Today, many vegetable varieties are bred for industrial agriculture.  Many seed developers seek to breed plants that will grow well in large monocultures, stand up to mechanical harvesting, produce large volumes of product with a uniform appearance, and travel well across great distances without spoiling.   Farmers growing for a marketplace that values uniformity and shipping quality grow a relatively small range of varieties that meet these criteria.

There are several major downsides to this, including the loss of crop biodiversity, the sacrifice of flavor and other qualities, and the lost ability to save seeds.

Biodiversity has lost out big-time in our move to a standardized and industrialized food system.  As a few standard varieties replace thousands of unique types of plants and animals, we risk losing our crop biodiversity for good.  Biodiversity is essential to a resilient food system that can withstand climate change and diseases.  For example, the Irish potato famine took place when the one widely-grown variety of potato was wiped out by a disease.  More genetic diversity of crops equals more ability to withstand threats, be it pests, diseases, weather, drought, climate change.

And then there is flavor.  Who wouldn’t rather have a tomato that melts in your mouth than one that can travel cross-country?  Speaking of which, heirloom tomatoes have gotten the most hype in recent years, but in fact, there are heirloom varieties of just about every plant.  Jimmy Nardello’s Sweet Italian Frying Peppers, Boston Marrow Squash, and the Gilfeather Turnip are just a few examples of endangered heirloom vegetable varieties.  And then there are thousands of varieties of heirloom wheat, corn, beans… the list goes on and on.  Heirloom varieties often have a specific attractive quality that led generations of gardeners to save them: they are great for canning or pickling; they are cold-hardy and withstand a light frost; or they have excellent flavor.  If we lose an heirloom variety, we lose a whole culinary and cultural tradition associated with it.

And finally, there is the critical ability to save and share seeds. Heirlooms are open-pollinated and seeds can be saved, shared, and grown again, as opposed to hybrid varieties, which reproduce via controlled pollination and cannot be grown from saved seed. To many, heirlooms must have a long history, and for some literal-minded folk, a variety can only be considered an heirloom if the seeds have actually been handed down from generation to generation, but open-source seed breeding is a crucial part of every definition of what makes an heirloom.  Thousands of heirloom varieties exist thanks to generations of farmers and gardeners who have carefully saved and propogated seeds over the years.

Of course, hybrid varieties have their plusses as well: many hybrid seeds have higher yields, and others have been bred for resistance to specific diseases.  Few farmers are growing solely heirlooms; many farmers who appreciate heirlooms for their flavor and history also choose to take advantage of the qualities of hybrid seeds.   The important part is making sure we are keeping the diversity alive by growing a wide range of crops that includes plenty of open-pollinated heirlooms.  If we only grow a few kinds of hybrid crops, we risk losing our genetic stock for future seed breeding, losing our right to save and share seeds via open pollination, and losing the flavors and traditions associated with these foods.

By growing, buying, cooking, eating, and appreciating heirlooms, as the RAFT collaboration encourages, we can support the farmers who are choosing to help keep biodiversity alive, while enjoying the flavors, and cultural context of these unique and interesting food crops.

Chef Will Gilson put together a fantastic five-course menu in which each course featured one of the RAFT varieties.  Diners started with a local lobster bisque with slow-cooked Gilfeather turnip, then moved into a miso-marinated scallop with Gilfeather turnip puree, soy-cured green apples, and dashi cilantro sauce.  The Gilfeather turnip was developed by Vermont farmer John Gilfeather, who apparently cut off the top and bottom of each turnip before selling it to prevent others from growing the vegetable.  Luckily someone got ahold of the seeds so we could enjoy it on the menu.

Next up was a charred Wethersfield Red Onion soup with a Gruyere-rye crumble, thyme, and crispy onions, which tasted like a lighter, creamier version of French onion soup.  Wethersfield onions were once grown by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, and were the prize crop of Wethersfield, Connecticut in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The soup was followed by a juicy, tender slow-roasted heritage pork chop topped with Jimmy Nardello pepper romesco and served with seared cauliflower, golden raisins, and creamy zucchini fregola.  Jimmy Nardello pepper

seeds were brought by the Nardello family from Italy in the late 1800s.  Chef Will Gilson proclaimed the sweet, flavorful red pepper his favorite of the RAFT vegetables.

Finally, we ended the dinner on a sweet note with marinated Oka Muskmelon over coconut lime panna cotta with Szechuan peppercorn syrup and Thai basil.  The spices complemented the sweet melon and creamy panna cotta excellently.  The melon, which grows well in northern climates like New England, was bred by Trappist monks in Quebec.

Thanks to the Garden at the Cellar for kicking off our dinner series! We are looking forward to more delicious opportunities to share meals with Slow Food Boston this harvest season.  

It’s mid-August, and the following month is the height of harvest season.  Corn and peaches abound. But the all-star at this time of year is clearly the tomato.  This humble vegetable, which appears year-round as a mealy, pale slice atop a hamburger, gains a cult-like following at this time of year.  You can find the tomato’s devotees exclaiming over knobbly, multi-colored fruits at farmers’ markets, hunting for the perfect specimen, or carefully tending to their own tomato vines for months throughout the spring and summer, all for the perfect tomato.

Of course, it’s possible and even enjoyable to eat locally and seasonally all year round, with greens in the spring and squash in the winter.  But admit it- even the most dedicated locavore knows that this is the time we’ve all been waiting for.  Late summer presents the ultimate abundance, the heavy hitters, the sugary, juicy fruits we dream of all year round.

Here in New England it’s been an excellent harvest season, especially for tomatoes.  Unlike last year, where most of the crop was lost to wet weather and late blight, this year has presented its own challenges with dry weather, too much heat and not enough rain.  Fortunately, this kind of dry, hot weather makes for some amazing tomatoes, and farmers all around the Northeast are reporting a great crop.

Tomatoes are in many ways the Local Food All-Star.   While most vegetables taste notably better when fresh and local, in tomatoes the difference is astounding.   A ripe, juicy, farm fresh tomato is a completely different food from a winter hothouse baseball shipped from far away.  Tomatoes are familiar and accessible, not to mention sweet and full of natural sugars.  It is in tomatoes that heirloom varieties have particularly caught on: in the quest for the most delicious tomato, heirlooms like Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra, Black Krim, Arkansas Traveler, Striped German, Trophy, and hundreds of other varieties share the center stage.

The season for the perfect tomato is short but abundant, lasting only until the first frost kills the plants.  This encourages a flat-out tomato binge that will keep you satiated until the beginning of next season.  So feast while you can- enjoy delectable locally grown produce of all sorts all year long, but for now, eat tomatoes.

Local cheese and housemade charcuterie at Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro

Executive Chef Matt Maue and his Sous Chef, George, very kindly welcomed us for a backstage pass into the new world at the back of the house.  After offering us cheese and some delicious house-made pheasant terrine, Chef Maue started his restaurant tour.  First he led us through the backbone of the back of house – the dishwashing area – into the kitchen, where the farm-to-table magic happens.  He showed us the tiny space next to the ranges where four chefs work simultaneously to produce anywhere from 50 to 250 covers a night.  He talked about his commitment to sourcing sustainable food, and fielded questions from farmers about the costs and benefits of sourcing his ingredients directly from them. Chef Maue had a lot to say about the importance of forming relationships with farms and small food purveyors, and how he builds his menu around it.  (To see a video of Chef Maue talking about why he came to Boston instead of Bali and why he chooses to participate in the RAFT project, visit our YouTube channel.)

After a brief look in his walk-in cooler (which hardly contained anything, thanks to the amount of fresh produce sourced by Chef Maue), we walked past the kitchen into a hallway.  Leading up to the roof was a terrifyingly steep staircase.  We climbed and climbed, and found ourselves in the middle of a tiny roof garden overlooking Gillette Stadium.  Chef Maue and his brigade had grown an impressive and hardy-looking herb selection, but the tomatoes seemed to be suffering a little.  They took the opportunity to ask farmers what they were doing wrong and received a little advice and encouragement for their labors.  Chef Maue mentioned that they might add some new veg varieties next year.

When we headed back down, it was time for the cooking demonstration.  Chef Maue voiced his appreciation for Jimmy Nardello peppers, one of the heirloom vegetable varieties being grown in this year’s RAFT project.  The first dish he’d make, a twist on bruschetta, would involve these peppers and a chevre topping.  He began by heating a generous amount of olive oil (also domestically sourced) in a saute pan.  Next, to our surprise, he added an even more generous amount of garlic.  When the garlic was golden, he sprinkled in sliced Jimmy Nardellos and softened them.   After some salt and pepper, he began piling the pepper mixture onto crostini.  Chef George finished the dish with crumbles of fresh chevre.  The next dish, gazpacho, had been made ahead of time using RAFT-grown Trophy tomatoes, Jimmy Nardellos, and Wethersfield onions (grown by White Barn Farm).  Before handing us the bowls, Chef grated some mozzarella cheese from Narragansett Creamery over the top and drizzled on smoky balsamic vinegars.

Everything was delicious!  Thanks to Alida Cantor, RAFT Grow-Out Program Manager, for arranging this trip!  For more information on the RAFT program and its participants, visit http://chefscollaborative.org/programs/raft-grow-out/ and for more information or to join us at Chefs Collaborative, visit http://chefscollaborative.org/join-us/.

Sarah prepares tomato samples

Upon arriving at Red Fire Farm, we all piled onto a rickety wooden haywagon pulled by a tractor driven by Ryan.  After a brief delay involving a flat tire, we were off!  Sarah rode in the wagon with us and sliced up samples of tomatoes.  We toured the squash patch and the lettuce fields, and then hopped off to see the Gilfeather Turnips, one of the RAFT heirloom vegetables.  Ryan explained he’s been growing the turnips (which, by the way, are really rutabegas) for a number of years due to their excellent flavor and storage ability.

From there we headed off to a favorite farm destination: the melon patch.  We sampled Ali Baba and Moon and Stars watermelon, along with Red Fire favorite Little Baby Flower.  After we got back to the main farm stand area, we toured through the greenhouses, marvelling at the height of the tomato plants towering over our heads. Ryan told us how he grafts tomatoes over the winter, merging the roots of a hardy, disease-resistant variety with the top half of a tomato variety known for its delicious fruits.  The two halves grow together to make superbly healthy, robust and productive plants.

We went on to take a look at the beans, including heirloom varieties Marfax and True Red Cranberry, two traditional New England dry bean varieties.  Finally we ended up at the ground cherry patch. Ground cherries are small tomatillo-like fruits that grow inside a little paper husk and explode in your mouth with a sweet burst of almost tropical flavor.

Ryan explains grafting in the greenhouse

Participants from Henrietta’s Table, Prana Cafe, Bon Appetit cafe, and a number of other area restaurants and cafes agreed it was a hugely interesting and educational, not to mention delicious, day on the farm. It even made the local news- watch the video!

For anyone who is sorry they missed out, you can see and taste Red Fire Farm for yourself at their upcoming Tomato Festival on August 28, which features a 5K “Tomato Trot,” a lineup of local bands, workshops, chef demos, and of course, tomato tastings.

Sampling ground cherries at the end of the tour

Chefs Collaborative: What challenges do chefs face in sourcing sustainable seafood?
Matt Jennings: Where to begin? The challenges are very extensive. I think that one of the biggest issues is being able to find sustainable seafood that both satisfies the chef’s desire to cook something interesting and the customer’s desire to eat something interesting. If you’ve done sardines once, you’ve done them 1000 times.  How do you keep things exciting all the time?  The biggest challenge we have is keeping things fresh and new and interesting, for chefs and for customers.  We can’t have too many repeat offenders on the menu unless they are hallmarks of our cuisine.  When using sustainable seafood, we have to respect a more limited repertoire, but at the same time, there are different ways you can treat ingredients and therefore more opportunity for creativity.

C.C.: What factors do you take into consideration when sourcing fish?
M.J.: Sustainable first, local second.  The sustainable angle is more important than the local angle for us. It’s a top priority.  Local is its own beast because it’s impossible to source everything you buy locally.  If I had to choose, I  would rather have menus be seasonal and sustainable.  Seasonality is huge – a lot of the time you’re already purchasing sustainably and don’t even know it.  If you’re a  Rhode Island chef and you’re buying local Striper, you’re already halfway there.  But if we find great by-catch from the Mediterranean, we utilize it.

I’ve also made it an ongoing responsibility of my kitchen. On the days I’m not there, my Chef de Cuisine, Ben, and my cooks know that the bottom line is that we only serve sustainable fish. It is great to see my guys carry the torch. Together, we have sought out new sustainable seafood resources across the country. Seeing the next generation of young cooks ‘heed the call’ of cooking sustainably, is invigorating and reminds me on a daily basis, why I do what I do.

C.C.: What kind of tools would help chefs make better purchasing decisions?
M.J.: We’ve come a long way from where we were. I’m a Twitter junkie.  It’s nice to see people call each other out on Twitter for using unsustainable seafood.  We are able to keep each other honest that way – if you talk the talk, you better walk the walk.  Sourcing seafood can be challenging because you feel like you need to be on the Monterey Bay Aquarium website all the time and keeping your hand on the pulse of the industry.  You need to work with great vendors, and develop a close relationship with them. It’s all about trust. Our vendors know our angle.  They don’t come to us unless they have something sustainable that fits the bill.  We’ve already done the legwork to establish ourselves as a restaurant serving sustainable seafood.  We no longer have to talk to them to tell them what we want, which saves a lot of time and frustration. My fish guys are now acclimated to doing business with us. We might be a small account, but we are the type of account that a reputable vendor wants to have. It makes a statement about their caliber of customer. Likewise, when we find a fish vendor that is willing to go the extra mile for us, we are committed to them. I’ve had the same fish guys for over six years now. Our ordering is now less about asking them ‘what is sustainable’ and more about us inquiring about what kind of fish they have that fits into the sustainable boundaries. We might say “We are looking for something fatty, that can be grilled” or “larger fish that can be served whole”. That sets up a conversation with our vendors about ideas. That’s one of the best parts of being a chef. These type of relationships.

C.C.: How do you educate your customers on sustainable seafood?
M.J.: We did a special sustainable seafood dinner two years ago for New Year’s Eve.  Everybody got a packet from Monterey Bay, with a seafood watch list and other information on sustainable seafood.  It was great.  The people who attended were from both sides of the fence – some supported sustainable seafood, others didn’t know what sustainable meant.  At that dinner, it was customers educating customers.

On a daily basis, we offer a daily fish selection, which is always sustainable.  Ben is responsible for always finding sustainable fish – fresh and local, if possible.  Our customers know to expect it.  Even if they’ve been in two weeks in a row, they’ll have something they’ve never had before.

C.C.: Could you tell us a bit more about the recipe you’re sharing with us?
M.J: I’ve decided to keep it simple this time around. This time of year, we love serving raw seafood, so here I have provided a simple recipe for striped bass crudo. Here, the bass is complemented by the sweet fennel and slight heat from the Maras pepper. ‘Crudo’ simply means raw- this is basically an Italian version of sashimi- and when carefully prepared, it is one of the best ways to eat striped bass. In this country, this style of preparation has kind of been trendy since 2005 or so, but it has never and will never, go out of style for us. Preparing fish this way is so fresh, vibrant and, well…’summery’. The Spanish and Italians have been cooking this way for centuries. Goes to show- if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. What I love about crudo, is that this is ingredient driven technique- using the freshest and best ingredients available, and letting the food shine. That is what we are all about.

Rhode Island Striped Bass Crudo, Fennel Vinaigrette, Maras Pepper, Flowers & Tiny Herbs
Serves 6

For the vinaigrette:

1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons minced shallots
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, picked
2 teaspoons fresh lemon zest
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup finely chopped (brunoise) fresh fennel bulb
2 tablespoons chopped fresh fennel fronds
1 tablespoon Maras pepper (available at specialty or middle eastern grocery shops)

Preparation:

Whisk lemon juice, shallots, thyme, lemon zest, and honey in medium non-reactive bowl, to blend. Slowly drizzle in olive oil, while whisking, then fennel and finally the fennel fronds.
Season to taste with kosher salt and cracked white pepper. This can be done a day ahead if necessary.

To serve:

Take a fresh and heavy fillet of stripped bass and slice as thinly as possible on the bias. Use a very sharp knife! You should be left with beautiful, paper thin slices of bass, and you should have about 24-30 thin slices.

On six plates, shingle four or five thin slices of striped bass on each plate. Gently stir the vinaigrette with a spoon, and carefuly spoon the vinaigrette over the fish. If you have access to small herbs or edible flowers, garnish the plates with these now. Lastly, sprinkle some maldon or other very coarse sea salt over each serving.

As a variation, you can always add a small bed of succulent, young salad greens underneath each portion of fish. This makes for a great opening course, paired with a glass of prosecco or other sparkling wine.

As the NY Times detailed last week, chefs are increasingly going out of their way to find the best, the most interesting, and the tastiest local ingredients possible.

On the west coast, chefs in Los Angeles are not only buying their produce at farmers’ markets, some are now sourcing unique foods like loroco, pineapple guava blossoms, and Surinam cherries from urban backyard gardens.

Meanwhile, up in Sonoma County in Northern California, Sanders Field Farm and Peter Lowell’s Restuarant have brokered a partnership so close that the farm grows exclusively for the restaurant, while the restaurant sends staff out to the fields to work on the farm.

Moving to the east coast, in a similar partnership in Philadelphia, the suburban Blue Elephant Farm has an exclusive partnership with Supper restaurant.

And up in Gloucester, MA, even the tiniest lots are being used to grow food that makes its way to restaurant tables.

As we work to build farmer-chef connections in New England through our RAFT Grow-Out project, we love hearing about innovative partnerships around the country.  Got any more stories about farmer-chef connections to share with us? Let us know!

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/dining/21benno.html?pagewanted=2

http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2010/07/in-la-a-breakthrough-in-local-eating/60507/

http://www.grist.org/article/food-philly-chef-gets-his-hands-dirty-for-his-farm-to-table-restaurant/P1

http://civileats.com/2010/07/28/sanders-field-farm-the-cook-the-farmer-and-the-local-community/

http://www.gloucestertimes.com/lifestyle/x972391888/A-tale-of-two-farms-two-farmers

Chefs Collaborative: your book details your own experiences raising livestock and fowl. Could you talk a little about your background and how you got started?

Deborah Krasner: I actually tell this story in the book. My youngest child was about to go to college and I somehow managed to forget that she wouldn’t be there in the fall. My farmer’s market was filled with local meat dealers, and in my excitement at seeing them, I ordered portions of a cow, pig, lamb, and poultry from different farmers over the course of the summer. By the time the meat was ready for delivery in the fall, I suddenly realized that I was about to have a freezer full of meat and no child at home to help eat it!

At about the same time, my husband discovered that his cholesterol levels were high. He forswore all desserts and butter, but still ate our freezer meat every night. At the end of the year,
remarkably, my husband’s cholesterol actually went down a whopping 40 points. It was an eye opener for us both, and provoked the research that eventually led to this book. It turns out that traditionally-raised, entirely grass-fed beef, and pastured pork, lamb, poultry and eggs have a good balance of omega 3s to 6s, and high levels of CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acids), which can help lower cholesterol. Remarkably, good meat is good for you, and eating grass-fed red meat can actually make you healthier. All of the research that links red meat and high cholesterol is based on industrial corn-fed products.

Our food sources and food supply have changed dramatically in the last fifty years, and not for the better. While it’s true that we can all make choices about what we eat, we can seek out sources, it’s sad that things have changed so much that it requires effort. That’s because before the industrialization of our food supply, everyone had access to traditionally-raised pastured meat. But if consumers begin to demand this meat,  think (just like the organic movement), industrial food producers can turn on a dime. It’s their business to supply people with what they want, and it’s up to us to make our wishes known. Every time I go into a supermarket or a restaurant, I ask “is this grassfed”. We need to ask these questions – how was it raised? What did it eat? What breed is it and how local is the farm?

As I began to think about the book and visited farmers to see how they were raising animals, (and read books by Joel Salatin and Andy Lee and other farmer-authors who are thinking about how to farm sustainably), I began to understand that I didn’t need a lot of land or a big barn –
I could raise chickens and guinea fowl in a movable shelter, and sheep using portable electric fencing. We discovered that it wasn’t so hard to raise much of our own meat on our less than five acre property. This will be the fourth year that we have raised all the lamb and poultry and eggs that we eat. We support other local farmers by buying in a portion of a pig and a portion of a cow annually. Raising a good portion of our own food has been wonderful learning curve.

C.C.: Have you always been this way?

D.K.: I have gone to my local farmer’s market as long as it has been in existence, and I’ve been a member of various CSA’s for many years. I feel increasingly uncomfortable walking into a supermarket, as I still have to do for things like paper products. Looking at the food on display, I often feel that none of it looks appetizing. I have the opposite response at the farmer’s market: everything looks so vital and beautiful, and I see so many things I want to cook.

C.C.: What inspired you to write this book?

D.K.: What really inspired me was realizing that it wasn’t just a Vermont thing. I host residential culinary vacations here in Vermont, and we cook local food, including grass-fed meat. Often, when my guests tasted it, they’d respond enthusiastically and say it reminded them of the meat of their childhood, or the dishes they’d eaten on trips to Europe. We always start each vacation at the farmer’s market, where they’d meet the farmers, and they would mourn their inability to find similar sources local to their home. In response, I would encourage them to explore their local scene.

I had one guest from Minnesota who went home to her local farmer’s market and found a grass-fed beef farmer. She asked me check out his website, and he was using the

same protocol as my Vermont beef farmer – that’s when I realized that my Vermont experience might be possible anywhere in North America. I went on to discovered the website eatwild.com, which lists grass-fed producers eager to sell direct to consumers, state by state. Happily, there is really no state in North America where you can’t find local and grass-fed meat. I realized that everybody can eat like this, they may just not know it. I began to think: What do they need to know? They need to know what good meat is, where to find it, how to cook it, and (if ordering in quarter, half or whole animal quantities), how to understand and fill out a cut sheet for dividing the animal. Of course that presents a learning curve, because it’s different from going to the local supermarket and buying a few pieces of meat at a time. It’s quite a different experience having a full freezer, defrosting a piece of meat, and then cooking it. But buying good meat in bulk means that you can have the opportunity to eat nose to tail, with a lot of unfamiliar cuts that you might not have tried before.

I believe that if we choose to eat meat, we have an obligation to treat those animals respectfully and use every part. I set out to cook every single cut that you could get from a processor for each animal I included in the book. In addition to all the usual cuts, some of the more exotic parts I cooked included beef testicles, pigs’ ears and tails, and sweetbreads. I rendered my own suet and lard and developed recipes using them. I have made confits of all sorts of meat, including my own duck. In writing the book and organizing it by animals and their primals and sub-primal parts, I wanted anyone to be able to dip into a freezer full of  grass-fed meat, pull something out, and find a recipe in the book for that exact cut. I also wanted to serve those who buy meat piece by piece from farmers or specialty retailers, who might not know how to cook less familiar cuts, or the special cooking requirements of lean, grass-fed meat.

C.C.: What are your hopes for people who read your book?

D.K.: I hope people feel empowered to bypass the industrial food system and go direct to farmers not only for produce, but also for meat. This is important way to support small family farms that produce a niche product, and to support the health and vitality of your own family.

C.C.: Could you tell me more about the “decision tree” section of your book?
D.K.: When you order an animal in quarter, half or whole quantities, you need to order it using a cut sheet, so that the butchers at the processor will know how you want the animal divided. Any animal can be cut up in different ways, or by default, ground into hamburger. Looking at a whole animal, there are so many options beyond steaks, chops, burgers and roasts. Each choice you make can preclude other options – for instance, If you order roasts, you’re sacrificing steaks. The decision trees, which were made with the substantial help of skilled meat cutter, Adam Tiberio, who is the butcher at NYC’s Dickson’s Farmstand Meat, are designed to show the choices and trade-offs for each part of an animal, so you can make choices that are right for you.

C.C.: How did you develop your recipes? Did anyone else contribute?

D.K.: I had lots of inspiration, both in person and in print, and I tried to acknowledge them as I wrote the book. It’s the most multi-cultural book I’ve ever done. A friend from Thailand helped me develop some recipes, such as chicken feet soup; another friend from Australia gave me her grandmother’s rabbit recipe. There were recipes inspired by Sam & Sam Clark, of Moro Restaurant in London, who have written three brilliant cookbooks. In all of these cases, I tried to take those culinary ideas and make them my own. I found, in cooking my way through whole animals, that I was reminded of the kind of food I ate as a child. My mother and grandmother were both frugal cooks, and when they were cooking, many of these less-usual cuts were widely available in supermarkets and butcher shops. I remember eating pot roasts, stuffed cabbage, involtini, lamb shanks, beef shanks, oxtail soups, and I found it a great pleasure to cook them as an adult using good meat.

C.C.: What’s inspiring you these days?

D.K.: I’m thinking a lot about smoking and curing and canning; all the things I wanted to get into this book and couldn’t. The problem with a book is that you only have a year to work on it once you’ve signed a contract and have a due date. If you’re me, you get a lot of ideas you can’t work on because you have to turn the book in. I’m thinking about how to extend the book in a volume to follow.

C.C.: One of our members had a question for you about the shortage and conditions of
slaughterhouses. Do you have any comments?

D.K.: It’s certainly the big knot in the system. There aren’t enough processors, and they’re now threatened by a new set of proposed regulations that would treat large and small facilities as if they are the same, which is an onerous and expensive burden for smaller plants. Everybody should be writing to the USDA and weighing in on these processor issues. They’re really central to the question of whether we can improve the infrastructure of local meats and increase the number of small, local meat processors.

The culinary answer to that question is also interesting because stress profoundly affects the flavor of meat. The best producers do everything they can to avoid stressing the animal at any point in their life. When I visited La Cense, a Montana grass-fed beef ranch that operates on a huge scale, in addition to all the protocols they‘ve developed to keep the animals as relaxed as possible, they always have a cowboy accompany their animals to the processor to ensure that they are not stressed at any part of their final journey.

C.C.: If our members have any questions, at what address can they contact you?

D.K.: They should feel free to e-mail me at goodmeatbook@gmail.com.

Chef Rich Garcia:

On Tuesday of this past week I was thrilled to be a part of a sustainable seafood “round table” hosted by Chefs Collaborative, The New England Aquarium & Tony Maws and his team at Craigie On Main in Cambridge MA.

The turnout of chefs was amazing and to me it was proof that Sustainable Seafood options are becoming more of a concern within the culinary community.

It was great to hear from chefs directly what there concerns were and what they were doing in their own kitchens to make sure that their seafood selections are sustainable.

Chef Tony Maws made some great points about sourcing from farms or fisheries who may not necessarily be local, but whom he believes to be doing the right thing for the fishing industry, thus justifying his purchase.

One of the most impressive stories came from Chef Kevin Doherty, Executive chef TD Bank North Garden/Regional Chef Delaware North Companies who made it very clear that its difficult for a company and venue of their size to think about sustainability on all fronts, but it was very impressive that his company has put into effect new policies that force the companies chefs across the country to make sustainable seafood choices as part of their mission to change their ways despite being such a large food service operation.

Some other chefs who made it a point to attend and share their practices were Chef Michael Leviton of Lumiere, Michael Scelfo of Russel House Tavern and Temple Bar, Jason Bond of Beacon Hill Hotel & Bistro, and Jose Duarte of Taranta who is leading the way in the Boston Restaurant scene with his research on sustainability and carbon reduction as a way of reducing costs, offsetting an average of 80 metric tons per year, certifying Taranta as one of the few Green Restaurants in the world.

For more information on sustainable seafood choices Chefs Collaborative has put out an interactive web based tool to help teach chefs about making better choices. Green Chefs Blue Oceans is a sustainable seafood course you can take at your own pace. I took this course with my team when it was first launched and it has really helped me understand some of the better choices I can make.

Thanks, Chef, for writing about our sustainable seafood discussion and thanks to all who attended!  We are planning more get-togethers of this nature to help our chefs connect, and to bring them even more cohesive information on how to implement sustainable seafood choices in their menus.

The report speaks of the true cost of the industrial food system and what it has meant for rural economies, highlighting local and regional markets as solid investments for the future.  To download the full report, click here.