umamification of the utility bird May 6, 2008

I know – ‘umamification’ is totally a made up word but, as always, I feel I’ve a firm enough grasp on the English language to indulge myself in bastardizing it here and there.  Plus I figure if you can get past that, dear readers, you’re probably at least a little masochistic and look forward to being inflicted with the soap-boxing to come.

The second and third sections of The Omnivore’s Dilemma have done very little to quell the fears about the organic food industry I cited in my first post about the book, though I’m not left with the feeling that all hope is lost, either.  Like Pollan, I want my organic food dollars to go to the pastoral ideal of the fertile, self-sufficient, organic farm I hold in my imagination, one like the farm my maternal grandparents have worked for an eternity with chickens running amongst the raspberry bushes, happy pigs slumbering in shade of a shed, cows blocking highway traffic so they can make their trek from one grassy range to another.  A farm which, for all intents and purposes, would not qualify for the ‘organic’ label, but follows a small-scale, animal-lead production methodology which allows pigs to be pigs and chickens to be chickens and beef to be beef…and that’s probably the message which resonates most profoundly about this section of the book; recognizing the term ‘organic’ as part of the industrial food chain’s rhetoric, contradictory outside of that context and then being called to either re-appropriate it or drop it altogether…which certainly appeals to my quasi-Marxist sensibilities and my desire for passive resistance through stepping around the industrial food machine, but gives me butterflies in practice as it promises to be a fairly large commitment.  I’ll actually have to talk to people, question their practices, let them know when they don’t meet my expectations, let them know what my expectations are…become part of the negotiation and actually seek out chickenier chickens and beefier bovines.

Alright, perhaps that’s a bit dramatic.  I already do a lot of that stuff; I’m hardly a label-dependent consumer, and I’ve never really fully developed an apathy bone, but remember my corn-fed cow freak-out from my first post?  There’s obviously some room for improvement.  It’s understood this section of the book is very much about gaining a more intimate understanding of our food’s life cycle, an appreciation for the alchemy of pastoral farming and setting standards for a food chain which emphasises quality over quantity.  This really set the little businessy portion of my brain to ticking; it’s not enough for me to rest on the laurels of ‘buying right.’  If I want that ideal pastoral farm to be the producer of my food stuffs then I need to take a vested interest in its health and welfare, go out of my way to invest in it and promote it, and ultimately to make it part of the business that is me because the cost-benefit analysis of the alternative already looks grim and is terrifying when plugged into a spreadsheet.  Now I’m wondering about all of the ways one might adopt a farm and am committed to stretching my political muscles a little further.

All that said, I’m really excited for the next section.  It’s all about foods from the forest which is a topic near and dear to my little hunter’s daughter heart.

the machiavellian intelligence of maize April 20, 2008

The mister saw fit to bring back a copy of The Omnivore’s Dilemma from Montreal a couple of weeks ago.  As he’s not allowed to read it until he’s fully digested Foucault’s Pendulum I decided to pick it up as my thinking (as opposed to purely entertaining) book of the moment.  I finished reading the first ‘chapter’ (section?) over coffee on my front porch this morning and though I’m not prepared to get into a full review of the book at this moment I do have some initial thoughts and reactions I feel the need to air so I’ve chosen to do so here.  Perhaps I’ll bore you all with a play-by-play as I read along.  The book’s formatting – following four meals back to their natural sources and reminding us of our relationship to the ingredients all the way – is rather conducive to that.  Perhaps I just won’t be arsed.  We’ll see.

An introduction to a new set of socio-political ideals about food is (apparently) kind of like buying a new car in that one sees it everywhere within the first few weeks after adoption.  I think I realised the full effect of the read yesterday while visiting our local farmer’s market determined to bring home an interesting and organic new cut of beef or buffalo or elk to play with.  The latter two being out of my price range and offering nothing I considered interesting enough to justify the expense I turned to the many many offerings of the former, all purporting to be ‘certified organic’ but then also listing ‘corn-fed’ as being one of the value-added benefits of their beef.  Newsflash – cows aren’t naturally gifted in the processing of corn.  They can only do so with the aid of loads of hormones and antibiotics assisting them in converting those precious (and cheap) calories into the steaks we all know and love.  While this isn’t news to me, it has been a long time since I’ve thought about it.  So the question is begged: what then, is ‘organic’?  Who defines it?  Who measures it and by what means?

I don’t have immediate answers to those questions, but I’m certainly bloody-minded enough to go searching for them and, though I’m certain the answers will vary from region to region, I’m kind of hoping they’ll be answered later in the book.  Or that some clever indices I can follow will be presented at the very least, but more on that later.  The thing is that the issue of cows not being able to process corn natural is a mere scratching of the surface of the plant’s place in the global food debate.  The real issue is that corn, with human aid, has circumvented all of the laws of natural selection to become a dominant organism on our planet and in our digestive systems.  Getting into the nitty gritty of all of that is beyond the scope of this post – just go read the book – this post is about my feeling of betrayal, akin to the betrayal I felt toward my own genetics upon reading The Selfish Gene.  Like Dawkins, Pollan is a radical messenger of radical truths who has transformed the favourite summer treat this (quasi) farm-bred girl, raised on the plantable, sustainable, preservable holy trinity of vegetation that is squash, beans and, of course, corn into an alien overlord infiltration of Orwellian proportions.  He makes it quite easy to draw the line of responsibility between corn and global warming, poverty, malnutrition, alcoholism and even war.  Granted, cow corn is different from people corn.  The stuff we buy from roadside tables on lazy Sunday drives is not responsible for all of this as such, but my overactive imagination can’t help drawing the parallels.  Mind = blown.  I’ve not yet decided what my long-term response to this will be.  This section of the book had me checking all of the labels of the all of the jars of all of the products we have in the cupboards and fridges and I can say with some relief that my lack of sweet tooth keeps us away from the onslaught of corn bi-products in the few processed foods that we do keep around the house.  We’re hardly every day meat-eaters in this house, we do try to stay fairly low on the food chain and we don’t own a car but even those efforts don’t seem to be enough in the face of this.   Needless to say I left all traces of beef at the market yesterday but did come home with organic, corn free, birdseed for our feeders.  Damn you, Michael Pollan.  Damn you all to hell for making corn my new boogey man.

Spicey, citrusey vegetable stir-fry February 6, 2008

We’ve had a bout of poorliness for the last few days chez nous so I thought I would put together a cold-busting, sniffle inducing dish.

What you need for the sauce:

Juice of 2 large navel oranges

1/4 cup soya sauce

1/2 cup chili & garlic sauce

1 tsp. sesame oil

What you need for the rest:

1 pkg. extra firm tofu or 1/5 cups of pre-fried firm tofu

16 thinly sliced shitake mushrooms

2 cups broccoli florets

2 large red bell peppers, thinly sliced

1 can sliced water chestnuts

2 cups snow peas

1/2 cup grated coconut

Thoroughly mix all of the sauce ingredients except the oil together in a medium sized bowl and set aside.

If the tofu is not yet fried then that will be the next step. I like to cut it into small slices by cutting the loaf into thirds lengthwise then 1/4 inch slices widthwise. This can be done quickly so oil for shallow frying can be heated before cutting. Shallow fry all of the tofu in small batches – about a third of the loaf at a time. It won’t take long as it really only needs a lightly crisp outer coating. Move each batch to a towel-lined plate as you go and set that plate aside until later.

Heat the wok and 2 tbsp peanut oil over high heat until very hot. Add the mushrooms to the oil, lifting them up along the sides of the wok and letting them rest there for about 30 seconds. Stir the mushrooms then lift up around the sides for another 30 seconds. Add the broccoli and keep stirring the mushroom/broccoli mixture around for about 2 minutes until the broccoli has a little give to it and isn’t quite so crisp. Add the water chestnuts, peppers & snow peas and stir for a minute before adding the sauce. Stir the sauce in with a pinch of salt to coat all of the vegetables. Top with a lid and allow it all to simmer for 3 minutes. Toss in the coconut and sesame oil and stir again to coat. Serve over brown rice vermicelli and you’re done!

Flowers May 22, 2007

So I guess summery weather isn’t very conducive to making regular blog entries about food despite all of the summery foods we’ve been enjoying. We’ve been doing lots of entertaining and outdoor cookery (to the tune of requiring another BBQ tank refill) and enjoying the fruits of our yard maintenance labours.

A few weeks ago the sprogs and I planted the contents of a packet of edible flowers my mum dropped off – nasturtiums and marigolds and cornflowers…oh my! Eating things one has grown one’s self is very gratifying, however 10 and almost 12 year olds who grow their own plants don’t have quite the same perspective on that whole thing as I might. This has become a fierce competition. The daughter’s plants sprouted first – just days after planting them. Then came the son’s. I sowed a lowly pot of nasturtiums and tried to impress upon the ankle-biters that they take longer to gestate, but they were convinced that they simply weren’t going to come up.

After a few days of having my poor nasturtiums scorned I went out to find this:

Ha! My nasturtiums win!

Soon enough I’ll have lovely, big, peppery flowers to stuff with ricotta and chives =)