Chefs Collaborative

You could feel that spring had come to the Berkshires after a long and gray winter. Wherever we went around Great Barrington, farmers and gardeners were hoeing the ground, planting seeds, adjusting water lines, patching up chicken coops, or moving livestock between pastures.

By noon on Saturday, many of us congregated at the Route 7 Grill near Great Barrington, to sample and discuss the foods and brews unique to the Berkshires, and ponder what they meant to our society as Earth Day of 2008 loomed before us. We sipped hard cider made from heirloom Baldwin Apples, nibbled at freshly-picked spring greens, passed around Berkshire Blue cheese, and savored barbecue sandwiches from brisket smoked not fifty yards from where we were sitting.

As the warm sun poured down upon us and the first daffodils broke broke out into flower in the pasture beyond us, I drifted off into a reverie about folks were eating when the first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970.

I remember that day because I had taken a “leave of absence” from my freshman year in college to work as a cartoonist and cub reporter at Earth Day headquarters in Washington, D.C. Like many times before and since, I was essentially playing hookie from my normal responsibilities to engage with others in promoting a somewhat novel way of looking at the world around us: we wished to have all human inhabitants on this little planet understand how their actions and consumption patterns affected the entire biosphere in which we lived. But while we worked fourteen hour days writing newsletters and press releases in a little office on DuPont Circle, we were oblivious to the fact that our own eating patterns might be contributing to the planet’s problem.

The staff of hard-core activists would hardly look up from their desks went someone came around to “order out” for some fast food. Most likely, it came from the Roy Rogers grill across the street or the twenty-four hour cafe a floor below us, one that was filled with policemen, hooker and pimps drinking bad coffee and eyeing one another all hours of the day or night. I remember that one day, I finally tired of the constant smell of grease, and went for a walk in attempt to find a health food store. Given the little pocket change I had at the time, all I could purchase was a bag of Basmati rice from India, a jar of orange honey from Florida, and some almonds from California. I lived off that combination for another week, leaving my desk only to nap on the mail bags in the postal room at the end of the hall.

Among the news events we covered at that time, food, farming or fishing were not much a part of our concern for a healthy environment. We wrote about the lead in paint, the pesticides on lawns, the sulfurous fumes rising from smoke stacks. We behaved as though our food came from another planet. The only connection we saw between food and planetary health was through Francis Moore Lappe’s little book, Diet for a Small Planet, which made it difficult for us to imagine how anyone in the future could eat meat, given how much grain and beans our burgeoning population would need to feed itself.

We knew that species were already disappearing from the face of the earth, but imagined eagles and rhinos and pandas, not the diverse species which still blessed our tables at that time: swordfish and sea turtles and white abalones and Jerusalem artichokes. No one used the term biodiversity at the time of the first Earth Day, and certainly no seventeen-year old like me could have then fathomed that the loss of food biodiversity would emerge as a concern among those worried about food security.

But in the months approaching that first Earth Day in 1970, scientists were suddenly realizing the risks of monoculture and of having too few crop varieties in the field, as the Southern Corn Blight raged through the rural communities of the South and Midwest.

Today, we are facing unprecedented rises in commodity food prices, largely because of the fossil fuel embedded in nearly every bite we take. The price of corn in the U.S. has doubled since 2005. The same amount of food relief the U.S. government annually offers the poor of the world currently costs $500 million more than it did a year ago, independent of how many additional people are currently going hungry. And at the same time, we are realizing that one of the most resilent buffers against food insecurity and outright famine —-food biodiversity—-is also in peril.

For this Earth Day, the Renewing America’s Food Traditions alliance released a list of some 1104 food species, varieties, and stocks that are threatened, endangered or already extinct, that are no longer on any North American table. This food biodiversity—of heirloom fruits and seeds as well as fish, game and heritage livestock breeds—-has nourished our ancestors and predecessors on this continent for centuries. And yet, these foods have been put at risk by over thirty environmental and economic threats to our food system. No one cause accounts for all of the losses our food system has suffered, from the extinction of the Passenger pigeon to the epidemic which depleted American chestnuts, or the collecting which decimated the white abalone.

But if historic consumption and habitat degradation has threatened so many foods over such a short period of time, is it not possible for our society to reverse those trends as well, by shifting our eating and purchasing habits to favor those food species that can again become sustainably-harvested, and those producers who are investing in diversity and restore habitats on-farm and off? Chefs Collaborative’s work—from its sustainable seafood campaigns to the American Heritage Picnics it has sponsored—clearly demonstrates that chefs and consumers can enable what we call “eater-based conservation.”

Much of the Earth Day that I will have this year is not only more flavorful but more sustainable than what I sampled some thirty-eight years ago around DuPont Circle. Importantly, food, farming and fishing issues are more integrated into Earth Day celebrations than ever before. Are current heroes and inspirations are not just Rachel Carson, Paul Ehrlich, Ralph Nader and Frankie Lappe, but Wendell Berry, Michael Pollan, Alice Waters, Deborah Madison, Peter Hoffman, Rick Bayless and Joan Gussow as well.

The selection of what we eat is perhaps the most direct impact we have on the earth and its waters. Earth Day, in a sense, is the communion celebration by which we acknowledge that we can either heal or damage the earth, depending how we eat. Let us all answer the call to eater-based conservation by any means we can muster.

Rising food prices are a global problem without an immediate solution. Recently, hungry people have staged food protests in Egypt, Mexico, Cameroon, and Haiti. In this country, a Chicago newspaper reported that the average area resident should expect to pay $260 more for his or her groceries in 2008. The price of cheese, wheat, corn, and meat, is at an all-time high. The AP reports that food prices went up 23% between 2006 and 2007, according to the FAO. Grain went up 42%, oils 50% and dairy 80% during this time.

Bloomberg News reports that Morgan Stanley analysts attribute the price spike to diminished grain reserves worldwide and rising demand from China. Corn being diverted to ethanol production, drought in Australia and floods in Argentina all may play a role. According to The Economist, some Asian countries like the Philippines can’t grow enough to feed themselves, while others, like Myanmar, maintain regimes that contribute to hunger and poverty. High fuel prices only add to the overall price increase.

In the Washington Post recently, chefs and restaurateurs shared tips for shoring up narrowing margins–smaller portions, small price increases, and a creative hand with trimmings and waste–is helping restaurants stay competitive. For some Chefs Collaborative members, finding the right menu balance is becoming a trickier proposition.

Amy Scherber, of Amy’s Bread in New York City, said in the past, she used organic flour even in her conventional breads, but “when it went up from 30 cents to 68 cents,” they had to switch. “We’ve used a stone ground conventional flour for two months, and last week it went from 44 cents to 78 cents a pound, and that’s not even organic.” For a commercial bakery, “that’s staggering,” she allows, noting that their supplier’s prices have more than doubled in a year, keeping pace with wheat prices nationwide.

Scherber had to raise her prices back in November, and can’t imagine doing that again in the months ahead. “I think we’re going to have to just suck it up,” she said, expressing her hope that New York restauranteurs stand by their artisanal bakers in these tough times.

In Cranford, New Jersey, at A Toute Heure Bistro, Andrea Carbine feels protected by her diverse menu and by buying local and seasonal foods. “If something is too expensive, we just don’t put it on the menu,” she said. Her local baker has seen a price increase lately, but produce and pasture-raised lamb, beef and bison have remained fairly stable. This year looks like a good growing season, and Andrea is optimistic, even though pickups and deliveries are costlier due to higher gas prices.

Julie and John Stehling of the Early Girl Eatery in Asheville, N.C. and the North Star Diner were equally optimistic about this year’s produce. “If we can get through the next two weeks, no frost, we’ll be fine. Last year was rough, with a frost after Easter that wiped out apples, blueberries, and raspberries. This year is looking better,” John said recently.

The Stehlings have seen a significant decrease in their profit margin, and buying local “is a real balancing act, it’s tricky.” Their business is currently about 50 – 50 local, and his free-range local eggs’ prices have more than doubled in recent years. “We are comfort food. I don’t feel like we can raise our prices any time soon. I see me absorbing it,” said John.

“I’m trying my heart out to stay with the people” he’s been working with long-term, because “we do what we can to be part of the community, year after year.” For the Stehlings, it’s a question of integrity. “That’s who we are as people,” he said. As they both tell me, they got into the restaurant business for reasons other than making a profit. As John said, “I could cut corners, but then I’d probably not go home and sleep as well at night.”

The other night Chefs Collaborative hosted a pig fabrication breakdown at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. Chef Jamie Bissonette of KO Prime demonstrated deep porcine affection and understanding. If he hadn’t been talking the standing-room-only group through the process of breaking down a 140-pound pig, he probably could have butchered the thing in under thirty minutes. Pretty impressive. We tasted samples of his charcuterie, watched and asked questions while he talked us through the various parts and uses for every part, literally, from tail to stomach lining to feet to, yes, ears. A pig-ear terrine was pretty to look at with the taste and texture of something vaguely mushroom-y. It was a great gathering and, we hope, educational and informative for our members and guests.

Fast food isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It would be nice to say the same of small-scale family farmers. Who know that there are viable ways for these two groups to work together? Once again, pork paves the way. This Washington Post story looks at how fast food and small farmers are forming mutually beneficial partnerships. Bigger markets for farmers, better food for consumers. It’s progress. But can it compete with this?

It was a crisp Oregon morning when I caught the glimpse of all the cars in the parking lot at the Riverside Amusement Park where the Portland Chefs Collaborative was hosting its annual Farmer-Chef Conection. In my pre-breakfast stupor, I wondered, are that many people here roller skating and riding bumper cars at nine in the morning on a Monday?

When I asked our host, Debra Sohm Lawson, about the size of the crowd which Chefs Collaborative was expecting, she nonchalantly estimated that twelve dozen farmers, chefs, caters and food activists might participate.

The participants were largely from the Portland area, but when I saw that Doc and Connie Hatfield of Country Natural Beef had driven in from Brothers Oregon to attend the meeting–one of many they are invited to each year–I knew that it must be a highly functioning gathering, or else they would have skipped it. Folks had not come merely to listen to a few talking heads, but they had come to interact. The “speed dating” exercise among producers and chefs kept people busy for nearly an hour of one-on-one negotiations, but the relationship-building continued all the way through lunch.

We often talk glibly of “food communities,” as if everyone who buys or sells foods from one another share considerable time as well as values with one another. But that is not necessarily true in all places; more often than not, we all fall short of that goal. Yet there is something remarkable that many of us have seen in the Portland-centered community…there is collaborative problem-solving, long-term continuity in relationships among producers and chefs, and millions of dollars of locally-produced foods reaching Portland restaurants.

Portland has as many innovators in its food community as Austin has songwriters and musicians, or Santa Fe has folk artists. Much of what has occurred there has come not through support from government agencies and foundations, but through non-profit and private entrepeneurs funding common ground and maintaining momentum. If “it takes a village” to achieve such successes, Portland area farmers, ranchers, foragers, orchard keepers, chefs, farmers market managers, CSAs, and vintners have shaped an elegantly functioning food village.

What can we learn from them in terms of principles that might help other food communities? Was it simply that Portland had many “early adopters” of food systems innovation? How did they avoid burnout (if they did)? How did the non-profits learn to complement rather than compete with the business skills of restaurant owners and producers? How have the numbers of farms in Oregon doubled since the 1970s? How have they kept several hundred people regularly engaged in their collective work? If Portland community leaders can answer such questions should be given THE NEXT NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS….

It sickened the New York Times and the LA Times–and prompted Senator Richard Durbin and Representative Rosa DeLauro to mobilize for a single food safety agency, rather than leaving things up to the USDA. It can be linked to the Bush Administration’s slackening of regulations and staffing key USDA with Friends of George. It was prompted by a video released by the Humane Society of the United States, which picked a plant at random and showed cattle being shoved, forklifted and prodded on their way to slaughter, too sick to walk. It was the largest meat recall in American history, over 143 million pounds of beef, 37 million of which went to public school lunches.

The Chicago Tribune’s health blog ran a video of “downers,” cattle who are too sick to stand, and a list of books addressing Confined/Concentrated Animal Feedlot Operations (CAFO) and the spread of disease among animals and humans. Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Vegetable Miracle and Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma top the list.

We saw this coming

In October 2007 there was a beef recall after suspicions of E. coli contamination when two consumers got sick. The Illinois Department of Health launched an investigation after the two illneses were reported, which resulted in The American Foods Group voluntarily recalling 96,000 pounds of ground beef.

Starting in 1989, before most foodies got hip to small, organic, sustainable farms for better food and a safer planet, environmentalists took aim at CAFO as the nation’s biggest polluter of lakes, rivers and streams. “Agriculture is the single greatest source of water pollution in the country,” wrote Elizabeth Becker for the New York Times in 2002. Small family farms, and environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council criticized a 2002 Bush initiative to reduce pollution, backed by Christine Todd Whitman, then the Head of the Environmental Protection Agency, because it prevented public review of large farms’ pollution plans, and was largely seen as favoring business.

Further back still, in 1973, the American Academy of Pediatrics published a policy statement on the health risks of feedlot proximity to children, most notably in the drinking and recreation water supply. It was found that an animal feedlot in Indiana was emptying its waste along a creek, which ran into a lake used for swimming.

The paper explains that CAFOs were introduced after World War Two, when American prosperity and the demand for meat were on the rise. Originally established in deserted areas far from population centers, the paper asserted that, (by 1973), CAFOs were moving closer and closer to the market areas throughout the country, posing a greater risk to the population in terms of pollution and disease.

What’s so bad about feedlot animals? As Barbara Kingsolver outlines in her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, feedlot animals eat grain rather than grass, which makes their digestive system more acidic and prone to disbyosis. The pediatricians authoring the policy paper above also refer to naturally occurring “epizootics,” or epidemics, in confined feeding facilities, as well as chemical pollution by animal wastes and chemical changes related to microbiologic and chemical pollution.

Barbara Kingsolver’s daughter college-age Camille says it best. On a cross-country road trip from Virginia to Arizona when she was eleven, the family car passed by acres of CAFOs. “The odor was horrifying…and the sight of the animals was haunting: cows standing on mountains of their own excrement, packed so tightly together they had no room to walk…Looking out the window at these creatures made my heart sink and my stomach lose all interest. The outdoor part of the operation seemed crueler than anything that might go on inside a slaughterhouse. When I got home I told my parents I would never eat beef from a feedlot again.”

The United States of Vegetarians?

Faced with disease, animal cruelty, and harm to the planet, should we give up meat? Maybe vegetarianism is a good option if you’re eating lunch in a cafeteria.

But if you can find a good farmer, and they are everywhere, then develop a relationship of trust with the producer who is sure to become a good friend, and enjoy all the beef you want, knowing, as chef and author Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall puts it in his book, The River Cottage Meat Book, “that there is a moral dimension in your dealings with meat. Please think about it…”

Think about it, talk about it, and if you’re a chef, let your purveyors know. If you’re a consumer, let your favorite restaurants and your favorite retailers know, as well.

It’s not just in Boston that Collaborative members are doing exciting things, but we live here, so we get to see it close up. We recently hosted our partners on the Renewing America’s Food Traditions project for a meeting, and took them to visit the Taza chocolate factory, where Alex Whitmore and Larry Slotnick gave us a tour of the facilities, showed us how they hand-make their fantastic, dynamic chocolate bars, and let us taste lots of samples.

Then they handed us off to Lourdes Smith of Fiore di Nonno, who made mozzarella while we watched and told us the story of how she came to make cheese in the tradition of her grandfather–by hand, daily. If you haven’t yet tasted her burrata–a mozzarella “purse” filled with marscapone cheese–you can find it at CC members Lionette’s Market. You need this cheese.

And most recently, Lumiere chef-owner and Collaborative leader Michael Leviton opened Persephone, right down the street from our office! He’s serving local hook-caught cod, braised veal and beef marrow from humanely raised animals, Maine pink shrimp, and other carefully sourced and prepared foods. The restaurant-boutique is sexy and green. We like that combination.

Go team!

The FDA declared on January 15 that cloned animals were safe to eat. After studying the chemical makeup of beef, pork and milk from clones, FDA scientists determined that they didn’t differ from food already for sale in the US. Cloned meat and milk are “as safe as food we eat every day,” says the FDA. The agency also ruled that the identification of cloned food would not be necessary, which prompted Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut) to introduce legislation requiring labeling on cloned products.

Chefs around the country wondered why cloning was necessary, although to read the FDA report, it appears to be a cost- and labor-saving device. Cloned cow offspring, for example, can be designed to produce vast quantities of milk without the time and attention spent in traditional agriculture.

“In the kitchen, that’s what we call cutting corners,” said Daniel Bojorquez, chef de cuisine of Sel de la Terre in Natick, Massachusetts. “There are long-term consequences,” said Bojorquez, reflecting on how pure-bred animals often exhibit erratic behavior and vulnerabilities to disease. “I don’t know why they don’t just do it the natural way.” Vitaly Paley of Paley’s Place in Portland, Oregon also expressed serious doubt. He felt that labeling was imperative, so that customers could make a clear decision about what they were eating.

Aidan Davin of Stillman’s Farm in Hardwick, Massachusetts, echoed Bojorquez’s concerns. He had just delivered pigs to Sel de la Terre the day before we spoke. “I don’t know about the whole idea. Pigs reproduce pretty easily. I just let them do what they do. They’re more than happy to!”

Davin remembered the big hog breeders he knew, mostly in the South, who kept the hogs enclosed because they were not disease-resistant. “There’s no hybrid vigor,” he explained. “It’s a weaker strain in the end. If you introduce different blood lines, you get a better animal.” Paley wondered what would happen when cloned animals “intermingled” with regular animals. To some farmers, it seems that cloning might take that pure-bred vulnerability one step further, even while disease resistance appears be a reason for cloning in the first place.

Annie Cuggino of Veritable Quandary in Portland, Oregon wanted the government to help small farmers, whose competitive edge might be hurt by the FDA decision. Cuggino also acknowledged the current strong consumer awareness about food. Customers practically interrogate her about the specific origins of what Veritable Quandary serves, as do those at Paley’s Place. “People are really sophisticated about food’s origins now,” she said, admitting that the FDA report seemed out of step with the active farm-to-table movement.

Industrial farming is powerful, she acknowledges, “but something positive must be happening, because if Costco and Burgerville are including local and seasonal items, that tells you something.”

In light of the FDA’s decision, and a voluntary ban on clones in the food supply that the USDA requested farmers to continue, the relationship of trust between farmers, restaurants and consumers is of vital importance.

The chefs and farmers I spoke to agreed that the risks of cloning were potentially devastating, and the benefit unclear. Said Cuggino: “I wish that we would keep our eye on the ball, promote the farmers’ markets, help the small farmers to be competitive, and help the farmers do it right. Given the choice, I hope that people will choose a [sustainable] alternative,” even if it costs more. “That’s where our voice is, how we spend our money. Where we put our money speaks volumes, and that’s empowering.”

This week’s 60 Minutes report on the ecological, social, and economic impacts of the growing global demand for sushi showed how a natural resource like bluefin tuna can go from being sustainably caught and managed for centuries to being overfished, its population put at risk of extinction, within decades–all because it’s something people like to eat. As correspondent Bob Simon reports, industrial fishing boats work with spotter planes that fly above the Mediterranean looking for schools of migratory bluefin. The boats, using a type of gear called purse seines, can catch up to 3,000 fish with each cast of the net. These fish are typically frozen at sea and held in deep freeze until they’re sold and shipped all over the world, winding up in grocery store sushi or casual sushi joints. Watch the video when you visit the CBS site.

On his blog, Blue Ocean Institute founder Carl Safina writes that “archeological evidence shows that people have been fishing bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean for 9,000 years.” Within the past 40 years, bluefin stocks have collapsed all over the world, and according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, populations of Atlantic tuna have declined by 90% since the 1970’s. And they’re taking fishermen’s livelihoods with them. While the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas works to figure out the best policy for restoring and managing the bluefin populations, concerned chefs can continue educating their customers, asking questions of their purveyors, and diversifying demand for underutilized seafood species, like this.

It was a wild way to break in the New Year, sharing local game and fish with hunters who donated their venison, pronghorn antelope backstrap and javelina “pork roasts” to their friends at the Cattle Baron in Flagstaff, Arizona. As we were sitting waiting for the first meat to come out of the roasting pit, I began to daydream about whether such an event would have even been “on my screen” some twenty years ago, as the local foods movement was first taking root.

Back before the founding of Chefs Collaborative, there were only 60 CSAs in the entire country, and some 1755 farmers markets; today there are more than 1700 CSAs and nearly 4400 farmers markets blessing our cities, towns, and rural landscapes. Over the last few years, there has been a 22% annual increase in local food sales in or near the communities where it was produced. Local food sales in the U.S. now top $5 billion a year, up from $2 billion/year in 2000. The many “local food challenges” are tangibly helping family farmers stay on the land, and attracting others to take up farming. In Oregon alone, the number of farms has grown from 26,700 in 1974, to more than 40,000 today. Books like Joan Gussow’s This Organic Life; Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors; Brian Halweil’s Eat Here; Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma; Barbara Kingsolver and Steve Hopp’s Animal, Vegetable and Miracle; Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon’s Plenty; and my own Coming Home to Eat have certainly helped inspire more folks to eat locally. However, the real work has been done on the farm and in the kitchen.

When Chefs Collaborative was founded in the mid-90’s, it took on the tasks of getting Americans “to celebrate local foods” and to work for “a more sustainable food supply that supports local economies.” On both counts, I believe we can firmly conclude its chefs have played the pivotal role in seeing that both of these tasks have been accomplished. This last year, not only did local foods hit the cover of Time magazine, but “locavore” was honored as the new word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary. There is still much to be done to deepen what it means to eat locally; to revive locally-unique heritage foods currently at risk; and to ensure “fair trade” among those unique products (such as wild salmon, maple syrup, wild rice, Buckeye chickens, heirloom apples and ramps) that move between regions. Chefs Collaborative’s involvement in the Renewing America’s Food Traditions initiative has also been essential to moving these efforts along as well.

2008 is no time to rest on our laurels, since Walmart and McDonalds, like rust, never sleep. But it is a fitting time to congratulate those who have played a role in bringing local foods back from a marginalized place in our society to a more secure and esteemed place. If we never stop to assess our progress and celebrate our successes, we may never see just how much can be done by dedicated individuals and communities taking modest but persistent steps toward our shared dreams.