Spring Meal

Yummy.

Neat

http://www.devilsfooddictionary.com/dfdentries.html

Wal-Mart

"Today, twenty-one cents of every food dollar spent in the United States is spent at Wal-Mart (and some experts say it may be fifty cents by 2010" (from "The End of Food," by Paul Roberts, page 61).

Whoa. I had no idea that Wal-Mart was so pervasive in our eating habits. I wonder if its success at infiltrating our diets has something to do with the fact that there are really no limits to what products it can sell. People know Wal-Mart as an everything store, not limited to foods, and it has no particular niche. We all know Monsanto is evil, but they only sell seeds; McDonald's is equally threatening, but its specialty is fast food, etc. Wal-Mart can and does sell everything...

I spent a little time at the Wal-Mart website. They categorize their products into fourteen different departments, ranging from jewelry to baby items, grocery to pharmacy. They also sell discount iPods and music downloads for only 64 cents a pop. The site even offered to sign me up for updates from their stores, so I'd be sure to not miss out on the latest sales and new products. I guess they really are the epitome of the One Stop Shop.

Wal-Mart has really played the desire of American's for convenience. Hell, can you think of many others places that you can buy a flatscreen tv, diapers, and a gallon of milk all together? And the stores are everywhere, and everything is cheap, cheap, cheap.

The website also boasted new recipes appearing every week - so, at Wal-Mart, you can not only buy your food, you can learn to cook. Or perhaps learn to serve microwavable foods in various forms... The top two categories of recipes were "Fresh & Healthy" and "Budget Friendly." Ah, now doesn't that say something about our society's culinary habits. We say we want to eat healthy, but it all depends on the price. And can I also point out that the "healthy" Mexican Taco Salad recipe calls for "one 1.25 ounce envelop taco seasoning" and "one package assorted greens." Uh-huh. A packet of artificial colors and flavors and some shrink-wrapped lettuce... real healthy.

Very interesting. Everything you (think) you need, at one place, for cheap. Everywhere. They must have some surprisingly sharp executives at the steering wheel of the Wal-Mart enterprise to make it happen.

Also -- this came up when I searched for an image of Wal-Mart. Do you think the Wal-Mart big guys followed those rules?

Money, Power, and Work

I feel like most of the human-related problems (and really, what isn't human-related anymore?) today are caused by issues stemming from money, power, or work. People have an inherent desire for money and power, and many have a innate disdain for work.

So many of the issues I'm encountering in my reading are either explicitly or implicitly caused, directly or indirectly, by - you guessed it - the never-ending quest for money, power, and less, or at least easier, work.

For instance...

• Joel Salatin's frequent attacks by government officials, threatening to shut him down for "noncompliance." These people like wielding their government-given POWER. I distinctly remember some of the more transparent officials Salatin spoke to admitted that they wouldn't be in this line of soul-crushing business if it wasn't for the big ol' paycheck - MONEY.
• The fact that people like the ones mentioned above try to squash the little guys, and look the other way at the big producers that churn out pesticide-ridden vegetables, e. coli-contaminated meat, and milk full of blood and puss - these guys are scared of the powers above them that decide whether they have a job or not - MONEY. Also, guess what? Size matters. It's a lot harder to monitor huge industrial companies than to scrutinize small farms - so they don't. Too much WORK.
• The continuation of ignorance towards people's food sources. Ignorance is bliss. Maybe it's too much WORK to seek out higher quality, more nutritious, local foods. It also could be a lot of WORK to prepare your own meal from fresh, whole ingrediants - a hell of a lot easier to slip a TV dinner out of the plastic packaging and slip it into the microwave. Faster, too, and we're impatient. It's the American way.
• Environmental and social degradation. It's easier to let things go to shit than maintain them. Isn't that called entropy, the natural tendency of the world to gravitate towards a state of chaos and disorder? It takes WORK to keep things healthy and happy. Same goes for humans. No wonder we're all fat and depressed.
• More and more farmers opting out of the small, local systems and moving up towards industrial-sized production. That classic mindset: bigger is better. The allure of more MONEY. More land, more production also means more POWER over more people who depend on you.
• Anyone who own or operates industrial agricultural farms, factory farms, processing and packaging plants, fast food empires, anything that has to do with corn monocultures... MONEY and POWER at the cost of environmental, wildlife, economic, social, and personal health.
• People who buy into the whole "industial-organic" complex. Often these are the people who buy into the "organic is elitist" thing. Being one of the so-called elite gives the illusion of having POWER over those less.. what? Fortunate? Conscious?

I have a tendency to become overwhelmingly pessimistic and critical of humanity. The above observations most likely reek of that sentiment. Moments like this, I have a very low level of tolerance, respect, and hope for humanity. For this, I apologize. I have a frequent urge to say that humans are a repulsive race who in the end will only lead to their own, and everything else in the physical world's demise. I would say, we never should have evolved. I'd even offer to give up my sentient brain to go back and live as some creature before the time of homo sapiens.

But I won't say that here. I'll just stick to, we humans can really suck.

"Fast Food Nation"

Before I even opened Eric Schlosser's book, I was struck by the book's subtitle: "The Dark Side of the All-American Meal."

Isn't that pathetic? Our country is so young compared to others. The USA is totally a baby, with its.. what? 233 years? Not only does our nation have a short history, but I think some aspects of our culture have really suffered because of it. For example, our "All-American Meal." The food symbolic of our nation and our nationalistic pride is a friggen cheeseburger and fries. That's what we have to show as our country's culinary talent?

France has artisan cheeses, developed from ancient recipes using milk from domesticated mountain goats. Italy has wine from heirloom grape varieties indigenous to different regions of their country. Each of these countries also traditions celebrating the sitting down and lengthy enjoying of meals with others, as well. Let's see, what else... even the Jewish religion has celebrated food items that are symbolic of their people's struggles and what they've overcome.

What does America have? A meal made out of unhealthy, crappy ingredients which is made to be consumed on the go, on a whim, or gobbled up behind the wheel of a car. Our national meal symbolizes waning health, obesity, the rise of industrial agriculture and big box companies, the triumph of efficiency over quality, the forgotten tradition of enjoying meals at a table with others, the buried talents of cooking and providing for oneself and one's family, and basically, the destructive powers of our culture.

And we export this. There are McDonalds in 119 countries. Remember in France, when a new McDonalds opened up in some little village and some proud Frenchmen took a bulldozer to it? What a guy. No one would ever do that here. Fast food is too American. A person who did what that French guy did would be called a terrorist, or something here.

Like I said, pathetic.

The Last Supper

Ok, not really. As my final project/product of this independent study, I have the hopes that I can create a full meal from all local, in season ingredients.

The tentative menu is as follows...

Hors d'oeuvre: Fresh baked sourdough bread and local cheeses

Salad: Spring greens salad

First course: Handmade pasta with chévre and asparagus

Second course: Maple roasted meat something (chicken, pork, or beef TBA)

Dessert: Rhubarb pie with sheep milk yogurt

I've begun assembling recipes from various sources (muchos gracias to mi madre in particular) and have begun planning where I might find all of these ingredients.

Cheese and milk products are easy - I'll get them from home (Appleton Creamery).  A&B sells Maine stone-ground flour, which I can continue to use to bake bread from my sourdough starter.  Similarly, I will use that flour to handroll the noodles for the pasta dish (with eggs from Appleton Creamery, as well).  I've already got a jar of local honey (to use as a sweetener), from Gardiner's Honey & Pollination.

I remembered a local sea salt seller from Maine Fare a few years ago.  Apparently their business took off and can now be found in local health food stores: Maine Sea Salt.  Yippee!

My hope is that the farmers markets up here will be in full swing in a few weeks, so I can find the traditional May fare of spring greens, and other early spring veggies.

Herbs I can collect from the gardens at home.

I'm very excited!!

Seasonal Product Guide

Courtesy of the Rockland Farmers Market - here.