- Much buzz about Michael Pollan’s latest piece in the New York Times. It’s done in the form of an open letter to the next President of the United States (whichever candidate it might be) to bring to his attention the importance and likelihood of a food crisis that will face the entire world, including America.
But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention.
While the article is putatively aimed at the President-Elect-To-Be, what he describes is something we all need to pay attention to.
- Since this summer I have been following Wasted Food, a blog about…well, wasted food. In light of what Michael Pollan is saying, paying attention to how our society wastes food so trivially and looking for ways to reduce that waste (personally AND institutionally) is critical. Here’s a post from July about one common example: wasting food at conferences, business meetings, and other events. Another one of the pet causes of the blog’s author, Jonathan Bloom, is getting rid of trays in cafeterias. Studies show that people take more food when they can carry it on a tray, and are subsequently more likely to waste some of it. Today, he links to an article at Slate about getting too much produce from a CSA and suggests solutions like donating the produce to a local food bank (if they’ll take perishables), or, if the oversupply is a regular problem, splitting the subscription with someone else. This is a neat blog to follow for a perspective on something we often don’t even think about.
- Several years ago, Massachusetts finally put an end to allowing the sale of non-pasteurized fresh apple cider. It was an unfortunate decision, in my opinion, because it meant that we could no longer buy fresh cider and let it ferment a little to get “hard”. The fizzy tang of some real hard cider was a wonderful autumn treat. Commercial hard cider is nothing like the stuff you get from an apple farm. The rationale, of course, was food safety, but there wasn’t any real evidence to show that people were getting sick from unpasteurized cider. It’s rather like the federal regulations against raw-milk cheese — it may be “for your own good”, but it ruins something special and relatively harmless in the process.
The obvious solution, thus, is to make your own hard cider from apples you press yourself. I remember going to an apple farm in New Hampshire many years ago with our friends Tony and Sharon and squeezing our own cider from an old-fashioned apple press (which we then brought home and let ferment), but that was messy and labor-intensive. This Instructables.com article tells you how to make hard cider using homebrew equipment and champagne yeast. It’s still a slightly different beast from the natural fermentation, since you do actually pasteurize the apple juice before adding the yeast, but results in something a bit more potent than what you can buy at the store.
- Last week I took Starbucks to task for their blah “piadini” breakfast sandwich, but apparently they are going like gangbusters with their new “Perfect Oatmeal”. I haven’t tried it myself, yet, but apparently what you get is just a packet of instant oatmeal, a cup of hot water, and a packet of dried fruits and nuts to stir in. I guess the novelty factor for a generation of people who never got hot cereal at home is a part of the success, because that doesn’t sound all that special to me. I can make instant oatmeal at home and doctor it up just as easily. If their next “amazing” new breakfast idea is those little boxes of Kellogg cereal that you can pour the milk right into, I’m giving up.
there have been many attempts to end the commercial sale of non-pasteurized fresh apple cider here in Washington. I always assumed that it was to keep kids from making the hard cider because they do by the gallon. A handful of raisins, a jug of raw cider and a few weeks and you have yourself a party!
For a while we could get around it by going up to Maine, where you could buy the real thing, but they’ve gone and legislated it away there, too.
There is a new method of pasteurization that uses light and not heat to kill pathogens. this method allows the cider to still get a little hard. I know, cause i LIKE IT THAT WAY. Grandpa always did it. One just has to remember to ‘burp’ the bottle every day, sometimes several times a day, in the fridge lest it explode..I won’t however tell you how I know that.
Well, I wish you’d tell the assorted cider-producing farms in Massachusetts so I could get a little hard cider again without having to buy all that beer-making stuff.
I advise you to ask how the pasteurize, because the light method can be labelled pasteurized.
We buy ours locally at the Waltham Farmer’s the place is Allen’s Cider Mill, Wigwam Rd. West Brookfield MA.