Cornucopia Beer and Cheese Soup
New Orleans Seafood Gumbo (Poppy Tooker)
Winter Butternut Squash Bisque
** see page 27 for:
French Onion Soup with Shiitake Mushrooms (Jonathan Fagan at King’s Hill Farm)
** see page 236 for:
Lentil and Polish Sausage Soup (Brenda Carus)
We’re first to admit, rules, regulations and policies, as well-intentioned as some may be, get in the way of what we’d argue is a more viable, sustainable and local food system.
We’re not alone. Joel Salatin is no fan of governmental regulations and policies either. In his book Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal, farmer Joel Salatin calls it the way he sees it. He’s the operator of Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, where he and his family raise pastured poultry, “pigaerator pork,” “salad bar beef” and forage-fed rabbits, among many other edibles. And this family farm does it within a system that’s “beyond organic,” as Joel says. His non-industrial approach to raising food has been the target of many a regulating agency that would rather the food be irradiated, treated with chemicals or fumigated before it touches the tongue of an American. Naturally, his approaches have been a boon for the media, always looking for a good fight, catapulting him to rock star farmer status. He’s one prizefighter, too. For him, it’s definitely about relationships, and local ones at that.
Meanwhile, in our county, the University of Wisconsin-Extension put the kibosh on a local effort to host a community potluck that they cosponsored. Evidently, you can’t expect your neighbors to produce a dish safe for human consumption. This, despite a Wisconsin “potluck law” on the books that exempts such functions from government oversight. So we had a picnic instead.
We like to think that cooking is less about rules and more about guidance. So view our recipes as a compass to healthier eating. How you get there, your food route, is up to you. Our food route, while fresh and seasonal, tends to be inspired by the Mediterranean diet with an abundance of vegetables, legumes, nuts and olive oil in place of prime rib and pork chops. We replace salt with herbs, butter with olive oil (in some cases) and focus on whole grains, like couscous or oats found in our Granolaheads Crunch.
So here’s our food compass, to serve as a guide. You’ll notice a few directional points have everything to do with great health and nothing to do with food. Eating right is one aspect of living well and staying healthy.
• Use the best quality ingredients, period. Whether it’s from your gardens, a CSA share, farmers market or supermarket that showcases local, seasonal produce or meats, the premium you might pay will make your meal taste gourmet.
• Go with your food preferences, or taste. If you don’t like fennel — or don’t have it in the house — just leave it out. If you want to cut down on fats, try swapping olive oil for butter when the recipe calls for it.
• Substitute at will. Many of our recipes are perfect for modification — create your own version.
• Using frozen ingredients is not evil; proper freezing techniques will keep your food at its nutritional best. We eat through our freezer in the winter and early spring, practically eliminating the need to buy anything at the grocery store.
• Share your kitchen, but there may be times to consider a time-of-use policy so there’s no traffic jam on the counter. Baking, for example, can take up a lot of space. Our farmhouse kitchen has plenty of space to spread out, but we still draw a line in the sand to preserve our sanity as we work together preparing a feast. (We each have a side of the kitchen.)
• Who eats with our eyes? Or with our nose? Of course, we eat with our mouth. But we also realize that there’s nothing like the anticipation that comes with the aromas drifting from the kitchen to whet the appetite. And when the serving platter, plate or bowls arrive with the meal, it should feel like Christmas morning in front of the tree. Like a three-dimensional canvas, let the table setting bring out the best in what you’ve prepared. Tablecloths, vibrant napkins and candles on the table can turn functional meals into dining experiences.
• Leftovers are good, sometimes great. Many of our recipes taste even better the next day, usually having something to do with the way the spices mellow out or blend with the ingredients. We’ve found that having leftovers can make cooking more efficient, allowing the busiest of busy people the time to make meals without resorting to the processed corporate kind. Saves lots of money, too. We often prepare a dish or two so that we’re good to go for several days’ meals. A batch of our muffins will last half a week if they’re just for the two of us.
• Avoid preservatives. They do nothing for flavor; they’re there because corporations must put them there to prevent what they make from rotting on the shelves. Skip them all. We’re always reading labels and asking questions since these preservatives can show up in the strangest places. Why eat something that may be a derivative of natural gas or coal? For example, the FDA-approved food additive BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene) is a fat preservative found in Domino’s Pizza deep-dish pepperoni pizza that’s made from a petrochemical process and is surrounded by controversy related to its possible toxicity and link to cancer; this preservative can also be found in other meat products.
• Skip the empty calories coming with high-fructose corn syrup and other flavor enhancers found in processed shelf-stable foods, like MSG and excessive salt. These calories go nowhere other than around your waist, hips and thighs while contributing to a host of other health problems.
Community potluck at Inn Serendipity.
Here are a few non-food, non-cooking compass readings:
• Exercise. Most of the healthiest people, no matter where they live and the diet they’ve chosen, exercise regularly and strenuously, just about every day. Walking to the car or the dog doesn’t really count. The Amish plant fields, nearly 8 percent of commuters in Portland, Oregon, bike to work, and we work in the gardens with hand tools and our backs (not tractors). In the winter, we hit the gym.
• Drink lots of water during the day, but not the bottled type. Heck, Coca-Cola’s Dasani is nothing more than filtered tap water from municipal water sources, but with salt added. At about $8.25 per gallon, we hardly wonder why Danone Group’s Evian bottled water, while sourced from natural springs in Switzerland, spelled backwards is naïve (the math: 33.8 oz. bottle × $1.29/bottle × 6.4 bottles to make a gallon = $8.25)
• Well-being has less to do with how much money — or stuff — we own, but more to do with connections to family and friends, in short, relationships. It’s often those who have the happiest lives are the same people with the greatest number of friends and strongest connection to community. Added to this is the joy and happiness garnered by strong connections to the outdoors, to nature: watching it (like the birds), growing it (as in your backyard gardens) and, of course, savoring it through a meal prepared with fresh ingredients and shared among friends.
There’s a lot to be said for the comfort of soup and the versatility of ingredients harvested months ago that retain their delicious taste and hearty nourishment. For most of us, we don’t just make one bowl of soup, we make a pot to share with others, to warm them up after walking home from school or satisfy our craving for summertime sunshine. Soup is love in liquid form. This sharing of food and companionship builds bonds, fosters security, provides a sense of stability, boosts our happiness and proffers a feeling of well-being. That’s our experience and perhaps yours too, whether we’re taking in a potluck before a community musical event or joining friends for their soup nights.
We like to think that our approach to making soups resembles an the old stone-soup story that has circumnavigated the globe, perhaps due, in part, to the universality of soups in every culture — and the existence of the haves and have-nots, the rich and poor, the fortunate and the less so. The stone-soup story starts with a pot of boiling water and a stone tossed into it. Then, as a community comes together, adding this or that ingredient to the pot, the soup is transformed from the bland to the magnificent, with each ingredient and its contributor playing an important role in making something delicious out of nothing at all.
It’s in this spirit of getting together and feeding each other that we offer a taste of the soups found in this chapter.
LAST SUMMER we felt up for the long-standing culinary competitive showdown: entering our Wisconsin State Fair. The whole experience, from following the specific rules, to the judging of the event itself, ignited a competitive cooking side we never knew we had. The Cornucopia Challenge category had to feature local Wisconsin-produced ingredients, hence the abundance of beer and cheese. This Cornucopia Beer and Cheese Soup recipe took home a third-place green ribbon! The base of this soup uses two cups of flour to keep it thick and hearty — it’s perfect for a winter warm-up, even if you don’t live in America’s dairyland.
¾c. butter (1½ sticks)
1c. onions, chopped (about 1 medium)
3cloves garlic, minced
1c. broccoli florets, cut into small pieces
1c. carrots, finely chopped
2c. flour
2c. chicken stock
1bottle (12 oz.) locally made beer (dark or light work fine)
3t. Worcestershire sauce
4c. milk
3T. maple syrup
2t. dry mustard
½t. fennel seed
2t. salt
⅛t. pepper
4chicken sausages, cooked and cut into small pieces
5c. cheddar cheese, shredded
In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Add onions and garlic. Sauté until onions are soft and translucent.
Add broccoli and carrots. Cook about 5 minutes.
Stir in flour, making sure vegetables are coated.
Stir in chicken stock. Bring to a boil over medium heat.
Stir in beer, Worcestershire sauce and milk. Reduce heat to low, simmer 10 minutes and add maple syrup, mustard, fennel, salt, pepper and sausage.
Cook 5 minutes longer, then slowly add cheese by the handful, stirring constantly until cheese is melted and soup begins to bubble. If the soup seems too thick, add a bit more milk or water. Add salt to taste.
YIELD: 12 servings.
ASPARAGUS IS ONE of the few perennial food crops — most of what we eat comes from annual food crops. But not asparagus. The tough work of planting it once results in years of harvests of the shoots, over and over again, that come from the plant’s crown deep underground. We cherish the one crop we can always count on, year after year. With a creamy base, this soup adds a richness to the mild flavor of asparagus that makes it the perfect special occasion soup for spring holidays.
½c. onion, chopped (1 small onion)
1T. canola oil
3c. vegetable stock
2½ lbs. asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1t. tarragon
¼c. butter (½ stick)
¼c. flour
½t. salt
3c. half & half cream or evaporated milk
1½ t. lemon juice
In a large saucepan over medium heat, sauté onion in oil until tender.
Add broth, asparagus and tarragon; simmer until the asparagus is tender, about 8 to 10 minutes.
In a blender or food processor, purée the asparagus mixture and set aside.
In a large kettle, melt the butter. Stir in flour and salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 minutes or until golden. Gradually add cream.
Stir in the puréed asparagus and lemon juice. Heat through.
Serve with croutons and sprinkle of Parmesan cheese shavings on top.
YIELD: 6 servings.
Cream makes soups rich in taste with every spoonful feeling luxurious. For lighter eating, use evaporated milk that is fresh milk with 60 percent of the water removed, creating a creamier substitute without the fat and calories. Make your own “evaporated milk” by reconstituting ⅔ c. dry milk with only ¾ c. water for the equivalent of 1 can of evaporated milk found at the store.
THIS RECIPE BEGS EXTRA FANFARE since it’s the only cucumber recipe, aside from pickles, that pre-serves a bumper crop of cucumbers. When we have too many 5-gallon pails full of cukes, we turn them into soup.
2large cucumbers
1medium onion
¼c. butter (½ stick)
1T. soy sauce
¼t. salt
¼t. pepper
1c. vegetable or chicken stock (optional)
Peel cucumbers. Cut cucumbers in half and deseed.
Shred cucumber and onion in food processor.
Sauté cucumber and onion in butter until slightly brown.
Return to food processor and purée.
Return to pot. Add stock (optional, depending on your preference for thickness), soy sauce, salt and pepper, and bring to a boil.
Serve immediately with a few homemade croutons on top.
YIELD: 4 servings.
After puréeing the cooked cucumber and onion, pack in freezer containers and freeze. To thin the soup when defrosted before serving, reheat and add the optional broth. The completed soup will also freeze just fine — however, freezing only the pulp will take up less freezer space.
Chef Poppy Tooker,
host of WWNO’s Louisiana Eats! and author of
Crescent City Farmers Market Cookbook,
New Orleans, Louisiana
Add one part culinary activist, five parts cooking instructor, three parts TV and radio personality and two parts food reporter and you have Chef Poppy Tooker, someone nearly everyone in New Orleans has eaten with at some point, whether listening to her Louisiana Eats! radio show, watching her on TV or sampling a treat at one of her culinary presentations.
Courtesy: Poppy Tooker.
New Orleans Chef Poppy Tooker in the kitchen.
It was at one of her presentations that Lisa discovered Poppy’s uncanny ability to transform fresh, local ingredients into dishes that celebrated the taste of place. Poppy articulated through her food how food preservationists are essential to the survival of not only traditional recipes and regional food culture — but the very foods themselves.
“Instead of saying ‘Clean your plate,’” begins Poppy, “my great grandmother used to say, ‘Poppy, eat it, to save it.’ A food preservationist is about restoring and recovering the heirloom fruits and vegetables and the heritage breed animals by cultivating the interest in and taste for them at the dinner table. We’re interested in preserving this rich diversity and the food traditions that surround them, their story, so to speak, on how they came to be. If you want to understand food, you have to understand the people behind the recipes and the farmers who grow or raise it.”
“As industrialized farming becomes ever more prevalent, the availability of a diversity of foods has shrunk precipitously,” continues Poppy. “We risk losing the taste and flavors of the foods that have come to define us as humans — and specifically, people who live here in New Orleans. While we may come from different faiths, ethnic backgrounds and political leanings, we all have to eat. The beliefs and perspectives don’t really matter when you sit down at the table to enjoy authentic foods that may be found in your community, sometimes only in your community.”
America’s melting pot has produced a zillion different ways to enjoy pizza, few resembling the crust and lightly cheesed pizza napoletana that you’d find in Rome. We have grits in the south, bagels in New York, crab cakes in Maryland, sushi in California, brats in Wisconsin, seafood gumbo in New Orleans — to name just a few.
The confluence of ethnicities, cultural traditions, religious preferences and geographically specific ingredients yields a dizzying array of delightful dishes and menus. Added to this are the dietary preferences or requirements of more Americans, from gluten-free to vegan. Today’s kitchen is never boring as more of us explore new tastes, flavors and combinations — the Thanksgiving turkey leftovers are just as likely to be turned into tacos as a casserole.
But local food traditions are under siege, not just by industrial approaches to food production, but also by global challenges such as climate change, and pressures created by a never-ending search for more oil. In New Orleans, these attacks took the form of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico.
“After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans had to start over,” muses Poppy. “We started from a spot where parts of the city had no restaurants, no grocery stores and no place to get fresh food. But I’ve witnessed an incredible rebirth. We now have Alice Water’s Edible School Yard New Orleans, community gardens are sprouting up all over the place, and we have farmers markets again, like the Crescent City Farmers Market with over forty vendors. With Hurricane Katrina, we gained a new appreciation for everything, but especially our food, using delicious, authentic, local, fresh ingredients in our cooking. We have fresh food on the south shore now.”
Perhaps no other city is as well-known and respected as a gastronomy center as New Orleans, itself a potpourri of cultures, flavors and tastes influenced by early French settlements, descendants from Africa and the flurry of international trade that passed through this bustling port city. But it’s the Creole and Cajun cuisine that has earned its international notoriety.
“Cajun foods come from the country and are often hot and spicy with a predominance of pork and chicken,” explains Poppy. “Creole cuisine, however, is largely based here in New Orleans, with our strong French roots, our busy port and thriving seafood industry. It’s not hot or spicy, but rather full-flavored with the mixture of what my great-grandmother called ‘seasonings,’ those being bell peppers, celery and onions. Amazingly, in the 1830s, there were over four hundred vendors in New Orleans’ French Market. Then, and now, New Orleans has such an incredible abundance.” This abundance is what allows the city to rise above the many challenges it has faced over the years.
“I’d rather see a cotton patch goose on my plate than visit one in the zoo,” smiles Poppy. She’s quick to point out that we’re talking about bringing back heritage breed animals and heirloom fruit and vegetables, saved from the brink of extinction through the work of non-profit organizations like Gary Nabhan’s Renewing America’s Food Traditions. She realizes that now, more than ever — especially after such catastrophic disasters as Hurricane Katrina or the BP oil spill — preserving our Earth’s biodiversity demands that as many people as possible can come to have a taste for it, appreciate it and ultimately care enough to help preserve this biodiversity of flavors.
SHE BEAT OUT the Food Network’s Bobby Flay with this recipe. You might say it’s all in the roux, a French term referring to a mix of oil or bacon grease and flour. “Instead of the caramel color of a roux in traditional French cooking, you’ll want to cook it to a bittersweet chocolate color,” advises Poppy Tooker.
1c. canola oil
1½ c. flour
5gumbo crabs (or 1 lb. crab meat)
4lbs. medium shrimp, with head and shell, if possible
1c. onion, chopped (1 medium onion)
1c. bell pepper, chopped (1 bell pepper)
3stalks celery, chopped
2lbs. okra, sliced in ¼-inch pieces
2T. canola oil (for frying okra)
1½ c. fresh tomatoes, peeled, deseeded and diced (or 1 14-oz can crushed tomatoes)
½gallon shrimp stock (prepared with heads, shells and veggie cuttings (except bell pepper)
1clove garlic, minced
2T. thyme
1bay leaf
1bunch green onions, chopped
½t. salt
½t. pepper
Peel shrimp and combine peels, onion skins and tops (except for peppers) in a stock pot. Cover with water and boil for 10 minutes. Strain and reserve.
In a skillet, fry okra in very hot oil until lightly browned.
Make a dark roux with the flour and oil. Add onions, stirring together until the roux darkens to a bittersweet chocolate brown. Add celery and bell pepper. Sauté for 5 minutes, then add the gumbo crabs, tomatoes, okra, herbs and the shrimp stock. Add garlic and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer 45 minutes or longer.
Ten minutes before serving add shrimp and green onions.
Serve on top of cooked rice.
YIELD: 12 servings.
ONE IMAGE JUMPS TO MIND in describing this soup: a warm blanket. With hearty potatoes and a creamy base, this thick soup wraps your insides in cozy comfort. It’s a meal in a bowl. The fall flavors pair nicely with some crusty bread. We like to use our autumn crop of Yukon Golds in this recipe, given their golden waxy flesh.
½c. celery, diced
½c. carrot, diced
½c. onion, diced
3T. butter
2T. flour
4c. milk
3c. vegetable stock
½t. salt
½t. seasoning salt
3lbs. potatoes, peeled and cooked (6 medium potatoes)
1t. paprika
In a large kettle, sauté the celery, carrot and onion in butter until tender.
Stir in flour until smooth. Gradually add milk, cook and stir until thickened and bubbly.
Add stock, salt and seasoning salt.
Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Cube the potatoes and add to soup. Simmer for 20 more minutes.
Purée in food processor in batches then return soup to pot.
Serve immediately and garnish with a sprinkle of paprika on top.
YIELD: 8 servings.
We are the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe. And reclaiming democratic control over our food and water and our ecological survival is the necessary project for our freedom.
VANDANA SHIVA, EARTH DEMOCRACY
BUGS BUNNY IS TO THE CARROT what Snow Miser is to Santa Claus, if Heat Miser doesn’t lose his temper. (If you’re too young or never owned a TV, Heat and Snow Miser play central roles in the 1974 holiday classic, The Year Without a Santa Claus). If carrots are great for improving eyesight — which they are — then feast on this soup for eagle eyes.
1lb. carrots, coarsely chopped (8 medium carrots)
2c. potatoes, peeled and diced (2 medium potatoes)
1c. onions, chopped (1 medium onion)
3garlic cloves, minced
¼c. butter (½ stick)
⅓c. flour
2t. salt
1t. sugar
6c. milk
1c. half & half cream or evaporated milk
1t. paprika
Bring a pot of water to a boil and add carrots and potatoes. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes until carrots and potatoes are tender. Drain, reserving cooking liquid.
In a skillet over medium heat, sauté onions and garlic in butter until onions are translucent, approximately 5 minutes, then mix in flour, stirring for an additional 2 minutes.
Place carrots, potatoes, onion mixture, salt and sugar in a food processor. Purée until smooth, adding reserved cooking liquid as needed for desired consistency.
Pour into a large saucepan. Stir in milk and heat through over medium heat. Then add cream and heat through (but do not boil).
Serve immediately and garnish with a sprinkle of paprika on top.
YIELD: 8 servings.
We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?
WENDELL BERRY
WHEN OUR SUMMER squash and zucchini pile up on our kitchen counter and sit in five-gallon pails and fill the refrigerator, too, we know it’s time to make soup. Rather than eating much of this soup in the summer, we tuck it away in the freezer. From December through April, we heat it up on our woodstove, add some cream (which doesn’t freeze well) and savor it as the snowflakes fly.
1c. onion, chopped (1 medium onion)
½c. butter (1 stick)
2½ c. zucchini, shredded
2½ c. vegetable or chicken stock
1T. fresh basil (1 t. dried)
½t. salt
¼t. nutmeg
1c. half & half cream
¼c. fresh basil for garnish (optional)
In a large saucepan, sauté onion in butter until tender. Add zucchini and vegetable stock. Simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes. Add seasonings.
Purée in food processor. The puréed base can be frozen at this point. Otherwise, return it to the sauce pan.
Stir in cream and heat through.
Serve with chopped fresh basil sprinkled on top.
YIELD: 4 servings.
Stirring squash soup.
IN THE SAME WAY we let nature’s abundance guide our cuisine and seasonal eating, we’ve learned to let go of cooking conventions. Not everything must be prepared on the stovetop or in the oven. Long before our solar Sun Oven, we had rediscovered the joys, aromas and super-energy-efficient approach to cooking on our woodstove, placed to one side of our kitchen, just like it used to be in the old days. Besides heating our farmhouse through the winter, the cooktop of the woodstove can be used to simmer sauces and soups, like this Danish Potato Leek Soup, to perfection.
2T. butter
12 c. leeks, cleaned and thinly sliced (4 large leeks)
1T. fresh dill (1 t. dried)
3lbs. potatoes, peeled and cubed (4 large potatoes)
½t. salt
2c. vegetable or chicken stock
2c. milk
sour cream
Melt butter in a large kettle over medium heat. Add leeks and dill; cook, stirring often, until leeks are soft, about 15 minutes.
Add potatoes, salt and broth. Bring to a boil over high heat; cover, reduce heat and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes until potatoes are tender.
Purée in batches in food processor. Return to pot and stir in milk.
Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until soup is steaming. Add more salt to taste.
For each serving, top with a dollop of sour cream.
YIELD: 6 servings.
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Carpe Diem: |
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Remember that scene in Dead Poets Society when the English teacher John Keating, played by Robin Williams, jumps on the desk and shouts to his students: “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary”? By middle age, we finally grasped Mr. Keating’s message. “Carpe diem” for us means “throw a potluck.”
“Potluck” by definition means relishing the “luck of the pot,” embracing the fact that you don’t know exactly what will happen when you host this party. At this gathering where everyone contributes a food dish to share, you’ll appreciate that simple sentiment: Savor the moment and celebrate life to its fullest because you know not what tomorrow may bring.
Think of a potluck as the antidote to redeem what ails modern society, delivered in a dish. A potluck stems from a rich history of sharing abundance in community, dating back to the Native American concept of a “potlatch,” a communal event where the abundance and surplus produced by the community are shared freely. For many Native American tribes, the highest social status of any participant was based on who gave away — not who possessed — the most resources or material wealth. The antonym for potluck is hoard. By the late 1800s, potlatches were made illegal both in the US and Canada (but repealed in 1951). This attitude can slowly creep up without us even realizing what happened, like when we invest in a home security system rather than an extra set of dishes in anticipation of feeding a crowd.
Speaking of plates, we have quite the mismatched collection ready to go into potluck hosting mode, particularly during the summer months when the outdoors can readily accommodate the masses. We transform the old storage shed — now just an open roof over a concrete slab — into our “cantina,” a party-perfect gathering spot complete with picnic tables, electric hook-up for blender drinks, a stage for impromptu music and twinkly icicle lights.
Musical event under the stars at the “Piazza” at a neighboring farm.
So channel your inner potluck Pied Piper to lure friends and family back to the potluck table. Here’s how:
1. Activate Guests
Scatter the invite list beyond family and friends; appeal to those who may have never tasted a vine-ripened heirloom tomato. The local food theme encompasses a wide range of people who would be great additions to the event — from area farmers to people who run businesses that prioritize local foods, like the owner of a restaurant known for its local fare.
2. Build a Bridge to Food Knowledge
Blend great food with a dash of education by creating a setting that engages and sparks conversation amongst your guests. We provide blank index cards and pens for our guests to write the name of their dish and share details on the ingredients that come from local sources, like “Pork brats from Jordandahl Farm in Argyle, Wisconsin” or “Cucumber salad from the gardens at Inn Serendipity.” Consider using a map to visually connect guests with their local food sources. There’s something about push-pins and post-its that grown-ups and kids alike respond to. Consider gifting some of your garden bounty to those who came up short in theirs. Or send the person who brought the dish made with the greatest amount of local ingredients home with a bottle of your best cordial.
3. Mix with Music
Food and music make merry when mixed together. Cara Carper, a friend and local extension agent who has her pulse on the local food movement, discovered this when she and her husband, Dave, got married in her family’s barn. The party rocked until dawn, with several guests never making it off the premises.
“Friends kept asking us when we were going to do that again,” says Cara, realizing that food, friends and music bring people together in new ways. “The wedding was a one-time deal, but we kept the spirit and connections going with our biannual barn party, a big potluck with lots of music,” she continues. “We wanted to create a venue at our barn party for local folks to share their talents. The barn stage is open to anyone. We even take out an ad in our local newspaper encouraging folks to come play. The rich music talent in our community always amazes me.”
Take whatever happens with a potluck —whether hosted on a rooftop, on your patio or in a hog shed like ours — and go with the flow. One correction to carpe diem that we’ve learned to live with: sometimes the potlucks may never end. So grab a few tents for your potluck, just in case.
HISTORIANS CLAIM THOMAS JEFFERSON introduced America to the tomato, as well as macaroni, French fries, ice cream and the waffle iron. Sure Thomas has some personal baggage, but at least he ate — and grew — his own vegetables at Monticello. He’s known for passing out seeds to neighbors, families and even fellow politicians. So our Tomato Dill Soup is dedicated to Thomas and to any other politician willing to sow what she or he says.
1c. onion, chopped (1 medium onion)
1clove garlic, minced
2T. butter
4c. fresh tomatoes, peeled & chopped (4 large tomatoes)
1c. vegetable or chicken stock
1T. fresh dill (1 t. dried)
¼t. salt
½c. mayonnaise
sprigs of fresh dill or parsley to garnish
In large saucepan, sauté onions and garlic in butter over medium heat for about 5 minutes.
Add tomatoes, broth, dill and salt. Cover the saucepan and simmer for 10 minutes.
Remove from heat and purée in food processor and return to saucepan.
Fold in mayonnaise.
Serve hot or cold, you decide. Reheat the soup gently if it’s to be served hot, garnished with dill or parsley sprinkled on top. Cover and chill overnight if it’s to be served cold.
YIELD: 6 servings.
For many of our recipes, you can get away without peeling and seeding the tomatoes. For soups and sauces, however, it’s best to remove the skins and seeds so you’re left with the fruity flesh. Who wants chewy chunks of tomato skin in your soup? To peel a tomato, with a knife score an X on the bottom of each one, then toss them in a pot of boiling water for about 45 seconds until the skins loosen up. Remove tomatoes with a slotted spoon, then peel the skins off under cold running water. To remove the seeds, cut the tomato in half and scoop out the seeds with your fingers.
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Becoming a Local Forager |
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Even the celebrity chefs are doing it these days, hiring foragers to hit the farmers markets for what’s uberfresh or unique, or heading to the rooftop gardens to cut the fresh herbs needed for their daily specials. Whole Foods Market now has foragers on their payroll.
But this isn’t what we mean by becoming a local forager. Our definition involves actively searching for your food or provisions, but not just in your backyard kitchen garden. Becoming a local forager is to rediscover which wild foods are abundant where you live: deer, moose, native black walnuts or wild mushrooms in the forests; rabbits, Jerusalem artichokes or ring-necked pheasant on the prairie; or crawfish, bluegill or bass in a lake nearby. It’s about responsibly savoring wild foods that have largely been eclipsed by more modern approaches to agriculture with annual row crops or livestock.
Chef frying up chanterelle mushrooms at the Wild Coast Restaurant at Treebones Resort, Big Sur, California.
Wild foods tend to epitomize seasonal eating and can be defined by a season consisting of a matter of weeks — sometimes found only when certain weather conditions come together for an abundant harvest. Without a doubt, morel mushrooms are one such early spring delicacy that many landowners around us covet, their location kept secret to all but the closest of family relatives. On the West Coast, there’s the flavorful chanterelle mushrooms.
Wild food foraging goes beyond hunting for nuts, berries and wild edibles. Perhaps it appeals to our more primal urge to eat closer to the land and dine on whole foods as nature intended. It’s not just for the survivalist type, but also for those eager to return to a time and age where knowledge is not based on binary code. Wild foods distill genetic engineering to its essence: nature.
“Trying economic times are the great equalizer, and today people are hungry to take a journey outside the confines of cubicle life, to step off the grid, even if just once in a while, to get back in touch with their natural human roots,” says Georgia Pellegrini, author of Food Heroes and Girl Hunter.
“There’s always one focus when foraging for wild foods: know what you’re eating,” echoes Sam Thayer, born in Wausau, Wisconsin, where he first learned to gather wild food in vacant lots, backyards, city parks and at the edge of town. His approach to wild foods could just as easily define farmsteadtarian eating: mindful meals.
“I call it the ‘banana test,’ since we’re very good at identifying the difference between a banana and an orange,” continues Sam. Today, Sam’s the Huck Finn of wild food foraging and author of The Forager’s Harvest, an ideal companion book to carry into the woods when searching for a supper of fern fiddleheads or milkweed. “Once you become a good forager, you’ll understand that wild foods are, in fact, as different as iceberg lettuce and romaine. I teach participants to question what the plants are before they put them in their mouth.”
Wild foods defy our attempts to cultivate them. The closest thing might be shiitake mushrooms grown in an inoculated log in the woods. Wild food foraging harkens a return to the time of the hunter-gatherer, where intimate local knowledge and a deep understanding of animal behavior or ecology served the foragers well and kept them out of trouble, perhaps by selecting the edible mushrooms, not the poisonous ones. You’ll need plenty of patience and perseverance; it takes time to find these wild delicacies.
If you can lose the Bambi sentimentality, or if you grew up hunting with your parents or family, then hunting deer or other wild game may seem as natural as putting a pole in the pond to see what’s biting. Millions of Americans help keep the deer population in check while putting food on the table for their family all winter long.
“Hunting and gathering, when done ethically, is the last natural and instinctive interplay between humans, the land and animals,” explains Georgia. “Hunting is also about conservation — a way to help sustain animal populations that have overrun their carrying capacity as we eliminate their habitat. Hunting is an act involving all of the senses. It is part of the natural cycle of life. Humans eat animals, animals eat animals and plants, plants feed from the dirt, and we turn to dirt. It’s the last part that some people have a hard time with — where there is the flow of life there is also the flow of death, and they have to acknowledge their own mortality.”
Where we live, just prior to Thanksgiving, it’s “camouflage flu” season. Deer season. Many families count on culling of the deer population during deer season so they can stock their freezer with venison. With a state-issued hunting license for the season, armed and trained with a rifle or shotgun appropriate and legal for what you’re hunting (varies greatly by state), and access to some woods or prairie depending on what you’re looking to bag, you’re good to go. Have a plan, however, for “dressing” your harvest, either with fellow hunters to show you how — or learning about what’s necessary before your skills bring you a kill.
In the city, foraging can take on a more unconventional approach, wild, but in a different sense. Freegans (freegan.info) — people who forage through garbage searching for food and other useful cast-offs — push back at an economic system based on consumption and waste.
“Despite the media hype that would suggest otherwise, freeganism is not exclusively about Dumpster diving or reclaiming wasted food,” explains Cindy Rosin, a Freegan and school teacher who lives in New York City. “Freegans can be gardeners or wild food foragers as well, not only Dumpster divers.”
“We’re bringing the social aspect and the love back into food gathering and preparation, and that can surround an elaborately prepared meal of organic local vegetables or a curbside binge on expired cookies,” continues Cindy. “Freegans aren’t just fringe-dwelling social dropouts — they’re everyday people who are saying no to capitalism’s abuses — saying there must be a better way if our planet is to survive. Reclaiming some small part of the 50 percent of our food supply that goes to waste is just one way for a conscientious person to refuse to be part of the problem.”
Somewhere between Girl Hunter and Urban Forager, given the precipitous population decline in such cities like Detroit and the food revolution underway there and elsewhere, it may not be that far into the future where a pheasant season is possible between stretches of abandoned city lots and old warehouses. Meanwhile, on our farm, we’re amazed how mulberry bushes push up through concrete so we can gorge on them come the Fourth of July. A premonition of what’s to come: there are already parts of Detroit where you’re more likely to cross paths with a pheasant than a person.
BISQUE SOUPS BLEND an ingredient dream team: nutritious and silky garden vegetable purée with a rich, heavy cream. For us, comfort food is about something that makes you feel better after you enjoy it. More healthy comfort food like this bisque soup gratifies, but without the guilt and bloating that may come from downing the comfort food peddled at a fast-food joint or processed food aisle at the supermarket. For those eager to cut a few calories and keep it lighter, substitute milk or evaporated milk for the heavy cream.
¼c. butter (½ stick)
1c. onions, chopped (1 medium onion)
1c. root vegetables (carrots, potatoes or rutabagas)
4c. butternut squash, peeled and cubed
3c. vegetable stock
¼t. salt
½t. nutmeg
½c. half & half cream (or 1 c. evaporated milk)
½t. paprika or 2 T. sour cream for garnish (optional)
In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt butter, then add in onions and cook until onions are tender.
Mix the other fall root vegetables and squash into the pot. Pour in vegetable stock, salt and nutmeg. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are tender.
In a food processor, or using an immersion blender, purée the mixture until smooth. Return to pot and stir in the cream or evaporated milk. Heat through but do not boil.
Serve with a sprinkle of paprika or a dollop of sour cream on top.
YIELD: 8 servings.
Let thy food be thy medicine and let thy medicine be thy food.
HIPPOCRATES, 460–377 BCE
