Chefs Collaborative

My first trip to Gloucester was on a brutally hot summer day.  My family and I packed into the family station and headed to the North Shore – a series of coastal towns north of Boston.  Having grown up on the South Shore, this was kind of a big deal.  Rarely does a resident of the South Shore travel to the North Shore.  I  still remember eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches next to the tall bronze statue of a fisherman lost at sea.  Even as a little kid, it was clear to me how important fishing was to this community.

A few weeks ago I purchased Mark Kurlansky’s book The Last Fish Tale: The Fate of the Atlantic and Survival in Gloucester, which chronicles the history and development of Cape Ann into one of the most important and plentiful fisheries in the world – and the decline of the fishing industry in more recent decades due to overfishing and mismanagement.    The city of Gloucester is the oldest fishing port in the country and despite the steady decline of commercial fishing New England, the commercial fishing industry continues to employ 80,000 people in Massachusetts.

This past weekend, the Boston Globe reported that the Gloucester Seafood Display Auction would be shut down for 10 days after being accused by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of falsifying records to hide the purchase of 20,691 illegally caught cod.  This is only the latest in an ongoing battle between local fishermen, fisheries management and conservation groups around groundfishing regulations.  The current regulatory system of New England fisheries is based on days-at-sea.  A report recently published by The Pew Environment Group suggests that a regulations based on days-at-sea encourage waste of fish, and cost fisherman more money, while not significantly improving threatened fish stocks.

Help may be on the way as a new framework for managing groundfishing (which includes species such as Atlantic cod, pollock, and flounder) will be discussed and voted on this week by the New England Fisheries Management Council.  The new framework would encourage fishers to  form fishing co-ops called sectors that would provide groups of fishers with annual catch limits and end the current management tactic of establishing catch limits based on days-at-sea.  The hope is that the new structure would provide fishermen with greater flexibility in setting their own guidelines, while depleted populations of species like Atlantic cod have a chance to replenish themselves.

There is still debate amongst fishermen and conservationists alike on if the new plan will be successful.  On a weekend broadcast of Radio Boston, fishermen cited their fear that the proposed annual catch limits for each sector will not provide them with enough income to sustain their businesses.  Conservation and fisheries management groups are concerned about the long-term health of the industry and fear that without significant changes to the current structure, we risk losing the commercial fishing industry forever.

Like most Tuesdays, I was working from home yesterday.  At lunchtime I took my two dogs out for a quick stroll around the three wooded acres where we live.   When we approached my tiny patch of sunlit garden nestled among the trees, I was surprised to see something that definitely hadn’t been there the day before: Five little Marfax bean seedlings had broken through their covering of compost, still bean-capped, leafless and bent over, they were nevertheless making their way towards the sun.  I’ve been gardening for years, and I love it, but I surprised even myself with the childish glee with which I observed the seedlings.  There is a reason there are so many cliché sayings about planting seeds.  I could suddenly see my whole bean-filled summer garden unfolding before my eyes, and I had equally vivid images of my bean-filled belly come harvest-time this fall!

All over New England, this little bean miracle is playing out on a much larger scale than in my tiny garden.  Marfax beans are one of the sixteen varieties of heirloom vegetables we’ve asked twenty-eight farmers in the Providence, Portsmouth, and Boston areas to grow for the RAFT (Renewing America’s Food Traditions) Grow-Out project Chefs Collaborative is piloting this year.  When their much larger fields of Marfax beans are mature, we have thirty-five chefs lined up, eager to buy, feature and promote them on their menus.  At Chefs Collaborative, we hope that the community building we’re promoting during the Grow-Out establishes connections between farmers and chefs that grow beyond the bounds of the project.  But community building will not be the only source of interesting connections to come out of this project; growing Marfax beans establishes a significant connection between all the participants and the rich agricultural history of New England.

The origins of the Marfax bean are mostly lost, but we know they have been grown in New England for over a century.  Some sources suggest they were a favorite among the logging camp cooks in Maine, who floated their bean rafts (think food truck on a raft) down Maine’s rivers, feeding loggers their four times-daily meals of beans.  The camp cooks were not only unique in their distribution of baked beans, they also cooked them in an interesting way.  In a method most likely learned from Native Americans, camp cooks cooked their beans in a “bean hole:” a rock-lined fire pit in the ground where the pot of beans was buried to slowly cook from residual heat held by the stones.  Many Mainers continue the bean hole tradition at outdoor fairs and festivals, and at MOFGA’s (Maine Organic Farming and Gardening Association) annual Common Ground Fair, the Marfax bean is one of the favorite beans for the bean hole!

The beans are medium-small, roundish, and golden-tan colored.  They have a rich flavor and are great for baked beans.  I know I’ll be torn when it comes to using my small crop of Marfax beans – should I dig a bean hole for a historic taste of Marfax beans, recreate a dish made by a Grow-Out chef, or come up with my own use?  Should I eat all my beans, or save a few to plant again next year?  No matter what I do, I’ll be thinking about the farmers and chefs participating in our project, and the rich history of Marfax beans throughout New England.  In future blog posts, I’ll be writing about Grow-Out farms and restaurants, not my own garden… but yesterday, those five little seedlings really brought this project home for me.

- Anne Obelnicki, RAFT Grow-Out Project Coordinator