Farmers’ Market: C’est bonne!
Our “Eat Local Challenge” is creating a ripple effect in local communities all the way to local libraries.
Challenge acceptors can boost their confidence by reading or rereading “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver. For those not looking for a summer reading challenge to match the summer gastronomical challenge, here is a fast review — the author describes a decision on the part of her family to become more aware of the food they eat and to put the kitchen back into its center. This family of four made a commitment to eat only what they produced themselves or bought/bartered from neighbors for one full year.
The book is “a good read” and raises relevant points for our localvores, in spite of the fact that their venture was 24/7-365 and (get this!) they started in March. March? March! By March, the winter squash are punky, the potatoes in cold storage are wizened, the frozen vegetables are down to boxes that were repeatedly pushed out of the way to get at the good stuff below, and the rows and rows of jewel-toned preserves proudly lining shelves in September are down to a scattered jar or two. They started in March?!
OK. So the family started in March in Virginia where, presumably, it is not necessary to shovel several feet of accumulated snow off the garden spot or literally drill seed into the ground at that time of year. But as their deliberate eating adventure started, questions asked by these family members ring true. “What about fresh fruit?” asked the vegetarian teen. Once recovered from shock at the prospect of an average American teenager concerned about the availability of food that actually offers nourishment, a reader moves on to the meat of the story (sorry about the pun). “How do we …?” asked the younger daughter about everything from raising chickens and ducks for eggs and meat to safely preserving food by canning, drying, and cold storage. Back to the library for a stack of “How to’s.”
Members of the Presque Isle Farmers Market remain confident that anyone can relatively easily meet the parameters (one day each week for two months eating only food produced within 100 miles of home) we set up for our Challenge and have had fun doing so. Late summer and early autumn are, after all, times of bounty from the fields that surround us. Fresh fruit? Participants can loop from strawberries to raspberries to blueberries, then maybe a bit of a gap before the apples are ripe. Garden greens are plentiful, fresh tomatoes begin to pink up on the vines, new potatoes appear at roadside stands, livestock munches hungrily in grassy fields, bees are filling supers with honey at break-neck speed. Summer in The County … c’est bonne!
Editor’s note: This weekly column is written by members of the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market. For more information or to join, contact their secretary/treasurer Steve Miller of Westmanland at 896-5860 or via e-mail at beetree@xpressamerica.net. The group’s website is https://sites.google.com/site/presqueislefarmersmarket/
