Entries from August 2008
We have bred dogs to be the size of NYC rats so we can fit them in our purses and carry them on the subway. Looking at a chihuahua poking its wet black nose from the inside of a 3000 dollar purse the connection is lost between this animal and a wolf. But we appreciate things smaller, they are easier to deal with. And this is partially the case with The Dexter cow, a small breed from the hills of Ireland that has become the new best friend of family’s trying to beat the rise in food prices. A Dexter cow can be kept at a home and needs little more than grass to eat. As the Times online states, the cow stands barely taller than a German Shepard but can supply 16 pints of milk a day. This is one more step in the direction of self sufficiency in our new age of eating. People in urban environments have been keeping chickens and eating the eggs for years and now the Dexter, along with a few other new breeds, are next in line. And like the chicken, the Dexter can be consumed. However, the explanation of what happened to your son or daughters new four-legged friend will be tougher than the steak you got out of it.
–Nick
Categories: 1
Tagged: Dexter cow, Times online, urban chickens
While in the midst of a night of revelry (to celebrate my engagement to my girlfriend), I got into a conversation with a friend about food. He is a food writer and contributor to several magazines about food and wine. He was telling me about a breed of pig off the coast of Georgia and the story sounded so interesting I knew I had to write about it a bit. Turns out the breed of pig is the Ossabow Island Pig, a rare breed which has been geographically confined to its home island since the 1500s. The Ossabow Pig is listed on Slow Food’s Ark of Taste, meaning it is endangered, and worthy of noting. As the story goes the pig ended up on Ossabow Island after the Spanish had brought pigs to the States. Many of today’s domesticated pigs are descendants of these early Spanish pigs, but the Ossabow Island pigs are feral and have not mixed in with other breeds. With thick bristles and a smaller body than your average pig, the closest relatives to the first pigs to come to our shores. Amazingly also, due to their inhospitable environment, these pigs have had to adapt creatively and eat mostly peanuts and acorns to survive.
–Nick
Categories: 1
Tagged: Ark of Taste, Georgia, Ossabow Pig, Slow Food
The Internet can be helpful and not helpful and as one scrolls through its vast stores of important and unimportant information, that realization only becomes brighter. But these days, it’s almost as if it’s the only game in town. The Internet has become our source for everything. Now imagine we sourced our food information from the Internet just like we do information on let’s say the French Revolution. There we are perusing sites as if the Internet really was one a useful place to find out about food issues. At the same time the Internet can be a tool for foodies. Now let’s say you had a guide to this Internet? Well, maybe now you do. The Eat Well Guide, which is part of sustainabletable.org, is publishing Cultivating the Web, a guide to the Internet but for food people. It cites examples of how companies have used the Internet in grassroots movements to change long-standing destructive policies; how the clamoring of voices from the Internet has actually made a difference. It’s nice to remember that the Internet has done some good things too.
–Nick
Categories: 1
Tagged: Cultivating the Web, Internet, sustainable table
I consider myself a fairly brave eater. I’ll try almost anything I have not eaten before. If I find I don’t like it, however, I will rarely give it a second look. This posting on Henny.com about Beijing’s outlandish and exotic foods doesn’t really surprise me but the photos make it really hot home. Check out some of the odder foods offered at the home city of the 2008 Olympics.
–Nick
Categories: 1
Tagged: Beijing, Henny.com, Olympics
Comic thanks to Bizarro.com and Dan Piraro
It is being reported that Monsanto, the scary corporation that controls as a vast majority of the food production around the world with genetically modified seeds, is looking to offload its troubling product Posilac, their brand of recombinant bovine growth hormone. The company has not mentioned the controversy that has surrounded the product since the FDA approved it in 1994, but just says it is looking forward to focusing on its seed business. The EU in its wisdom banned rBGH and therefore does not deal with the same confusion that, on a state level, our country does. The biggest load of bull is that the milk industry claims that labeling milk cartons with rBGH free labels offers an unfair advantage to consumer. Instead of informing them it claims that it biases them toward rGBH free milk. Ummm…isn’t that the point? Since when has capitalism had to play by these rules?
–Nick
Categories: 1
Tagged: milk, Monsanto, Posilac, rBGH
In recent months the major press outlets have not been shy about their praise of the farmer. The NYT Magazine was not shy in its praise of the hard working female farming superstars of today. And this week in New York Magazine, an article about Amy Hepworth, a seventh generation farmer who runs a sprawling swath of fertile land in Milton, NY. Hepworth supplies many crops to the infamous Coop in Park Slope and when she showed up to speak there recently, she was regarded with such religious fervor as to be the next coming of Shiva.
Why have farmers become so cool recently? And more so, why are they being depicted as rockstars of the new agrarian age? I can only hypothesize on this. Perhaps, faced with the ecological collapse of our own food system, and the natural world as we know it, we are reverting to the earliest forms of our existence, as farmers. In this day and age, we have perfected the glorification of almost anything, and maybe farmers are the next on line. And just maybe we need new rockstars? We have laid waste and gorged ourselves on the typical starlet, the real musician rockstar, the Donald Trump style faux hair millionaire, and we seek something more humble, grittier, and closer to our roots (no pun intended).
Who knows, but for myself, I never tire of these magazine spreads: the dirty overall wearing farmer, grasping some leafy green, and grinning like the sun had just kissed them on the cheek.
–Nick
Categories: 1
Tagged: Amy Hepworth, New York Magazine, Park Slope Food Coop
California seems to take action against the obvious before other states. They made marijuana legal for chronic pain sufferers, and one can read about that in this fascinating New Yorker article. Though that law does seem to be lax in its prescriptive boundaries. Now California has decided its most vulnerable people should not be inundated with fast food restaurants. The city of Los Angeles has imposed a ban on all new fast food chains for one year. The proposal, which will almost certainly be passed into law, focuses on South LA, the poorest and most overweight section of Los Angeles. The purveyors of uber-healthy meals such as the Big Mac (560 calories. 30 fat grams. 80 mg cholesterol) are complaining that they are being singled out by the city of Los Angeles, citing they have made an effort to make their meals healthier. True they have, but only because it has threatened their profit margin. if making people fat and dead was still just as fun and cash friendly as it used to be, I doubt they would have changed anything
–Nick
Categories: 1
Tagged: Biog Mac, Los Angeles, McDonald's Ban
