluous rooster from my uncle's farm served for the benefit of guests.

Eating Alabama does not offer opportunities to eat a variety of beans, previously a staple in our diet. More importantly, part of this endeavor is supporting local famers or farmers who are forging the way with healthier and more sustainable practices. So, we have bought some steak knives and a smorgasbord of pasture raised meats and for two months have been eating bacon and hamburgers, venison tenderloin and smoked turkey, pork chops and chicken. I even went so far as to help gut the chickens myself.

While many of these dishes have been delicious and nutritious, I am not sold on a return to a omnivorous lifestyle. And, I desperately miss veggie burgers, black bean burritos, and tofu stir fry. Empowered by acquisition of two bushels of soybeans, we attempted to resurrect the delicacies of the vegetarian diet. Joe tried to make homemade tofu. Alas, it was a failed effort. Following that, I experimented with homemade soybean burgers. Success was mine. Here, you can see them frying in the skillet.

I soaked and then boiled 1 1/2cups soy beans and ran them through the food processor with chopped onion, zucchini, olive oil, salt, cilantro, and 1 egg.

Certainly you could vary this combo or add another vegetable. Once ground, it is easy to form the mixture into patties for frying.

We did not have any buns or ketchup or mayo. So, I topped the burgers with roasted tomatoes and goats cheese. See the end product here with sauteed squash. Yummy!!

Locavore on location: Cuba!

I'm just back from the land of Castro, Cuba Libres and Mojitoes, & unsurprisingly, a fascinating food culture. Obviously, I had to jump off the Alabama-only wagon for this weeklong work trip, but I dedicated myself to exploring local food and local food culture as I made my way around Havana and Camaguey, where I was working on my water and sanitation research. I'll be making a similar trip to Ghana in June and India in July - hey, my work is largely international, what else can I do? - while my counterparts here drool uncontrollably at the thought of my access to local foods in these places. I'll be making several posts on my trips to add an international perspective to our project.

In my experience, we have much to learn from the local food economies in poorer countries, where high transportation and storage costs, intact local foodways, and alternative ag/food policy have meant that more food stays nearby and is consumed locally. There is a self-sufficiency there that we've lost here because we haven't (thought we) needed it: refrigerated trucks and preservatives to the rescue! Although many are now questioning what we've lost in giving up our local food in favor of drive-throughs, frozen "meals", cheetoes, and all of the other plastic crap we settle for.

How do we respond to nasty food? Más revolución!

Beautiful market in historic Havana, the most beautiful and tragically decayed city I've ever visited - a bit like Greensboro, AL meets New Orleans times 1000 set in some dystopian (or utopian) alternate universe where the only billboards are political propaganda & the only cars are 1950s American or 1980s Soviet. The entire city, especially Old Havana - the historic center - is undergoing massive renovation and revitalization, funded primarily with tourist dollars. Many of the buildings are 300 years old and older, which to this American seems ancient; the place drips with heavy history. Cuba is experiencing unprecedented change these days as money flows in and the government shows signs of relaxing some restrictions.

So I am thinking of running for presidente. I hear there's great job security - the last guy had the job for 60 years. Más revolución! For those of you out there with sneaking suspicions that all academics are secretly communist, you have your proof, at least in my case. Idea for the University's new ad campaign: "Crimson is Red".

The vegetable and fruit markets are lively, colorful, and beautiful, with a broad range of offerings from papaya to carrots. Unfortunately, like here in America, fresh produce is expensive for many people, and getting more so, although availability there still outstrips what we have here. Meat is rarer still for many poor Cubans. There are (free) government rations for rice (2.5 kg per person per month - from Vietnam), black beans, oil and flour, and other basics, with meat distributed on a slightly less regular schedule. The everpresent black beans and rice are called moros y cristianos ("moors and christians") which is interesting if slightly offensive. The Cuban diet is heavy on the rice, beans, and veggies, with a little meat or fish on the side when available.

I've been told that most of the chicken is imported from Alabama (we are Cuba's biggest trading partner in the US), but I didn't eat any of the chicken since Eating Alabama only makes sense for this project when I'm actually in Alabama! Interesting dilemma.

I was in Cuba as part of a University of Alabama delegation and research exchange with the University of Havana; the University makes several such trips every year and has for the last few years. I was warned before going that the food was nothing special: one person on the last trip even took a suitcase of MREs (military-issue "meals-ready-to-eat" consisting of freeze-dried nonsense) after getting food poisoning on the previous trip. Knowing what I know now, that is absolutely loco. The food there is amazing, fresh, diverse, and mostly organically produced as a result of enlightened government policy and the historical shortage of chemical fertilizers, especially after the USSR fell in 1991. In fact, an estimated 30% of the total food consumed on the island is produced in urban organic gardens called organiponicos, which are highly regarded examples of how to intensively produce nutritious, local food at large scale. The farms are worked by collectives and part-time gardeners and sold on-site or in local markets. I visited several urban gardens and markets - yum city.

My typical meal consisted of fresh grilled fish, black beans, fried plantains, and salad, washed down with locally sourced liquids. I can't say that I stuck to the local fare all of the time: one official dinner offered paella (lots of rice), and sandwiches were all we could find at various points - and I'm sure the bread was made with grain that was likely imported from Russia or China. It's tough to stick to your guns on a work trip where you have no control over some of what's available to eat.

But the trip to Cuba revealed what few of us can imagine anymore: a viable, vibrant local food economy where fresh, seasonal, and sustainably grown produce is the expected norm, not some yuppie nonsense only available at stores few of us can afford. We have a lot to learn.

To market, to market to buy a fat pig...

Well, it's that time of year again. School's out and it's starting to get a little muggy. The days of open windows and cool morning breezes are dwindling. Pretty soon, we'll be sweating like pigs, and because of that unbearable humidity, forced to turn on the AC, stick our face in the freezer, and change our clothes at least twice a day. And you know what that means...it's summertime in Alabama!

Summer is also the time when the local farmer's markets begin to heat up. Throughout the summer, a plethora of fresh fruit and vegetables await you. Not many can resist the crunch of a fresh cucumber, the drip-drop of a juicy Chilton Co. peach, or the one of a kind taste of a garden tomato. Check your local listings to find out which markets are closest to you. Local Harvest, the Farmer's Market Authority, and the Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network websites are all good resources. Here are some of the market's we've visited in the last couple of weeks:

1. Tuscaloosa Farmer's Market, Tuscaloosa, AL
Location: intersection of Jack Warner Pkwy and Greensboro Ave.
When: Tues. and Sat. mornings 6am-until, May-October

Get there early! Some things sell out fast! On our first trip there last Saturday, there were potatoes, cauliflower, cabbage, greens, beets, onions, eggs, canned goods, and much more!

2. Homegrown Alabama Farmer's Market, Tuscaloosa, AL
Location: Canterbury Chapel, the corner of Hackberry Lane and 9th St.
When: Thurs. afternoons 3-6:30 pm, May-October

Located on the University of Alabama's campus, this is a brand new market that offers food, fun, and community. Among other things, the market features Miss Emily's hydroponic tomatoes, honey from Hewitt's Farm, and eggs from Northside Farm. For a complete list of vendors click here.

3. Pepper Place Saturday Market, Birmingham, AL
Location:2829 2nd Ave. S
When: Saturday mornings 7am-noon, May-September

In addition to lots and lots of farmer's booths, this market offers cooking demonstrations by area chefs, baked goods, coffee, and goods from local artisans. Some of our favorite purchases from this market have been: A big jar of homemade garlic dill pickles from Seven Winds Kitchen in Cullman Co., amazing goat cheeses from Bulger Creek Farm in Notasulga (they have both soft and hard goat cheese varieties), and the first nectarines of the season from Hudman Farms in Chilton Co. Our friends at Snow's Bend Farm in Tuscaloosa Co. also set up a booth at Pepper Place.

'Tis the season for fresh farm produce! So start your shoppin' now, before you miss out on any more of the good stuff!

Momentary Indiscretion

Still not caught up from the semester's end, but here's a video we shot two weekends ago. Also, since last we posted, there was a nice little article in the Birmingham News about the project. You can read it here.

















UPDATE: Click on the picture above or click here to watch the video. Having the videos directly on the site was a drag for those without fast connections. The video is rather large and might take a moment to load.

Farm Trips: Chicken and Wine Edition

Two weekends ago we made a jaunt closer to home to visit a small sustainable family farm in Prattville, a winery in Harpersville, and a 50,000 square foot corporate grocery store in Birmingham. Details as follows:














1. BC Hunt Farms, Prattville, AL

After nearly a month without so much as a taste of our fine-feathered friends, we decided it was high time that chickens became a part of our regular menus. Hungry for what some fans of pastured chicken call a more "chickeny taste," we set off to BC Hunt Farms in search of our first farm fresh chickens. When we arrived early Saturday morning, we were greeted by the Hunt clan - Bryan, Cat, and their three daughters, Kimberly, Mary, and Ryan, who had obviously all been busy killing chickens prior to our arrival. Blood-stained shirts and plastic aprons adorned even the littlest among them. The oldest daughter, Kimberly, came to meet us with knife in hand. After a little chit-chat, the team was back to work, affording us an opportunity to witness the much anticipated chicken slaughter, which took place entirely in the family's backyard. Up until now, my knowledge of chicken killing methods consisted largely of Michael Pollan's account in Omnivore's Dilemma and of the quick show-and-tell (sans birds) in the barn at Rosita's Farm. The Hunts' set-up was nothing fancy, but it worked. Plastic potting containers with holes cut in the bottom served as the "killing cones." The cones helped to contain the flapping chicken while its neck, exposed through the hole, was cut. A pair of 2x4's with a space between them just large enough to place the chicken's head sat over a series of buckets that would collect the draining blood. It was the youngest daughter's job to hold down the thrashing bird while it slowly died - a job which she relished with considerable delight. After the cones, the birds took a soak in a 145 degree water bath for 3 minutes, which helps loosen their feathers for the plucking machine. Their naked bodies were then passed to the oldest daughters for gutting, beheading, and cleaning. Finally, they were slipped into a ziplock bag and thrown into the cooler, ready to be claimed by waiting customers.

The Hunts killed more than 30 chickens that day. It was a family affair. The girls helped their dad, and they did so willingly. Each knew their responsibility - their part in turning living birds into food. Customers trickled in throughout the morning and afternoon playing audience to the carnage - Sarah even joined in on the gutting herself (see below). Some, ourselves included, took a reprieve from the slaughterhouse, to pick strawberries, or take a walk to see the pigs (which also will be turned into food later this summer!).

The Hunts started their little operation back in 2004. They run a CSA, sell pastured chicken, free-range hogs, and grass-fed beef. They also have a nice little patch of naturally-grown strawberries that are possibly the best strawberries I've ever tasted. Go visit them sometime and see the farm in action. You'll be happy you did.

2. Morgan Creek Winery, Harpersville, AL

After a long day of chicken-killing voyeurism, nothing hits the spot like a little wine-tasting at one of Alabama's wineries. Morgan Creek Winery is located about 30 miles east of Birmingham, and offers a wide variety of muscadine wines. We took a short tour of the facilities and were given an introduction on muscadine grapes, which are apparently coveted for their high levels of resveratrol, an antioxidant contained in the grape's skin and seeds. Even though white muscadine wine is made without the skins, it contains 7 times more resveratrol than the average non-muscadine merlot. A red muscadine wine, which is made with skins, contains 10 times more resveratrol. So we quickly found out that drinking muscadine wines (in moderation of course) is almost certainly better for our health!

After the tour, we had a chance to sample some of their wines, which included dry, semi-sweet, sweet, and fruit varieties. My favorites were the Cahaba White (sold at most grocery stores), a dry, fruity wine, and the Regal Red, a sweet wine with hints of cherry. They'll even let you buy a bottle and drink it on the premises, where you can sit at picnic tables overlooking the vineyards.


3. Whole Foods, Birmingham, AL

Before making the drive back to Tuscaloosa, a last-minute curiosity urged us to stop at Whole Foods Market, to see what, if anything, we could buy from Alabama. We strolled the produce aisles looking frantically for fruits and vegetables from Alabama, reading signs that told where each item was grown. In the produce aisle there was a lot of stuff from Georgia, more from California, and a handful of items from abroad - from Mexico mainly, and even something from China - but nothing that we saw in our quick survey from our great state. A quick run through the rest of the store revealed only a few Alabama products - Alabama farm-raised shrimp, goat cheese from Belle Chevre in Elkmont, Alabama honey, and Alabama wines. There's liable to be more Alabama products than what we found in our brief visit, but our quick scan looking for local goods was disappointing.

There are a number of reasons why Whole Foods in Birmingham doesn't carry more produce from farms down the highway. First, there's the issue of suppliers. It's much easier for Whole Foods to deal with established companies who supply organics than it would be for them to deal with a handful of local farmers in the area. Second, there are not a large number of USDA Certified Organic growers in the state - and, the buzz in foodie communities has largely been about "Certified Organic," and not "Certified Naturally Grown." Third, simply the size and the scale of Whole Foods makes it unreasonable that they could get even a tenth of their produce from Alabama farmers.

But still, Whole Foods could do more for local farmers, and the folks who shop there should demand it. Our friends David and Margaret Ann who run Snow's Bend farm here in Tuscaloosa County had a dealing with Whole Foods that ended in an out of court settlement. (You can read about their lawsuit here.) Long story short, Whole Foods came out to the farm and took some pictures of David, telling him that soon they would start buying from the farm as part of their "local supplier" program. Instead, they bought nothing and used David's picture in advertisements touting the local food offered at Whole Foods. Similar stories from other parts of the country abound.

While shopping at Whole Foods gives a warm and fuzzy feeling to many peoples' hearts (I'm buying organic, I'm buying local!), the reality is that like any other large publicly-traded corporation, the concerns of the board of directors are not so much about paying David and Margaret Ann a fair price for their produce. Instead, they're mainly concerned with having the largest profits possible to please the shareholders. It's legitimate to suggest that having a more aggressive stance toward supporting local farmers could be a way to maximize their profits. But, it doesn't appear that this is the strategy Whole Foods has chosen. And it doesn't seem to be hurting them either. The day we were there it was packed full of people.

UPDATE: A second fact checking trip to the produce department on Saturday, May 9th, revealed that we had overlooked two local goods - hothouse tomatoes from Blackjack Farms near Birmingham, and sweet potatoes from Haynes & Sons in Cullman.

Enter the Weevil.

UPDATE: Click on the photo above or this link to watch the video.

Also, the plural of larva is pronounced lar·vae (-vē)

Music by my college roommate and BFF Joey Thompson. He's got a great band called The Archibalds. Check them out here.

The Gray Area

Do you see what is in my freezer? (Please disregard the residual frozen peas.) Front and Center. Yep, that is ICE CREAM. Do not be fooled by the Wright Dairy label. While the milk may be produced in Alabama, the sugar and vanilla was not. Sure, Joe bought the flavors Butter Pecan and Strawberry, and, possibly, the pecans or berries could have been grown in Alabama. Still, we know that the sugar and vanilla had to have been trucked here.

So, how local is LOCAL? Have we failed in our moral endeavor somehow by choosing to eat some delicious, nutritious, and filling ice cream?

Immanuel Kant wrote of the “Categorical Imperative.” His ideas don’t drink as well as the vodka but he was an absolutist. If our “imperative” is to eat only local for 4 months, then how can we reconcile the consumption of this impure ice cream with our objective? I feel Kant’s ghost breathing down my neck.

The answer to this dilemma is that eating local is not the ultimate “imperative.” There are myriad reasons for our mission. So let’s evaluate this question.

Support local economies: Yes, Wright Dairy
Reduced emissions from trucking: No, the sugar, vanilla bean, xanthum gum, and guar gum were not produced here.
Local for Health: Yes, local milk / No, refined sugar
Organic vs. Local: No, beet and cane sugar production is heavily dependent on chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides. Yes, small scale dairy production is vastly superior to factory cows.

This is simplified and I could certainly argue about water quality, wars for oil, and corporate maleficence, but you get the idea. I guess we are hungry. Please weigh in on this moral dilemma.

Soybeans

Editor's Note: The four of us are all teachers and this is the end of the semester crunch. So, apologies for the very belated post, and promises of much more to come in the near future to get us caught up.

A couple of weeks ago Joe and I drove north toward Fayette to visit a farmer by the name of Johnny Walker. Mr. Walker and his son John farm about one thousand acres in northern Tuscaloosa County. They are traditional commercial farmers, growing primarily the key cash crops of our industrial agriculture system - wheat, soybeans, and corn. Most of what they grow isn't for human consumption. It will become animal feed or be made into alternative fuels. But, the fact is, like most industrial growers, the Walkers don't ultimately know where their crops end up. Once they sell their grains to an elevator, they join the great grain river that flows across the country and propels our food system (thanks to Michael Pollan for the "river" analogy). Unlike many of the small scale producers we've dealt with so far, the Walkers have been farming for generations on the same plot of land and have seen the progress of industrial agriculture first hand. We had a fascinating conversation about the futures market, about the state of agriculture subsidies, and about the volatile economics of food. Mr. Walker told us things I'd recently been reading about in the New York Times (like this story or this one), but hearing them straight from a farmer in my own county underscored the growing complexities of the global food market.

We originally called the Walkers to see if they might have some wheat, but they informed us it was long gone. The corn too. All they had left was a few thousand bushels of soybeans, and they were about to clear the grain bins of those to make room for their wheat harvest in early June. So Joe and I came back with two huge containers of soybeans - about three bushels each, weighing in around 200 pounds. What we'll do with all these soybeans has yet to be discovered. Joe and Sarah have made flour with them, but soy flour is different than wheat flour in that it doesn't contain gluten and can't be used in bread recipes, etc. We can make tofu, but haven't had the time. Rashmi and I have boiled some of them in our pressure cooker the way we would any dried bean. The result is a fairly bland but protein heavy bean, good as a side dish with more flavorful foods. So, if you've got a dried soybean recipe, by all means let us know about it!

Waste Not, Want Not

One aspect of the Eating Alabama diet that is important to discuss is the issue of WASTE. Prior to this diet, Joe and I did not generate enough trash to warrant carrying it to the curb weekly. There were plastic bags from frozen food or baby carrots, but it did not add up as it does for some folk. However, we did have a huge recycling pile- cans from beans and other veggies; cans from beer; glass jars from salsa or tomato sauce; paperboard boxes from veggie sausage and burgers; plastic containers of every shape and size from margarine to cottage cheese to sody pop.

Now, since all of our food is fresh, we generate even less trash. There are no take out containers, no plastic bags that are not reusable, no cans. The majorityof the waste that we are producing is compostable, i.e. the vegetable scraps and egg shells, or else meat by-products, which our dogs happily consume. The boxes that our strawberries were picked into will be reused on our own farm and the egg cartons returned to the egg farmer for reuse. The first word in the triad is "REDUCE, reuse, recyle." We are able to do this when eating only local foods.

Since we cannot buy any beer in cans and really the only alchohol that we consume in any quantity is wine, we are collecting a fair amount of glass to be recycled. Still, the amount of "trash" that we produce, which would occupy space in a landful and require a gas-guzzling vehicle to collect, is down by more that 50%. I realized this when my parents came for a visit and I bought "conventional" groceries. We had to throw away bags from potato chips, paper from cereal boxes, milk containers from soy milk. It adds up. Even if you think that how you are eating is ethical- the organic potato chips or the antibiotic free milk, there is still the issue of waste to consider. How we make decisions about food should not exclude this concern.