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Plenty

Plenty

Auteur(s): The Greylock Glass
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 On our weekly agriculinary show, we explore everything related to our daily repast, from the exploding farm-to-table scene, to getting the most out of our own kitchen efforts. Because our diet is global, our scope may be as narrow as your own kitchen garden or as broad as climate change.2015 Art Nourriture et vin
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  • Plenty #17: Cr Lawn on Saving Seeds

    Plenty #17: Cr Lawn on Saving Seeds
    Aug 21 2020
    Good day to you, friends and fellow supporters of sustainable food consumption. I’m your host, Jay V., and you’re listening to Episode #17 of Plenty. I realize you might be listening to this show any time of year, anywhere on the planet, but here in our podcasting headquarters, the land is bathed in the golden warmth of late August. Creeping up to the edge of Autumn, each dawn sees the grass a little dewier, each morning sees the industrious preparations of squirrels and chipmunks, each afternoon finds the wasps and hornets a little quicker to anger, and each evening brings the merciful relief of mild temperatures regardless of the sun’s midday dominance. It might seem peculiar that the founder of one of America’s most trusted and respected seed companies, the worker-owned cooperative, Fedco Seeds, of Clinton, Maine, would encourage its own customers to save seed. That’s just what Cr Lawn promotes, however. As a co-founder of Fedco Seeds back in 1978, Lawn has worked most of his life not only to ensure that the business thrives, but also to educate growers and the public about a number of issues that affect our food, our health, and our planet. Although Lawn retired from Fedco in 2018, (read a great piece on Lawn from the time in the Portland Press Herald) he remains rooted in the soil on his farm in Colrain, Massachusetts, with his wife Eli Rogosa, founder of the Heritage Grain Conservancy. Although it’s great to hear Cr Lawn in his own voice, he also has written extensively on this and other subjects, and much of his writing is available on the Fedco website. We have, with his permission, republished his very concise article, “Why Save Seeds?” in the shownotes to this episode, so please be sure to head on over to greylockglass.com and look for the page for this episode to get even more information. “Why Save Seeds?” by Cr Lawn, 2001 To renew your age-old partnership with plants. Seeds are the life force. Plants, as living beings, desire to reproduce. By allowing them to go to seed and complete their growth cycle, you cooperate in a process essential to all life forms on Earth. To retain control of your food supply. Some things are too important to allow other people to do for you. Food is a basic necessity and the cornerstone of our culture. Control of the seed is key to control of our food supply. By saving seeds you retain that lifeline. Over the past two generations, the seed industry has done almost no work to maintain, improve or develop open-pollinated varieties that will come true from seed. What little has been done has been accomplished by dedicated amateur seed savers and breeders. We need more such people. Instead, the industry has emphasized hybrid varieties whose breeding lines are trade secrets and whose seed will not come true to type. Lately, biotechnology research has almost completely replaced classical plant breeding at our universities and in the seed industry. To preserve our heritage and our biodiversity. Farmers saved seeds and improved food crops for millennia. Seed companies have been on the scene for fewer than three centuries. Only in the last hundred years have farmers and gardeners become widely dependent on seed companies. Today the seed industry is so concentrated that just five large multinational corporations control 75% of the world’s vegetable seed market. They add and drop varieties according to their own financial interests. Many of our present varieties have only one commercial source. If they are dropped, they will disappear and you won’t be able to get them—unless you save seed. To preserve the varietal characteristics you want. Most varieties being developed by the industry are for large-scale food processors and marketers. For the most part, they are bred for uniform ripening, long distance shipping, and perfect appearance at the expense of taste and staggered ripening. If you want the best-tasting varieties, save your own seed from the ones you like. To develop and preserve strains adapted to your own growing conditions. The large corporations who control the seed trade bought out scores of small and regional seed companies and dropped many of the regional specialties. They are interested only in varieties with widespread adaptability. If you want varieties and strains best adapted to your specific climate conditions, you can get them only by saving your own seed. Over several generations, seeds can develop very specific adaptability to the conditions at your site. To help preserve our right to save seeds. The industry continues to place more and more restrictions on farmers’ and gardeners’ right to save seeds. Variety patenting, licensing agreements, and restricted lists such as that maintained by the European Union, are industry tools to wrest control of the seed from the commons and keep it for themselves. Terminator Technology, now in its developmental phase, would render seeds sterile, making it impossible for ...
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    28 min
  • Plenty #16: Jake Levin, author, Smokehouse Handbook

    Plenty #16: Jake Levin, author, Smokehouse Handbook
    Oct 20 2019
    This is episode 16 of Plenty. I’m your host, Jason Velazquez, and as always, I do thank you for tuning in. Podcast Player This edition of Plenty features yet another special guest, Jake Levin, whose food knowledge and skills speak to the very heart of sustainability, which is the preservation of food for later, in addition to indulging in decadent flavor now. His recently published book, Smokehouse Handbook, illustrates how anyone, anywhere, can employ techniques that will up their cooking cred with minimal tools and at minimal cost. At least until you’re hooked and start dreaming of converting the garden shed into a smokehouse — and he can help you out there, too… I’d also like to say thank you to our newest sponsor, Greylock WORKS of North Adams, Mass. sponsored An elegantly reimagined historic mill, Greylock WORKS is a mixed-use campus that offers event, retail, private studio, and shared office space – all revolving around it’s core mission to celebrate this region’s food and sustainable design. Residential lofts for sale and rent planned for 2020. Experience Greylock WORKS on November 23, during FESTIVE: A holiday market celebrating exquisite design and local food, featuring over 60 thoughtfully curated makers and farmers. More information at greylockworks.com. We’ll be launching into our coverage of the impact of the climate crisis on the local food system soon, and you can be sure we’ll be looking into the role local food hubs like Greylock WORKS will play in the future. All the stars seemed to align for this show, because almost immediately after I chowed down on that Brisket Egg & Cheese breakfast sandwich from A-oK Barbeque (in the name of journalism, of course), a copy of Jake Levin’s Smokehouse Handbook: Comprehensive Techniques & Specialty Recipes for Smoking Meat, Fish & Vegetables, dropped into my lap. Just released by Storey Publishing, right here in North Adams, this book, with it’s gorgeous photography and very approachable instructions and recipes is like a treasure map for your taste buds. I knew I needed to sink my teeth a little deeper into this savory serenity. So I picked up the phone and called Jake to see if I couldn’t catch some drippings of knowledge from this seasoned pro. About Jake Levin Jake Levin; photo courtesy Storey Publishing. Jake Levin is the author of Smokehouse Handbook. A butcher and charcuterie expert who trained at Fleisher’s Meat in Kingston, New York, he has worked in whole-animal butcher shops including The Meat Market in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and Eli’s Manhattan in New York City. He currently produces cured meats at Jacuterie, an artisanal charcuterie in Ancramdale, New York, and travels nationwide conducting workshops on how to slaughter, butcher, and cure meats. He and his wife live in New Marlborough, Massachusetts, and his website is therovingbutcher.com, though he suggests following his Facebook or Instagram pages for his most recent happenings and updates. And of interest to our listeners in Western Mass, Eastern New York, or Southwestern Vermont, Levin will be the speaker at the Food for Thought dinner and demo, November 9th at Hancock Shaker Village, another of our wonderful sponsors. When you’re mouth starts watering — and I think it might just start not long into the conversation — you may want to grab tickets to that event, if they haven’t sold out yet. Smoking — a global, human tradition So you have examples of it all over the world. There are great examples throughout Native Americans and First Nation in Canada. It’s a big part of Northern European culture. So, when I went to visit my wife’s relatives on a small island in Sweden, you saw these small rock huts everywhere. And, you know, fish is a big part of the diet there, and so there was a lot of smoked fish, and that’s existed for for as long as we can tell. In West Africa, smoked fish is also a big part of the diet. Again that serves as a way of preserving the fish so that it doesn’t spoil in the hot weather. There are examples of it with the Maori in New Zealand, and lots of smoking traditions in East Asia. Where there’s smoke, there’s flavor! A whole new culinary world opens up with the strike of match; Smokehouse Handbook more than gets you started. photo by Jason Velázquez. Don’t be afraid to get smoky I think that there are bunch of different things that scare people. I think some people are freaked out by needing to have lots of equipment and new equipment that’s just for smoking, which isn’t really the case. Other people are freaked out by the time commitment. Texas-style smoked brisket can take 12 hours for instance. And then, as normal, most people are afraid of a new process or a process they don’t understand. And so I like to tell people to start small and easy. You can easily build a stovetop smoker with equipment that anybody would have in their kitchen, whether it’s a roasting pan or a sheet ...
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    30 min
  • Plenty #15: Eating the Landscape with Chef Brian Alberg

    Plenty #15: Eating the Landscape with Chef Brian Alberg
    Jul 29 2019
    Hey food enthusiasts! In this episode of Plenty, number 15 to be precise, we hear once again from Chef Brian Alberg, a nearly ubiquitous culinary presence in the Berkshires and beyond. Since it’s been quite a while since catching up with him last, we had a lot of ground to cover. The new Seeds Market Cafe at Hancock Shaker Village operates under his direction, and is fast-becoming a favorite eatery in its own right. The Tap House at Shaker Mill is well under way, after it’s former incarnation, the Shaker Mill Tavern, was brought under the umbrella of Main Street Hospitality, where Alberg is Vice President of Culinary Development. And early August of 2019 finds Berkshire’s best-known chef and local food advocate teaching an intimate workshop that ends with a dining experience that couldn’t get any fresher. Let’s go to that conversation now, here on Plenty. GG — I guess we should start with your work at the Hancock shaker village. You’ve got a couple of different things going on there. First, you’ve got the the bistro, Seeds, up and running, correct? Chef Brian — It’s a great little museum cafe. It’s open primarily during the days, but we do a lot of culinary programming around the village and around food related topics. It’s a place where we try to use as much from the actual onsite farm as possible in our menus, as well as other neighborhood farms, keeping in context with with the shakers were about and also what we are about, as chefs. GG — Tell us a little bit about the history of your history. Anyway, going back a couple of decades. With the local food movement here in the Berkshires? Chef Brian — I grew up in Columbia County, just over the border in New York State, and I worked for a classical French chef named Jean Morel, who had gardens out back and — this is like the mid to late ‘80s, and, you know, farm to table wasn’t really a thing back then. Although, growing up in the kitchen, as I did, farm to table was, like, you know, get what you can from your backyard, what you can from the guy down the street, and that just kind of played in my mind throughout my career. Chef Brian Alberg; photo by Bill Wright Photography. Chef Brian — Once I relocated back to the Berkshires — I started back in ’04, for at the Red Lion Inn — for the biggest part of my life here, but I just got involved with Ted Thompson and a whole bunch of other people that were growing and trying to keep our landscape green and build a better life for themselves, and give us better products in the kitchen. So it’s just always been something that I’ve been drawn to. GG — Do you think that the agriculture we have locally in when I say local, you know, within 100 miles is being utilized? Well, or do you think that there’s some more room to bring farm to table to restaurants in the area? Chef Brian — I think it’s being utilized. I think that there’s always room for growth. I think that farmers themselves could do a better job of finding the gaps in our seasons and in our growing products, so that not every farmers growing tomatoes or kale or, you know, whatever produce there is, because it kind of super-saturates the market. So I think that they would be doing themselves a favor by diversifying their crops. GG — What what sorts of items are you using in Seeds? What kind of dishes you are you offering that that utilize these foods? Chef Brian — Actually, we just started with tomatoes, tomato season. Strawberries are kind of over, but we’ve got tons of greens. Garlic scapes just ended, but there’s all sorts of things coming in — beans, peas… Peas are kind of winding down, but everything was late this year. So, typically we’d have peas being done in late June. Now they’re pushing through July, which is kind of interesting, but it made for kind of a poor spring season for us, but now now the crops are beautiful. Rows of squash plant and other vegetables, with the Shaker Round Barn in the background. Despite a long, cool, rainy Spring, the vegetable and herb and herb are now yielding a bumper crop, according to Alberg; submitted photo. Chef Brian — I cook on these big cauldrons, and I set up kind of food truck style out in the field right out in front of barn, and we did some really fun food out there: brats, meatballs cooked over the fire, lobster salad. That was fun—it was good night. GG — Of course, you’ve got other things going on at Hancock Shaker Village, like this “Eating the Landscape,” It’s a class that you’re offering next month? Chef Brian — It’s basically just a class where people come — I think we have up to 20 people — and they tour the farm with me and one of the farmers. We pick produce out of the gardens, we talk about the meats that they raise, and then I’ll actually cook a dinner out at the table, from the stuff that we’ve picked. So it’s like a four hour class. It’s not really a class as much as it is a dialogue...
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    19 min
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