field

the field

snippets from the farming landscape a very brief history: maine beans

the bean supper

“A Maine cook has something else in mind as she makes her beans,” writes Marjorie Standish in her definitive 1973 collection of local recipes, Keep Cooking - The Maine Way. “She is showing off her ability as a cook. She has a reason to; her mother did it before her.” For many home cooks, baked beans taste like home, like Maine. Standish adds that Maine baked beans mean “just one thing—it’s Saturday night.”

Beans are also an excellent food for sharing, explains food historian (and owner of Rabelais Fine Cookbooks) Don Lindgren. “Beans have this social role in Maine, through bean-hole beans and the bean supper,” he says. “They’re not just a practical food. There’s a community aspect to them, and we recognize that even today in the tradition of bean suppers.”

bean lore

Jacob’s Cattle bean (often referred to as “Jake’s”) was likely grown in Maine before white settlers arrived. According to local legend, a Passamaquoddy leader gave these beans to Joseph Clark of Lubec, the first child of European heritage born in Maine, to celebrate his entry into the world.

which bean to bake?

Mainers are divided on the best bean for bean suppers. The most popular varietal is the yellow eye bean, but others prefer using Soldier (which have a maroon mark in their center that supposedly resembles a figure standing at attention), kidney, Marfax (these richly textured, golden brown beans are particularly popular way Down East), or Jacob’s Cattle.

maine’s first published recipe for black bean soup

Excerpted from Fish, Flesh and Fowl: A Book of Recipes for Cooking, a cookbook compiled by Ladies of State Street Parish in Portland. Published in 1877, this is believed to be Maine’s first collection of local recipes.

One pint of black beans, soaked over night. In the morning pour off the water, add a gallon of water, with any bones, either of beef or mutton (very little meat needed), and boil several hours.

Season with salt and pepper. Take off all the fat, strain the soup and let it boil again before serving. Cut a lemon in thin slices and put into the tureen and pour the soup upon it. Some add cloves and yolks of hard boiled eggs.

a few fresh food & farm festivals

Fourth Sunday in March

Maine Maple Sunday

Late May

Damariscotta Alewives Festival

July

Maine Potato Blossom Festival Open Farm Day Artisan Bread Fair

September

Common Ground Country Fair

October

Open Creamery Day Fryeburg Fair

November

Maine Harvest Festival

maine by the numbers: the farm bill in maine

The farm bill is a comprehensive multi-year piece of federal legislation that governs a substantial array of federal farm, food, forestry, and rural policies and programs. The current farm bill expires on September 30, 2018, and Congress is working on the next version. It has and will continue to have a large effect on Maine farms. Here are some of the effects of the farm bill:

$3.5+ million

The amount of funding that has been provided to agricultural producers in Maine to create or develop value-added producer-owned businesses through the Value-Added Producer Grant (VAPG) program.

$3.7+ million

The amount of funding allocated between 2009 and 2017 to Maine-based organizations providing training to beginning farmers, including training related to land access, as part of the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP).

-$114,970

The decrease in funding allocated to Maine in 2018 as compared to the amount allocated in 2017 for agriculture conservation easements through the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program – Agricultural Lands Easements (ACEP-ALE).

$13+ million

The amount of funding provided to farmers in Maine in 2017 to protect and improve natural resources on working farms by managing, maintaining, and expanding conservation activities like cover crops, rotational grazing, ecologicallybased pest management, buffer strips, and others.

chimney farm

(June, 1987)

by Gary Lawless

There is an empty stall in the barn where Ironside Jack the stallion lived. Last week two Amish farmers and their driver came and took him to Pennsylvania along with Sally the mare. From Jack’s stall in the barn you see the farmhouse: weathered, red, and surrounded by flowers. Beyond the house you look east over the horse pasture and down to the lake. There are vegetables and wild lupine off to your right, and the place where the town road ends. Near dusk the horses walk to the fence gate, hoping for grain. These horses haul our winter wood, turn the earth for our gardens. They give us warmth and life. Jack was like the guardian spirit of the place, always watching everything from here in his stall. Across the lake, cottage windows reflect the setting sun. Birds fill the air with sound. The light in the kitchen is yellow. Fog moves in behind the islands and everything starts to quiet. Later the loons will call from the cove. We will sleep, dreaming of wind, of rain, horses moving in the barn, and loon song, loon song pulling us into the dark water. We dive under, dive under and come up, somewhere else.

Gary Lawless is a poet, teacher, and co-owner of Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick. He is the author of 21 books of poems. “Chimney Farm” is from the collection Caribou Planet, published by Blackberry Books in 2015. Artwork J. Thomas R. Higgins, Garden Above the Lake, 2016, oil on panel, 16"x20". By the Numbers sources: Reports and statements from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and USDA Rural Development.

J. Thomas R. Higgins, Garden Above the Lake, 2016, oil on panel, 16 4 "x20".