July 30th, 2009 by Matthew
“Bread, MILK and butter are of venerable antiquity. They taste of the morning of the world.” -Leigh Hunt
THE MAGIC OF MILK
Today, in contrast to this statement, most of us humans view milk as an ordinary commodity. A pasteurized, homogenized industrialized, and subsidized commodity. We “creatures of the breast” (mammals) have forgotten what an extraordinary substance milk really is.
In its purest form, milk is a magical, living fluid that contains all the vitamins, minerals, nutrients and calories necessary for new mammalian life. Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking, puts this fact in a larger context when he states that:
[Milk] gives newborn [mammals] the advantage of ideally formulated food from the mother even after birth, and therefore the opportunity to continue their physical development outside the womb. The human species has taken full advantage of this opportunity; we are completely helpless for months after birth, while our brains finish growing to a size that would be difficult to accommodate in the womb and birth canal. In this sense, milk helped make possible the evolution of our large brain, and so helped make us the unusual animals we are.
The cultural practice of dairying and drinking the milk of other animals (sheep & goats, and later yaks, camel, cattle) is believed to have originated over 10,000 years ago, and has also had a significant affect on human development. Although milk from dairy animals was not as beneficial and suited to us as mother’s milk, its efficient source of calories and nutrients played a major role in the success and spread of early human civilization.
Pholia Farm Cheese
And perhaps most importantly (at least to the culinarily-inclined among us), milk is the foundation from which the myriad of other amazing dairy products are built. Cream, butter, ghee, yogurt, buttermilk, creme fraiche, sour cream, koumiss, kefir, and thousands of fresh and aged cheeses are all derived from milk.
This all being said, we have most likely forgotten about the magic of these substances because most of today’s milk is the opposite of magical……
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Tags: Ashland Food Co-op, Eat Local, Eat Local Week, local food, milk, sustainability, Umpqua Dairy
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July 29th, 2009 by Mary
Science didn’t invent fermented dairy foods like yogurt and cheese. Cave drawings from 4000BC show humans enjoying their homemade or should I say cavemade dairy products. In fact, little crusts of cheese have been found in Egyptian tombs. Quality fermented dairy foods were a mark of sophistication in Greek-Roman times so the ultimate insult was to call someone a “barbaric milk drinker”. These fermenting skills were carried to all of Europe, and all European countries have a long history of fermenting dairy. No one had a refrigerator to store their raw milk , so creating a lactoferment food that preserved the dairy for a few days to a few weeks was the way to go. The ferment process converts the lactose sugars into lactic acid, an antibacterial. Lactic acid also predigests the casein or protein in milk making it much more digestible than non-fermented milk.
Freshly made Curd
It’s been 30 years since my days revolved around the goat milking parlor, but I still miss the fun of making my own fermented dairy products. Occasionally I still make soft cheese for East Indian cookery because it’s so easy and so delicious…..
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Tags: Ashland Food Co-op, Creme Fraiche, Dairy, Eat Local Week, Heirloom Foods, milk, Sustainable
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July 25th, 2009 by Matthew
Ok. After reading our last blog, you understand some of the reasoning behind eating local and supporting your community of growers and producers. And hopefully you’re with us now. Hopefully you were with us before that, but regardless, you’ve now boarded the Eat-Local-Mobile and you’re ready to roll. In fact, you find yourself behind the wheel. So…..uh…..where to? How do you get to where you need to go?
Here are a few strategies and resources that can help you on your way toward making eating local a way of life. Hopefully, before you know it you’ll be cruising toward a future of sustainable food and a healthy local food economy.
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July 22nd, 2009 by Matthew
What does it mean to truly eat local? Why would we want to eat local in the first place? And if someone was crazy enough to truly want to eat local, How would they go about doing it?
WHAT does it mean to eat local?
Over the past decade, the local food movement has finally made its way back into the fringes of our culture’s mainstream. I use the word back because our short memories neglect to remind us that during the early years of our country, eating local was simply the way of the world. Eating local was neither fad nor trend but was, simply, what’s for dinner. You cooked with food out of your own garden, with food you hunted or foraged, or with food you purchased from your neighbor or local farmer. One only needs to leaf through the first few pages of Mary Randolph’s seminal cookbook, The Virginia Housewife (which many consider the first truly American cookbook) to see how eating locally was ingrained in the day to day lives of 19th century Americans.
Knowing these truths about our culinary roots makes a trip down memory lane even more strange and hilarious: the turn of the century saw us eating home-cured meats, hearth-baked breads and seasonal vegetables; the middle of the century saw the introduction, rise, and eventual domination of processed foods (at the expense of local foods and food traditions); the 1960s and 70s saw local and seasonal eating hopelessly relegated to the likes of hippies, back-to-the-landers, and a very select few prophetic farmers and chefs; and today eating local has re-emerged as a growing trend, movement, and life-style all rolled into one, equipped with its own set of advocates and detractors, its own new-fangled vocabulary (“foodsheds“, “locavores“, and “food patriotism“), and its own social, political, economic, and environmental ramifications……….
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July 21st, 2009 by Annie
We’re carrying some sustainable fish from Port Orford, OR now, and I just ate the BEST fresh albacore tuna ever! Port Orford is a sleepy little town on the Oregon coast, and like many coastal communities, employment has been a long term problem. The revival of the fishing industry there, on a smaller and sustainable scale, is good news for them….and great news for AFC shoppers. Here’s some information about the great stuff going on in Port Orford
Working with local fishers does have challenges. If the weather is not right, they cannot get out on the ocean to fish so we don’t get any. I think this is great because it keeps us in tune with the realities of our food system.
I had my beautiful tuna with some Blue Fox Farm salad greens laced with cukes and carrots. Some Siskiyou Crest Feta made it complete.
Blue Fox Cukes at Market
And while dessert wasn’t locally made, it was purchased at the Co-op and is a new and exciting treat…Malted Milk Ball gelato from
Ciao Bella. A sweet end to a fabulous meal.
If you THINK LOCAL FIRST in the weeks leading up to EAT LOCAL WEEK, you’ll get in tune with where your food comes from and it’ll make it much easier to take the pledge to eat local food during the week of September 11-20.
Tags: Ashland Food Co-op, local food, Port Orford, Slow Food, sustainability, Sustainable seafood
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