Cooking real food from scratch Avoiding ‘edible food-like substances’ By JANE BOLLINGER I love farmers’ markets. Not a farmer myself, I nevertheless belong to an organization of farmers who practice sustainable agriculture. I support the blossoming food movement to Buy Fresh Buy Local and the local economies movement to shop locally because I believe that our global economic model is unsustainable based as it is on the unsustainable use of fossil fuel energy. I shop at farmers’ markets because they are a source of real food, which is pretty much the only food I want to eat anymore. For me, real food, grown locally is a starting point for sustainable living. For nine years every summer Saturday I present cooking demonstrations outdoors at the Wayne County Farmers’ Market. This year—with mixed feelings both of nostalgia and eager anticipation for discovering new summer Saturday projects—I finally hung up my apron and retired. There is one pleasure I will miss, however, and that is introducing people to new and exciting ways of preparing vegetables. I still remember one Saturday years ago when The Anthill Farm showed up with a large quantity of the prettiest little white turnips (the size of radishes). Sadly they couldn’t sell these little gems because people didn’t know what to do with them. The next week I featured those same turnips by preparing a pureed, creamed soup with the white root of the turnips and stirring in cooked, chopped tender turnip greens (the tops) into the soup. It didn’t hurt that for a second recipe I simply sautéed some thinly sliced turnips in butter. (Most vegetables taste pretty fabulous cooked in butter and sprinkled with a tiny bit of salt.) Being an avid supporter of local farmers’ markets and eating real food cooked from scratch, I came to the conclusion over the years that people are not likely to patronize farmers’ markets or farm stands or start a garden if
they don’t know how to prepare this kind of food. Sadly too many people have lost the basic skills our moms and grandmothers took for granted, relying instead on already prepared
meals made by cooks at the local grocery store, on highly processed foods made by big manufacturing companies, or on fast foods eaten on the run (or in the car; did you know that 20%
of food is eaten in the car?). What a shame that so many Americans have lost those basic cooking skills. No wonder so many are so hesitant to try some unfamiliar vegetable or some new recipe. (I’ve been told that the average home cook knows how to make about a dozen dishes that he or she makes and serves over and over again at family mealtime. This is why I like to encourage everyone to expand their cooking horizons. There is a whole exciting world of real food out there waiting to be discovered.) To me, counting on fast food, manufactured/processed food, and other people cooking for me all the time would make me feel too vulnerable to food resources over which I have so little control. I want to know what’s in the food I eat; I don’t want to eat chemicals; I do want to eat food with more nutrition in it, i.e. food sold closer to the source that produced it; this includes not only local farmers, but also my own very small garden plot. Recently I found a website I like a lot (www.sustainabletable.org), where my favorite section is called “real food, right now and how to cook it.” I encourage you to think about the idea of sustainable food, a sustainable kitchen, and to share your thoughts with us at The River Reporter. Meantime, I’d like to share several recipes from nine years of cooking at the farmers’ market. It’s still there— located at the Wayne County Visitors Center, trackside at 32 Commercial St., Honesdale. Hours of operation are Saturdays starting at 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. (or until the farmers sell out their produce for the day). There’s also a mid-weed Wednesday farmers market from 4 to 7 p.m. at The Cooperage, 1030 Main St., Honesdale, and a market on Fridays in Hawley in Bingham Park from 2 to 5 p.m. For information about Sullivan County, NY’s many farmers’ markets, visit, www.sullivancountyfarmersmarkets.org/ Continued on page 27
24 OUR COUNTRY HOME SUMMER/FALL 2013