cilantro, my love

as someone who believes herself to possess the ephemeral thing we call good taste, as someone who cooks every day for personal pleasure as well as for her job, as someone who loves food, good food, balanced food, i have a confession to make.

i love cilantro.

i am well aware that there are two camps of people--those who think cilantro tastes like body wash and those who buy bunches of it because the half acre they devoted to growing it just isn't enough. those who will spend 30 minutes picking every last vestige of it off a taco or out of a salad and those who guiltily nibble on cilantro sprigs as they inundate a perfectly good pad thai with handfuls of the stuff. i happen to belong to the latter camp, my friends, and it tastes really good to be here.

it tastes like spring and summer and indian summer and mornings and afternoons and evenings spent in the glory of green. it tastes right on my eggs at breakfast, my salad at lunch, and my miso soup at dinner. it suits me raw, cooked, fried, mixed in, on top, on the side. i love the way it smells on my fingers. i want to wear a sprig behind my ear. and to those haters out there--pish posh.

Bacon

What is it about bacon? I mean, really, it's just a cut of meat for god's sake. Compared to that vixen the filet mignon, that dandy of a sirloin, or even that gangsta link sausage sporting all the bling of sage, spice, and sea salt, the humble bacon is a thin, flabby Woody Allen next to more suave, Adrian Brody cuts (ok, so Adrian Brody is fairly thin, but I have a thing for him so bear with the bad metaphor). And yet, when bacon hits that cast iron, it becomes...food salvation.

Ever had a religious experience with food? Bacon is mine. Like something akin to having a vision, seeing the Sistine Chapel, and having hands laid on me to cure all my aches and pains. Bacon is it. That crunch oozing with fat. That savory of all savories. Svelte, sweaty, transformational. On salads, burgers (and why wouldn't you put one meat on top of another?), in quiche, ice cream...bacon is meat, but it transcends meat. It is a seasoning (!). It is a garnish, a main dish, an ingredient, but in every incarnation it is distinct. It's one of those lick your plate foods that makes everything go down easier. And the grease left in the pan afterwards? It'll make the sexiest over easy eggs you'll ever eat. Bon appetit, y'all.

Can I eat that?

One of the more frequent questions I get when I work at farmers' markets is, "Can I eat the rind on that cheese?" The question is usually in reference to a bloomy cheese (a cheese with white mold covering the outside, like camembert). My stock answer is "Well, it's a matter of taste, but yes, you can eat it and many people consider the rind and that little gooey layer just beneath it to be the best part." I then mutter something under my breath about "death and pestilence to those who throw away the rind." But seriously, my point is not to attack everyone who finds the thought of eating the moldy casing of a cheese disgusting.

My point is that I generally prefer the French approach to food over the American (with a few exceptions that I will talk about later). It has been my belief for years that Americans have no idea how to eat or what to eat. When it comes to old-fangled foods we are especially silly, pooh-pooing the idea of using lard in our biscuits or of eating eggs produced by real, live chickens that peck around in a field and lay brown, blue, speckled eggs as opposed to white ones. The fact that we have come to value processed, artificial, convenience foods over traditional foods bothers me immensely, and particularly since I started working on a farm I have viewed it as my mission to educate people on the values of real food. I can be preachy, but if you want my opinion the future of our planet, our governments, our economies, our lives, relies on food, and therfore, in my little mind, I feel justified.

But since coming to France one of the things I've noticed is that people here get food. They understand it. They don't shrink from it. They look it in the eye. I never hear French people talking about going on diets or replacing butter with margarine (although I have no doubt that both of these things occur; I simply think it's less common here), and I often see svelte women munching pain au chocolats or drinking rich hot chocolate. But the difference does not lie solely with the fact that they eat richer foods in general and are, in general, slimmer than Americans (a fact that should make you think twice about where obesity comes from).

The French are also very aware of what they eat. When you buy a chicken at the market, chances are it will still have it's head on. Same for fish--you buy them scales and all. Liver and tongue are sold raw by the kilo, and all right before your eyes, not wrapped in plastic or concealed in hermetically-sealed jars. I personally find this honesty refreshing. I think it's important to know what you're eating, and if it's fresh enough to still have its head, all the better. Nothing a swift, sharp knife can't remedy.

You should understand that I used to be a vegetarian. Thus, it might strike you as odd that I would prefer to see dead chickens with their heads than without. I defend my position, however. I think that if we are going to eat meat (and we are omnivores, like it or not, as a species), we should approach it as it is, and animals generally have heads and blood, which is something you're not going to find at your supermarket. I'm in favor of raising the animals yourself if you can, but I realize that to do that you need land and know-how among other things. The next best thing is to buy your meat from a direct source, which is a farm, which means your meat probably won't be doctored up, injected with red coloring to simulate freshness (yes, fyi, this is a common practice), and there might be a couple feathers sticking to that chicken.

And yes, you can eat the rind.

Bon appetit!

the peculiarities of french dining

I'm really fascinated by how the French eat. I may already have touched on this subject, but I think it deserves a lot of space because it really is fundamentally different from how Americans eat. And having been in France for a mere week, I am hardly an expert. I'm just going to recount what I have seen so far.

French people really do walk around with baguettes under their arms. It's a stereotype, but it contains a little grain of truth. I find this to be truly endearing for many reasons: 1) I am a romantic, especially when it comes to food; 2) you can't carry merita bread under your arm, thus exhibiting the hardiness of the baguette; 3) seeing bread walk past you on the street all the time is a testament to a cultural phenomenon that gives me hope for the future of good, crusty bread. I could go on in this vein, but bread might not be as interesting to you as it is to me.

I have very quickly fallen in love with the café. Sure, there are cafés in the US, but they tend to be superfluous and pretentious, serving things like skinny-triple-caramel-mocha-with-whipped-cream-and-grated-nutmeg. I exaggerate, but we've all been there, standing in line behind the creep who has the nerve to order something that will take 10 minutes to make. Here, there is none of that. You have your coffees, your espressos (and darned good espresso at that), your cafés au lait, and your chocolats chauds among a few other simple drinks, but that's it. If you want a dessert, you go to the pâtisserie or the chocolatier, not the café. I also love the way they serve these boissons chauds (hot drinks)--with a little cookie or sometimes a piece of chocolate or a chocolate covered almond. Nothing much and certainly not fancy, but the attention to detail is magnificent. Oh, and the tiny spoons they give you for serving are absolument mignon!

Tonight I witnessed another intriguing tidbit: French people eat pizza with a fork and knife. I am not alone. For years, I have eaten finger foods like pizza, bananas, and even pb&j sandwiches with a knife and fork. I don't really know why. Maybe because I tend to be a self-conscious eater or because I watch some people eat and think, ''why not just stick your face in it; you're halfway there already.'' In any case, I feel vindicated. But really, French people are impeccable diners. They eat slowly (these are generalizations based upon what I have seen--I'm sure there are French people who are exceptions to everything I will say on this blog, just as there are Americans who are atypical), even thoughtfully, usually holding their fork in their left hand and using their knife or a piece of bread to move food onto their fork. I'm sort of clumsy with my left hand, so this will take some getting used to. They eat heartily, but because they take their time the food isn't a strain on their stomach, and typically there is a lighter and a heavier meal of the day. I think traditionally lunch was the heavier meal, but since most people work, dinner is generally the heavier meal.

And then, there's the French enigma: how do croissant-eaters stay so thin? Enigma no more, my friends: lots of walking or riding a bike and very few snacks between meals. Going to lunch today, I walked a good 20 minutes. After lunch I visited one of the public gardens and walked around for a while before heading back to the house, which was 20 minutes more. I did the same going to and coming from dinner tonight. Walking is excellent for the digestion, so there's little wonder that the French (again, in general) stay reasonably thin.

Let me reassure all of you once more that, come Thursday or Friday, there will be photos. I will not forget.

Changing the Way We Think About Food

Once again, and as always, Sharon is way ahead of me. This may be because I am not yet out on my own and don't have to deal with many practical issues that confront "real" adults. I am still on my parents' insurance, I do not yet pay for my car insurance, and I have been living, rent-free, either at home or in a dorm room since I was born. My parents are really lovely people, sheltering me from all the unpleasantness, but sometimes I wish (and this wish will very shortly come true so I should probably just shut up and be thankful while I can) I were completely on my own so I could learn the art of being money-savvy. Lately, I've been paying for more and more of my own necessities. This past summer I did in fact buy my own groceries and such and got a taste of working full-time and even overtime. BUT...

The day will soon come when I will be technically included in America's "poor." I am not afraid of this transition. I see it as a very interesting challenge that I'm sure I will survive mostly unscathed. In fact, I see absolutely nothing wrong with being part of the poor demographic so long as you aren't hungry and have a good roof over your head and a decent quality of life. But then, do I really mean that? Well, I suppose my thinking is a little more socialistic, a little more utopic. I believe that the government should include in its responsibilities the task of feeding the poor, those who cannot reasonably afford to feed themselves or those who can barely keep their heads above the flood of monthly bills.

Appparently, this has been taken into consideration in Vermont, where food stamps will be available to a larger number of people, thereby extending the "poor" label to include a broader swath of individuals. I will agree with Sharon that this is ultimately a good thing if it means people not being hungry. But these food stamps will be used at grocery stores on cheap, mass-produced foods that are not healthy physically or for the local economy, small farmers, and the environment. Kudos to the government for getting something done. Shame on them for being so small-minded.

What we feed our poor in this country is essentially all the GMO, processed, dessicated, individually-wrapped, sodium-injected crap that the wealthy are fortunate enough to be able to avoid. You can't grow children on this sort of food. You can't heal the sick on it. In my very biased opinion, you can't do much with it except prop a door open and maybe give yourself some energy to do tasks. Processed food is not good food, and by good I do not have some foodie definition of that in mind. I mean good, wholesome, sustaining food that doesn't make you sick.

Food is a way of looking at everything. You are what you eat is not just a cheesy quote. It's fact. When we feed our poor processed crap, we are sending them a signal that we don't expect great things of them or even much thought at all. We are assigning to them a life of fatigue, poor health, and denial of a wonderful aesthetic experience. Have you ever been thrilled by the beautiful colors of swiss chard in the winter? Ever tasted a blueberry so incredible that all future blueberries will be judged by that one? Ever had bread so incredible and hearty that it's all you want to eat? Don'e tell me those experiences aren't important. That's bullshit.

In addition, what message is the government sending to its small farmers, the people who work so hard to feed other people? Processed food is the best we can do? Come on.

food

it gets my gander up.

those tomatoes--how they glisten

like cats' eyes

lit by flame.

running my hand through a bowl

of dried beans I wonder

what the life of an endosperm is like.

quiet? subdued? dark?

or perhaps something different altogether--

perilous and substantial,

always on the verge and then

down the gullet.

What is Safe?

Every day I read about something new that I should not eat. I have no problem rejecting the traditional culinary battery of foods such as meat, since that's sort of a no-brainer among the environmental crowd. But then there came corn--the holy of holies for Mexican food, and a personal summer favorite. I am fortunate in that my grandparents are still able to grow their own, so I can indulge in the occasional corn cob without destroying the Midwestern grasslands. But there's also soybeans (currently taking over the Amazonian rainforest), which have come to be central to my diet, as commercially produced milk is full of hormones (and where am I going to get cheap organic milk until I start working on the goat farm again?) and so I rely on soymilk and sometimes soy yogurt. Not to mention the fact that many processed goods contain soy (just because soybeans have been hippie food does not make them sustainable to grow), corn syrup (is there anything that doesn't have corn syrup in it? I bought some cranberry juice the other day that, lo and behold, had corn syrup in it), hydrogenated oils, palm oil, etc. Then there's the banana issue, which is particularly painful to me since bananas happen to be my favorite everyday fruit only surpassed by local berries and peaches when they're in season.

So what is the answer to this? It isn't enough for people to buy local or in season anymore. I believe that in order to have a truly healthy relationship with the earth and thus our food, we must know exactly where and how our food came to be. Did that head of lettuce come from a huge field of lettuce plants or was it part of a polyculture? Were pesticides or herbicides used in any part of the growing process? Is the field this farmer cultivates used responsibly? We need to get behind the crop and learn about it. We need to know the growing seasons and harvests. We need to be a part of the harvests. We need to plant tomatoes and squash in our windowboxes instead of petunias so we can have some sense of where our food comes from.

I am fortunate in that I have grown up with farming. I have smelled barnyard smells and heard cows lowing and had the sticky residue of the tomato plant all over my hands and I have been up to my neck in yellow squash fresh from the garden. The act of growing something, harvesting it, and consuming it is probably one of the more satisfactory deeds I have done. Unfortunately, this intimacy with food is completely lost to most of our society. All the average American can say about vegetables is that they grew in the ground somewhere. This knowledge is not enough. If only we as a society were as hungry for the details of our food as we are for the food itself...

Ah, but then this revolution of sorts must start with me. Vive la revolution!

The True Cost

After reading an article this morning in the New York Times about the rising price of cooking oils due to the surge in interest in biofuels, I was left to meditate over lunch about how fortunate we as Americans (or individuals from any developed nation) really are. I am able to walk into the cafeteria on campus, fill up my plate as many times as I wish with a diverse array of foods, waste as much of that food as I please, and walk out leaving someone else to clean up after me. All this is free for me because my parents pay for my tuition, housing, and meal plan. But even for those students paying their own way, what they pay for a meal plan does not nearly reflect the true cost of that food.

It occurs to me that we do not know what food, or any of the goods we purchase, really costs. We would know it if we were paying for the initial growing of the crops (land, seed, equipment, fertilizers, labor), the damages to the earth due to growing crops (erosion, decreased soil fertility, reduced capacity of ecosystems such as wetlands, grasslands, estuaries, rain forests, etc. to perform essential tasks such as water purification, storm buffering, carbon sequestering, species habitat, resource for ingredients for pharmaceuticals, etc. etc.), the shipping of those crops, the processing of those crops (which opens an entirely new can of worms when it comes to chemicals and energy used), the second shipping of those now processed goods to your average grocery store (and often, goods are shipped much more than this), the salary of the clerk who checks you out at the counter, and the flimsy little plastic baggy that the food is handed to you in for easier transport to your vehicle.

I am a very frugal person. I like to save money and to keep my expenditures down to a bare minimum. But when I reflect upon the atrocious (true) cost of the cheap food we buy I wish with all my heart that the prices we pay reflected the actual cost of food. I guarantee that obesity would decline, rampant waste would decrease, subsistence farming would increase, sustainable growing practices and the cultivating of heirloom crops would see a resurgence, and who knows what other benefits we would reap (not necessarily material) all from paying the true cost of our food.

I am optimistic about some aspects of this crisis. The resurgence of local farmer's markets and locally produced goods is encouraging. The goods are more expensive (generally) than what you can get at the supermarche, but, my god, what a difference in the quality and the treatment of those goods. Having worked on various goat farms for only about six months I can tell you that the care invested in the final product is scrupulous. The future of the independent farmer or artisan rests in his or her ability to produce an outstanding product. These people are not fooling around. They aren't going to overcharge you for your food, but let me tell you that they aren't going to starve for your cheap goods.