How sustainable foods become important

A new (possible) dissertation title floated into my head this week, during the EcoDistricts Summit I attended (and helped run). . .  a speaker mentioned the need for true engagement and understanding people's motivations, to work within people's motivations to move towards sustainability through understanding people's intrinsic values (see the post coming soon on the WWF article that the speaker mentioned).

Anyway, the new title is:

How Sustainable Foods Become Important: Creating Joy from Homegrown Foods

I think it really captures the key issues I want to explore:  True motivations people have for doing things that are sustainable (e.g. growing their own foods and decreasing green house gases because of their food not having to travel 1500 miles to get to them), as well how that motivation can change and increase, leading to more commitment towards sustainability in general, coming from a place of intrinsic motivation, not intellectual or moral motivation.  My hope is that by making sustainability actions genuinely enjoyable for people, sustainability as a movement is more accessible and becomes less of a movement or cause and more of something that just makes good sense for people to do to have a good life.

Enjoyment of homegrown food

Here's my most recent research ideas, trying to connect Sustainability, people's commitment or interest or motivation for Sustainability (and how it changes or grows), and environmental benefits of locally grown foods.

Shown here as an image, you can also view as pdf [link coming soon]

Dissertation Proposal Summer 2010 draft

Here's my draft of my Dissertation Proposal, circa Summer 2010, it's on hold until mid November, after my comprehensives exams

1. Research Questions

What is the experience appreciating growing, preparing, and eating your own food?

What is the experience of preparing and eating sustainable foods that you didn't grow?

How does the experience of appreciating growing, preparing, and eating your own food relate to the experience of a consumer of sustainable foods?

What is a scale of measurement for apprecating the experience of growing, preparing, and eating your own food?

What is a scale of measurement for appreciating preparing and eating sustainable food that you didn't grow?

XXX

2. Background / Context

Current food production practices are energy intensive, contribute greatly to pollution, [XXX] etc.  Food Production must become more sustainable while meeting the needs of consumers in the near future.  While there are many impressive plans for more sustainable food production practices [XXX Lit Review], many are not supported by consumers (in terms of consumers being willing to pay for "value added" sustainable food production practices, or recognizing additional value of fresher or higher quality foods).  There is a lot of market research to explore this problem [XXX Lit Review], and a lot of research to help Producers become more efficient or more sustainabile [XXX Lit Review], but very little research done to explore how the consumer's experience can change and develop to value sustainable food production practices. 

The Consumer Experience is generally an under researched area [Goodman], with food supply systems research often focusing on Producer, Supplier, or Supply Chain, not the consumer experience.  Market research is common, and may appear to be exploring the consumer experience, but it is generally focused on finding out only enough of the consumer's experience to use to increase sales for producers, not necessariliy for the benefit of the consumers or to understand the consumer experience for the consumers themselves. [Consumer vs. Producer Lit Review XXX]

3. This Research

Instead of exploring the Food Consumer experience exclusively in the context of an external Producer or as a andversarial relationship between Consumer and Producer, this research is designed to explore the Food Consumer AS Producer, with each participant having specific experiences growing, preparing, and eating their own foods, in addition to exploring the Consumer experience of the participants in their role as Food Consumers but NOT Producers.

Urban Farmers are uniquely positioned to experience roles as Sustainable Food Producer for others (for foods that they grow to sell), Sustainable Food Producer for themselves (Producer and Consumer, for foods that they grow and eat), and Sustainable Food Consumer but not Sustainable Food Producer (for foods that they eat but do not grow). [Urban Agriculture Lit Review XXX]. In addition, Urban Farmers have had experiences becoming more interested in and valuing more sustainable foods.

4. Methodology

Life Course Perspective is a unique methodology to explore how participant's life experiences have influenced their current choices and behavior patterns, including food choices [Devine XXX].  It has mostly been applied to exploring people's current and past experiences and identities around healthy eating, and has not been applied to Sustainability or Urban Agriculture yet.  

This research's goal is to create a scale of measure of the Food Consumer valuing/appreciating Sustainable Foods, that can be used measure the change in appreciation over time, and comparing this dependent (latent) variable to independent variables involving life experiences or food production or food consuming experiences.

Phase 1 will be a qualitative study of Urban Farmers, using Life Course Perspecive methodology, to learn more about the Consumer Experience and the Consumer Appreciation of Sustainable Foods.  The scale will be developed from the data from this study.  Life experiences, Food consumer experiences, and producer experience variables will also be chosen based on the data from this qualitative study.

Phase 2 will be a quantitative study, testing the Food Consumer's Appreciation of Sustainable Foods scale, and if it is a good measure, using it in a quantitative study to predict Appreciation from changes in independent variables involving life experiences, food consumer experiences, and food producer experiences, to be determined by qualitative study. 

Ingredient - A Documentary Film

On September 28 last year I went to the screening of “Ingredients: A Documentary Film” which was filmed largely in Portland with mostly Portland foodie stars like:

• Chef and Owner of Higgins Restaurant, Greg Higgins,
• Alan Sprints of Hair of the Dog Brewery, and
• Laura Masterson, farmer and owner of 47th Ave. Farm.

And non-Portland foodie stars like:

• Joan Gussow, matriarch of the food movement
• Alice Waters, owner and founder of Chez Panisse

It was a great documentary chalk full of interviews about the power of good quality ingredients, especially focusing on the new trends where people are starting to recognize the desire for good ingredients and for knowing where their ingredients are coming from.

I also felt like it was a great to hear about so many food people I didn’t know about before (I may be a foodie, but I haven’t been around in the food movement as long as a lot of the people in the movie). I remember watching it and wanting to find out more about Joan Gussow, but all I could remember was “grows all her own veggies, has carrot earrings”. See the blog post about Joan.

It reminded me of a conversation I had with a CSA Farmer (“Farmer C”) I had the week before, about how people don't appreciate CSA food because they don't know what to do with food that isn't processed, unless they can eat to fresh, people have lost touch with processing food. She said that the sustainability food movement has as much to do with farming as it has to do with a sharp knife and a cast iron pan.

The film was good, but it was too pretty, focused on the raw ingredients, like if we can just get enough farmers growing and enough consumers that know where their food comes from, and know how much more flavorful and nutritious local food is, then our problems will be solved.

There is still a big gap, not just in knowing that your food comes from water, soil and sun, but knowing how (and valuing) to prepare and eat unprocessed food...and the movie didn’t explore how that transition is going to happen.

People are so out of the habit of preparing their foods, that they think they are cooking even when they combine prepared ingredients (e.g. making bread using commodified wheat and yeast).

There's a big different between "cooking" fresh veggies and processing/preparing all other foods that make up the modern diet (crackers, ice creams, salsas, sauces, dressings, etc).

After I asked a question of the panel about consumers relearning how to process foods, another PSU student approached me to talk about community kitchens, and ask about my graduate program. I promised to send her info about CSS SySc sustainability discussion, and gave her my email address.

There are a lot of processes that can be done, but you have to want to eat them too (changing your own tastes and making foods that you honestly enjoy)

All in all, the movie left me wanting to make my own salsa, which I did a week after seeing the movie, with fire roasted tomatoes and chilies with fresh onions and cilantro, sautéed garlic.
___

I also bought the movie and had my own screening with a group of friends in my living room, with a local food potluck (including Burgerville fries and milkshakes).

Cover Crops

I’ve been trying my hand at Cover Crops this year, after each summer and winter harvest was over, to keep weeds down and enrich the soil.

Last Year’s Cover Crop
Last Fall (more like November by the time I got around to it) I planted Austrian Peas in the Summer half of the front garden as well as all over the back garden. The back garden Austrian peas came up sparsely and were not very vigorous (no pictures), but I didn’t plant them as thickly as the front garden, and the soil isn’t as good back there.

Austrian Peas
These were recommended to me by Farmer K and Farmer C, especially since they are tasty to eat as plants from late Fall through early Spring. I had never planted seed not in a row, but quickly figured out a reasonable method to uncover a square foot at a time, spread seeds, then cover the square foot back up. This probably made for very thick planting, but the seeds are cheap and it was easy enough to plant.

November 2009, Austrian Peas

Early May 2010, Austrian Peas

By the way, the farmers were right, these were very tasty. Like a grassy pea, but very fresh tasting, getting less tasty after the New Year. Great crop to grow, and fairly easy to remove a few weeks ago (early May). I left them in as long as possible until I was ready to plant, they were waist high by that point! Pulling them up went fairly well, a good grasp go much of the root structure, but I tried to leave the rhizomes in for extra nitrogen. These peas had huge rhizomes and were fun to look at (pictures next year).

Wheat!
I planted some in a smallish strip last fall as a cover crop for an area that had sod clumps in it still... just call me “The Little Red Hen”

November 2009, Wheat

Late May 2009, Wheat
Looks like it’s getting ready to harvest, it has to dry out a little more, then on with the threshing and winnowing! Good thing I already have a grain mill from Eric as a holiday present last year (see So Cheesy and Cracker-y).

This year’s cover crop (Summer 2010)

For a summer cover crop for the half of the front garden that gets more sunlight, I chose a mixture of wheat, rye, and austrian peas. I planted thickly in late April, and didn’t have enough seed for the whole area, so I got some buckwheat seeds for the rest, but they haven’t come up yet (as of May 28th 2010).

I’m planning to pull out this cover crop in August, in time to plant the winter garden, just enough time to have them keep out the weeds and add bulk for composting.

Early May cover crop (Wheat, Rye, Peas)

Late May cover crop (Wheat, Rye, Peas)

Italy and Food

Under the Tuscan Sun / The Reluctant Tuscan

Okay, okay, I know these books have a bad rap, just another bunch of rich Americans falling in love with Italy, buying broken down farm houses and writing about their cultural appropriation experiences, but...

Actually reading these books, the authors didn’t come across as preachy, it was much more about their own experiences of visiting and living in Italy.

I’m planning a trip to Italy next year, and these books make me even more excited about wandering around the countryside eating good food and good wine, and maybe even pass as fratelli (brothers), not always stanieri (foreigners).

Under the Tuscan Sun is full of descriptions of discovery in another country, and how far you can go with a sense of adventure and curiosity to experience life. Many parts are related to food, but many others remind me a lot of my own experiences getting to know where I live, even if it’s just in my backyard, and having a sense of awe and wonder, like you were searching for treasure and found it. Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

We hauled histories and guides and wildflower books and novels in and out of rented houses and hotels. Always we asked local people where they liked to eat and headed to restaurants our many guidebooks never mentioned. We both have an insatiable curiosity about each jagged castle ruin on the hillside. My idea of heaven still is to drive the gravel farm roads of Umbria and Tuscany, very pleasantly lost. (p. 8)

and

People travel for as many reasons as they don’t travel. ‘I’m so glad I went to London, a friend told me in college, ‘Now I don’t ever have to go again.’ At the opposite end of the spectrum is my friend Charlotte who crossed China in the back of a truck, an alternate route to Tibet...Once in a place, that journey to the far interior of the psyche begins or it doesn’t. Something must make it yours, that ineffable something no book can capture. It can be so simple, like the light I saw on the faces of the three women walking with their arms linked when the afternoon sun slanted into the Rugapiana. That light seemed to fall like a benison on everyone beneath it. I, too, wanted to soak my skin under such a sun. (p. 145)

The Reluctant Tuscan is refreshing because it doesn’t start off by describing the wonders and glories of Italy, or make it sound like all foodies should pick up and move to Italy. Duran doesn’t hate Italy and then come to love it, there’s a more subtle transition to mutual appreciation that happens. There are a few sharply authentic experiences he has at first, mixed in with all of the other hilarity of living in a foreign country, and he slowly comes to recognize, crave, and embrace the Italian way of life the more time he spends there (the authentic beautiful parts as well as the crazy driving and boisterous attitudes of his italian friends and associates).

Slow Food: The Case for Taste, by Carlo Petrini

Another reason to love Italy is that the Slow Food Movement started there, after McDonalds dared to put a branch in near the Spanish Steps in Rome. Carlo Petrini, a founding member, protested with others, and formed Slow Food to work to “counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.”

Sometimes the Slow Food movement seems too academic to me, it’s more about the ideas and less about people’s actual food experiences, as if everyone MUST be perfectly mindful at every meal and only eat heritage, or most authentic varieties of foods, not just something you humbly grew in your yard, it’s like bourgeoise home grown.

But it’s a heck of a lot better than McDonalds and the like taking over our food experience. I always want/hope that Slow Food will focus more on how people get adopt, to really feel the Slow Food experience, and not just talk about it. I think for Italians they probably just get it already, because of their food culture and implicit understanding of Terroir (Look for a future blog post about French Terrior, by Amy Trubeck). But for most food consumers in the United States, they/we need to learn or relearn the experience of food, so it would be good to know how we learn and relearn to have deep, authentic experiences of food.

Slow Food International is mostly involved in encouraging producers to grow (and people to eat) more diverse and traditional, and locally relevant varieties of foods (such as Barbara Kingsolver’s heritage turkeys) that are at risk of extinction, through their “Ark of Taste” program.

Gastronomica’s Rooster Comb Soup

I read this article in the Summer 2009 issue of Gastronomica (see this blog post) about a soup that was such a regional specialty that the American author’s Italian friends had never heard or tasted it, and couldn’t identify the ingredients until the waiter told them they were eating Rooster Comb (you know, the part that flops around on the top of the rooster’s head). For this soup, the comb is cleaned and the tough leathery cover is peeled away to reveal a rubbery gelatinous, but evidentially full of chicken-y goodness flavor.

It’s articles like this that make me even more curious about visiting Italy. The experience of tasting delicious food that’s so specific to a region that it’s unknown outside of it seems so utterly un-American-Industrial-Food-System. There’s no reason that we can’t have our own regional specialties, but we certainly don’t have that kind of strong terroir like Italians (or French, or various other European cultures).

Barbara Kingsolver in Italy

In her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (see upcoming blog post), Barbara Kingsolver takes a break from her year of urban homesteading to go to Italy. Her brief descriptions made me want to go to Italy even more! My favorite parts of her journey included:

• Stopping by a roadside produce stand, buying a crazy looking melon for the seeds, convincing the hotel staff to let her cut it open in their kitchen, and spending most of the rest of the trip drying the seeds in various hotel rooms and then packing them up in a towel to move them to the next hotel room on her trip.
• Descriptions of watching Italian men’s slow (and intensely serious) savoring of their food (and her Husband’s adoption of Italian food savoring practices), and her warning (or promise?) to travelers to be ready for spending most of their time in Italy slowly eating their multi-course meals.

Around the Tuscan Table

This delightful ethnography of a multigenerational Italian family gives a glimpse into Italian food culture ranging in time from peasant life in the early 1900s all the way to modern food traditions with women struggling to provide good food for their families while keeping up a more busy (and potentially employed) life, and younger men expressing apathy towards traditional italian foods. Despite many Italian’s transition to “modern” living, all the members of the family still talked in great length about their food practices and food culture, something that might embarrass or confuse food consumers from the U.S. The author described how some of her study participants (especially the older ones) seemed disconcerted that she wanted to hear about their food experiences as children, when they were very poor, as if they thought it should be very obvious what it was like to cure their own olives or go hunting for rabbits, but, nonetheless, they were happy to tell the author about their experiences, since she explained that she really didn’t share their knowledge and experiences. It was almost as if the older participants couldn’t believe that someone could become an adult and not know these (to them) basic food practices. As mentioned above, it would certainly be possible for Americans to talk about their food experiences with the same honesty as Italians, but so often we either don’t know how to talk about food, or want to talk about food in an elitist, overly verbose way (see the future post on The Taste of Place by Trubek).

Needless to say, I’m very! excited about traveling to Italy to eat, explore, and become pleasantly lost.

So Cheesy (and Cracker-y)

I had a revelation: I can make crackers AND I can make cheese...It is not only possible, but relatively easy to make crackers and cheese. It all started when I tasted some oat crackers my mom made, with just a few ingredients: oat flour (oats ground in an electric coffee bean grinder), salt, water, and rolled onto sesame seeds. I had given up eating crackers because I didn’t like how many preservatives the ones that tasted good had in them, but these little oat crackers were really tasty! I started experimenting using different types of grain from the bulk aisle at the grocery store, and started using a pastry stamp I picked up at a garage sale and voila! tasty multigrain pretty little crackers! I love using local wheat from my Farmer K, too, grown in Carver, Oregon, that I helped harvest last year. Also, Eric bought me a hand crank grain mill as a holiday present last year, which does a much better job (in terms of fine grain and consistency) than the coffee grinder. So I guess I can always fall back on my cracker making skills as a job if I need to :-)

Here’s a very basic cracker recipe (I’m not ready to share my super tasty secret recipe quite yet):

½ cups Water
1 ½ cups Flour, Oat flour is the tastiest
1 teaspoons Salt
4 tablespoons Seeds (sesame or flax)

Directions

1. Mix water, flour and salt in a bowl
2. Roll onto seeds directly onto baking pan, to between 1/4 and 1/8 inch thick
3. Score with pizza cutter into 20 crackers. Stamp with pattern (optional)
4. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 min (depends on thickness), until completely firm

I mentioned a grain mill earlier. It’s a really great thing to have if you’re really into baking, because you get more control over your flour. Fresh flour is a completely different food than store bought flour, it smells pungent, sort of piney, and is more moist than store bought flour. The local wheat I get from my farmer is a softer wheat as well, so when I bake with it things are less cakey more corn-meal-like, but very delicious. I got a Wondermill Junior Deluxe grain mill, with stone burrs, so it can’t do oily seeds like flax or any kind of nut, because it will gum up the burrs, but works great for all the grains I’ve tried.

Here’s a picture of me trying out the mill. It takes me about 20 minutes to grind 2 cups (I think, still need to time it more), but it’s good arm exercise, so I’m not really worried about the practicality.

As for the cheese-making, I found out about the New England Cheese Making Supply Company from Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (look for a future blog post). From there, I discovered the founder of the New England Cheese Making Supply Company, Rikki Caroll, and her book, Home Cheese Making