Baby Carrots Are Indeed A Lie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNy948H2ta4

I found this video on buzzfeed a couple weeks ago and thought it fit in perfectly with my first  experience on Common Thread Farm. This video shows the process of how baby carrots are made, which makes me a little sad. I always knew that baby carrots didnt come from the ground looking so round and perfect, but I had NO idea they were transformed in such a dramatic way... which also made me think... why even shave them down in the first place? Why must they look so unnatural?? Just eat a regular carrot, it tastes better anyways.


The first task I did while working on the farm was helping to harvest carrots.  After pulling up the topsoil with a plow, we sorted through the soil to find and pull out the new carrots from the ground.  We were told to sort the carrots into a "perfect" pile, a secondary pile, and to leave the rotted ones out completly.  A perfect carrot is one that had not been chopped off, nibbled at, or showed signs of rotting. A secondary carrot is one that was accidently chopped by the plow or one that is a little too deformed.  Unfortunately, because this bed was not harvested right away, there were not so many "perfect" looking carrots.  But to me, they all looked pretty good. And very fresh. These carrots looked nothing like baby carrots they sell in the grocery store.  They were large, with rivets and imperfect bodies. And honestly, they looked a lot better than the nubs you see in the grocery stores.

Here is a picture of a newly harvested carrot:

My experience harvesting carrots gave me a much more realistic view of how much work it takes to plant and harvest vegetables and also gave me even more incentive to buy fresh and natural produce. I dont think I will ever be able to look at a baby carrot in the same way again.  

A walk through my first day on the CommonThread Farm with Kale!

Yesterday was the day that I along with my Wednesday group classmates interned at CommonThread farm for the very first time. As I write this I can't help but feel sorry for the Thursday group who was not as lucky as us to spend our morning under overcast skies with not a rain drop in sight. 

Upon arrival to the farm we were all split up and given different tasks. I should mention that Wednesday's at CommonThread are a very busy day that is centered around harvesting in preparation for shipments, farmers markets, and the farm share (CSA) program. I was given the task of harvesting a little swiss chard and large amounts of kale with a farm apprentice. While harvesting the kale I learned that this vegetables is truly a gift that keeps on giving. The technique used for harvesting kale is to snap off the lower leaves in a downward motion, leaving the leaves at the very top of the plant intact. This allows the plant to replenish itself two or even three more times throughout the season. As I harvested the kale I thought about how I incorporate kale into my diet. One of my favorite ways to eat kale is in what is called a green smoothie. So in honor of spending my first day harvesting kale I would like to share with you my favorite and personalized green smoothie recipe with kale of course!

Kori's Green Smoothie Recipe

What your sexy self will need:

2 cups of Kale

2 cups of coconut water (you can use water if you do not like coconut water)

2 to 3 cups of pineapple (I use pineapple because it does a good job of hiding the bitter taste of kale and it's yummy)

1 banana 

1mason jar (because it makes the smoothie look so pretty and legit, also great for storing the fridge if you can't finish it all at once)

Putting it all together:

In a blender combine all ingredients. Blend. If you want the smoothie to be less chunky, try using a juicer! 

Oh and ENJOY!

note: fresh fruit is always better, but if you want the smoothie to be cold use frozen fruit or 1 cup of ice. 

This is the perfect combination for me, but if you're looking for different ideas of green smoothies and beyond check out this cool website! 

http://simplegreensmoothies.com/recipes

How Coffee Changed the World

http://blog.evenues.com/2012/02/07/a-brief-history-of-coffee-houses-as-meeting-places/

In class last week we discussed a number of ways that food, and our consumption of it, is imbedded within an interflowing web of cultural, political, and ecological ideas. I believe this attached blog post regarding the history of coffee is a great example of how food can change the way we think and exchange ideas, inevitably allowing for intellectual and political revolution.

The linked blog post describes the emergence of coffee in Europe as "an alternative to the perpetual drunken haze." Because water was generally unsafe to drink, most 17th century Europeans began their day with beer, continued their day with beer, then ended their day with wine or gin. Such tendencies were hardly conducive to high productivity (or good liver health). With the introduction of coffeehouses, people began their day stimulated and refreshed, rather than relaxed and inebriated. Not only did coffeehouses diminish the drunken stupor of the European population, but they served as a place for individuals to discuss poetry, science, politics, philosophy, etc.  One could argue that the European enlightenment was sparked by the introduction of the coffeehouse. 

Another thing I find remarkable about coffee is that its influence has hardly diminished in the centuries since the first coffeehouses. To this day, coffee is the universal means of getting people out of bed in the morning and keeping our fast paced world ticking. It is not merely accepted by most cultures, but worshipped as a means of initiating productivity. From the savannahs of Ethiopia, to the jungles of Vietnam, to the urban jungle of New York City, coffee unites us all. Maybe this is why it is worth studying food.

You all must think I am a coffee fanatic. Truth is, I can't handle my caffeine. 

Making the World a Better Place One Ugly Vegetable at a Time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2nSECWq_PE

            I encourage everyone to check out this video to see an excellent way to reduce the amount of food thrown away each year. This year a supermarket chain in France, called Intermarché, began buying and selling all the produce that its farms usually throw away due to irregularities in shape and color. They have named it the Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables Campaign, and are now selling this produce at 70% of the cost of regular produce that normally stocks the shelf.     

   

            The campaign has been very successful so far, and is doing a great job of (i) reducing food waste by these salvaging fruits and vegetables, and (ii) showing consumers that these weird looking fruits and vegetables are perfectly fine. The carrot with two legs tastes just like any other carrot. The orange with that weird looking hole in it--it's not from a worm, you can still eat it or squeeze fresh orange juice. Educating people that this produce is just as good, better said, exactly the same as all the other produce in the store has been the most important aspect of the campaign. It has already begun to make a positive impact on consumers' buying habits. As this campaign grows, more and more people will be apt to buy produce in whatever shape/form; appearance will not matter anymore. As a result, we can hope that produce providers will stop throwing it away and begin including it in their normal shipments to supermarkets. 

            The most obvious long-term effect we could see is that less food would be wasted. Also, produce prices will be cheaper. At the moment of the video, the inglorious fruits and vegetables were sold at a cheaper price because Intermarché was able to acquire them at a significantly lower cost, because they were "defective" products. Looking ahead, if these fruits and vegetables were incorporated in harvests as any other "perfect" fruit and vegetable, then sellable harvest would be much larger. In the same way that if a harvest of tomatoes is very small because late blight took its toll that season, then the price of tomatoes will be high to account for the loss. And vice versa, if a harvest is exceptionally good, then prices can drop because of the abundance of tomatoes. So, stopping the waste of all these good fruits and vegetables is one very easy way to ensure more plentiful harvests and produce at a more affordable price. 

Food in Rome

I went abroad to Rome during the fall semester of my Junior year. I was blown away when I arrived and saw the status of our apartment. Our kitchen couldn't of been nicer or more modernized, which pleasantly surprised me given my preconceived notions of Italian culture. During my time abroad, I was able to hone in on my cooking skills and pursue my love of cooking and baking-- and what better country to do it in than Italy!?

Sometimes, my roommate and I would venture to the morning market in Campo de'Fiori in search for Roman delicacies and fresh produce. Other times, we would wander into specialty shops to buy the best truffle oil, cheese, or panino bread for our dinner recipes. For dinner, we would walk a block over to Conad, a common Italian supermarket chain, to purchase other ingredients we would need to cook dinner. Usually, we prepared a chicken dish accompanied by a vegetable or salad. I'm not going to lie, we usually based our recipes from online articles because all of the cooking books were written in Italian. HOWEVER, I'm almost positive that our meals were infinitely better than they would have been back home because most ingredients were sourced in Italy or had an Italian PDO (Protected Designation Origin) label. You can read more about PDO here: http://www.cooksinfo.com/protected-designation-of-origin.

We also took advantage of the extra-curricular activities my program, IES, offered us. These activities included: homemade pasta making, wine tasting, and a salumi (which is the correct word and pronunciation for salami) and cheese tasting. One night we attempted to make the home made pasta for dinner. If I'm going to be completely candid, this was not our best meal and didn't turn out as well as it had in the class. Perhaps, sometime during the semester, I will strengthen my pasta-making skills and bring in (what will hopefully be a better dish) for the class to try!

This National Geographic article is extremely relevant to the past few readings we've had for class (particularly Mintz & Diamond) and very interesting on it's own. The author looks intensely at what's commonly known as the "paleo-diet," or reverting back to eating foods that hunter/gatherer societies would have consumed in the past (or continue to consume today). Commonly this transfers to mean A LOT of meat. However, the author shows that it was not just meat that sustained early humans, or today's hunter/gatherers, because meat was not always available. Plant foods have been equally, if not more, important in human diets. There are a lot of interesting points that jive with ideas  that Mintz provided in chapter 1, particularly where the author states: "You are what you eat. More accurately, you are what your ancestors ate." Also, the photography & video is stunning!

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/

This is a link to a video about a family in Arizona that converted their old swimming pool into a self-sustaining greenhouse. I thought this was a very creative idea that dealt with some of the consequences of food that we discussed on our first day of class. The production of food has many ecological and environmental impacts--destroying natural habitats is one example. A garden pool is a great way to recycle an old space that is not being used and transform it into a valuable resource without further damaging the environment. As was said in the video, this is evidence that food can be grown in very extreme conditions. However, a garden pool will not be the best solution for home grown food in all climates and environments--a cold climate in particular. Nonetheless, it is a great model for individual/small scale agriculture and for producing food locally. It is important to apply similar ingenuity to all of our inhabited spaces. In some cities I have seen hanging gardens that make use of vertical space, however the plants being grown were only for their visual appeal. I do not know if this has already been done (or if it is possible), but maybe food can be grown vertically on a building?

http://gardenpool.org/