what is it about? subscribe/renew back issues excerpts resources book home
|
|
|
|
|
||
 American
Livestock Breeds Conservancy. The nonprofit ALBC works to preserve traditional breeds
of farm animals, most of which were abandoned in the last half of the 20th century as
agriculture has focussed increasingly on mass production. Yet the traditional breeds,
compared with their successors, are especially well-adapted to the conditions of the area
where they originated. In general, they are more hardy and healthy, are more fertile and
give birth more easily, and they thrive more readily on pasture. That means there is less
plowing and erosion and a big saving in fuel and labor. All these qualities lend themselves
to sustainable agriculture. At least as important, the old breeds add enormously
to the genetic diversity of our livestock: they are likely to contribute important characteristics that will benefit future agriculture. It’s true that the old-fashioned
animals tend to grow and produce more slowly and in lower volume, but their meat, milk,
and eggs tend to taste better. The 150 or so breeds that the ALBC focuses on include
Milking Devon cattle, American Mammoth Jackstock asses, Buckeye chickens, Narragansett
turkeys, Pilgrim geese, Santa Cruz sheep, and Gloucester Old Spots pigs. A
membership, tax-deductible, is $30 a year. Besides the satisfaction of supporting the
cause, members receive the bimonthly ALBC News, which reports on issues, breeds, and
projects. (The ALBC was first discussed in AoE 26.) |
||
|
||
| Seed Savers
Exchange. Local species and varieties of plants are the foundation of traditional
eating around the world. The nonprofit Seed Savers Exchange was founded in the 1970s by
Diane and Kent Whealy and a handful of other gardeners to preserve traditional vegetable
varieties in North America. Many heirloom varieties would have disappeared without SSE
efforts. The SSE has since expanded to cover grains, fruits, herbs, and flowers. In the
Seed Savers 2007 Yearbook, 727 gardeners list 12,920 different
varieties of vegetables and fruits, most of them available to any member gardener who requests
seed and encloses a fee for shipping. In addition, through its catalogue and website, the SSE
sells seed of a number of varieties raised on its Heritage Farm in northeastern
Iowa. Profits benefit SSE operations. Besides the annual Yearbook,
SSE members receive the Summer and Harvest editions, magazines with
thoughtful articles and sometimes unusual perspectives on gardening and agricultural
topics. A tax-deductible membership is $35 a year. (The SSE was first discussed in AoE 7.) |
||
|
||
|
||
 Prospect Books.
This small publisher in Devon, England, specializes in food history. In addition, the list
includes one of the finest cookbooks ever written — Patience Gray's Honey
from a Weed (reviewed in AoE 5). |
||
|
||
| Simple Cooking. Written
by John and Matt Thorne, this eight-page letter is close to home and kitchen. The approach
is relaxed yet serious, and the writing is opinionated and unusually fine. Published six
times a year. A subscription is $25. |
||
|
||
|
||
| Coffee | ||
 George
Howell Coffee Company. The coffees offered by this purist
roaster surely form the most discriminating selection in the US. George Howell
combines the skills of a longtime professional with the passion of a disinterested
connosisseur. He stresses geographic origin, preferring the crop of a single farm in
regions where that is available. Apart from the beans for expresso, Howell seeks moderate roasts
(to the point of risking the occasional underroast) that allow the aromatic qualities of the green beans to show fully. |
||
|
||
| Earthenware | ||
| Henderson's Redware. Kenneth Henderson produces, by hand, traditional American earthenware (redware) cooking pots and other containers: bean pots,
colanders, bowls, preserve jars, lard pots, pipkins. |
||
|
||
| Meat | ||
| R.M. Felts
Packing Company. Producer of my longtime favorite bacon, cured with only salt, then
pepper-coated and smoked with damp oak sawdust. The similarly cured jowls are also
good. Either one is shipped properly wrapped in greaseproof paper, not in plastic.
You can order the bacon sliced, but slab bacon holds its flavor much better.
All the bacon comes, as it should, with the rind on, and you can still get a "rib
side," which is a whole slab with the ribs in. I have never tried the dry-cured
hams, which are sold young, after only ninety days. |
||
|
||
| Gatton
Farms (Father's Country Hams). The Gatton family ham cure contains salt, sugar,
sodium nitrate, and sodium nitrite. The hams are smoked with green hickory and aged
nine to twelve months, and in some cases longer. The bacon, which comes without the rind, is a little smoky for my taste. |
||
|
||
| Jamison Farm. John and Sukey Jamison produce lamb in a tender pale style that recalls milk-fed. They buy just-weaned lambs from surrounding farms and raise them on their 160 acrres of intensively managed pasture. The lambs are finished on grass, not grain, and carefully slaughtered at four to six months. Normally the meat is shipped frozen to retail customers — be sure to ask for fresh. |
||
|
||
| Niman Ranch.
For humanely and carefully raised and slaughtered fresh meat — marbled pork, marbled
dry-aged beef, and full-flavored lamb. (The lamb is slightly dry-aged red meat, and
somewhat marbled). Aging clearly enhances beef, and marbled beef and lamb tend to have with full flavor and tenderness and to give an impression of greater juiciness. Bill Niman, after years of weekly tastings at the
company, believes that good flavor comes first of all from raising animals outdoors. The
beef cattle are raised for 15 to 18 months at two dozen Niman-allied ranches in half a
dozen western states (each animal is tracked from birth), and they are finished on grain
at the original Niman Ranch in California. The pork comes from a number of small farms in
Iowa and adjacent states. The lead pork farmer, Paul Willis, is something of a hero: he convinced
Niman Ranch to take on his superior, humanely raised pork (the methods of
15 years or 20 years ago were shockingly better than today's conventional methods). Through
Niman Ranch, Willis has saved many traditional family pork farms; some 500 farms now work with Willis and Niman.
Niman lamb is raised on four ranches in California and one in Utah. Niman uses no genetically
modified products. When, in addition to pasture and range, the animals receive a feed
grain mix, it contains no animal by-products, such as
animal fat or ground-up chicken feathers, and no cottonseed meal. |
||
|
||
| Spices | ||
| Penzeys Spices.
It's no secret that the Penzey family sells high quality spices and that, as a
matter of course, the ground spices are extremely freshly ground. (I don't like the herb and spice mixtures containing dehydrated
onion and garlic.) |
||
|
||
| Tea | ||
| Camellia
Sinensis. The partners in this Canadian tea company visit key growing areas and import directly; they emphasize freshness. There are two shops in Montreal and one in Quebec City. |
||
|
||
| Upton Tea
Imports. Tom Eck's company offers a wide and discriminating selection of
fine teas. |
||
|
||
|
||
what is it about? subscribe/renew back issues excerpts resources book home
