• Common Ground •

I greatly appreciate the "Cook's Journal" that Cynthia has begun for us in "The Chef's Corner". This will help give all of us some insight into the first season newness of our CSA to new members as well as some great recipes. Cynthia, among other things like being a new mom, is  editor of a culinary magazine and is planning on being a regular contributor to our newsletter. I find it really wonderful to have her voice and perspective to add to our CSA newsletter. "It" is about food. From the beginning of man, food, as with all living things has been of ultimate importance. For a hungry or even starving person food is the center of attention; nothing is more important. The growing living things around us in our everyday environment were also used for healing and staying healthy. The lessons learned by countless generations about what and how to prepare, to promote and maintain health have very much been cast aside in the last 75 years. The traditions that informed us without the need to learn the lessons over and over have become blurred in the cultural melting pot, and very aggressively obscured by the advertising and drive of 'the food industry' to sell products. I suppose that there have been folks who sold food to others ever since the practice of trade began. People who had a special skill or access to certain ingredients to make a unique or exceptional food certainly were able to trade with others. Science, and particularly the science of refrigeration and preservatives have changed the food we eat dramatically. Pickling, salt curing, smoking, sugar curing, drying, and fermenting were the tools of millennia of humanity for keeping food. Also, it is important to note that canning is really a fairly recent technological advance that allowed for a huge expansion in the type and quality of stored goods. Canning started in jars. The process was invented in France in 1795 by Nicholas Appert, a chef who was determined to win the prize of 12,000 francs offered by Napoleon for a way to prevent military food supplies from spoiling. Appert canned meats and vegetables in jars sealed with pitch and by 1804 opened his first vacuum-packing plant. When modern refrigeration became available it was definitely a boon, but required much more in terms of technology than any of the previous methods used. Before mechanical refrigeration systems were introduced, people cooled their food with ice and snow, either found locally or brought down from the mountains. The first cellars were holes dug into the ground and lined with wood or straw and packed with snow and ice: this was the only means of refrigeration for most of history. The first known artificial refrigeration was demonstrated by William Cullen at the University of Glasgow in 1748. However, he did not use his discovery for any practical purpose. In 1805, an American inventor, Oliver Evans, designed the first refrigeration machine. Refrigerators from the late 1800s until 1929 used the toxic gases ammonia (NH3), methyl chloride (CH3Cl), and sulfur dioxide (SO2) as refrigerants. Several fatal accidents occurred in the 1920s when methyl chloride leaked out of refrigerators. Three American corporations launched collaborative research to develop a less dangerous method of refrigeration; their efforts lead to the discovery of Freon. In just a few years, compressor refrigerators using Freon would became the standard for almost all home kitchens. Only decades later, would people realize that these chlorofluorocarbons endangered the ozone layer of the entire planet. As our understanding of Chemistry became more sophisticated preservatives were developed and used. Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley (1844-1930), was chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, the FDA's predecessor, from 1883 to 1912. Wiley was a crusader and coalition builder in support of national food and drug regulation, which earned him the title of "Father of the Pure Food and Drugs Act" when it became law in 1906. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 is an act "For preventing the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors, and for regulating traffic therein, and for other purposes." By it's name alone you would think that it is self explanatory yet as with all legislation, being subject to politicization, the words can be very misleading. Especially so, when after a century it has bee amended and warped and twisted by every industrial special interest looking to manipulate the language to allow profitability versus protection of the public. It may seem that I have wandered away from the opening topic today but no; to me it is clear that with our CSA you are guaranteed that you are getting 'pure food'. AS pure as nature and my farming can make it!  With helpful insight and a willingness to learn how to cook this into delicious food we'll enjoy some of the best meals as a community. Each person has a favorite vegetable and so allowing for individuality that great meal may be different from table to table. Part of the pleasure is in the very human ability to share.

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