food museum blog

Books: Ezra Meeker, Veggie Purveyor to the Klondike

If you delight in letters--remember them?-- as well as food, American history, and familial fondness, read this book.  It's called Slick as a Mitten, by Dennis M. Larsen,  it's published by Washington State University Press , and it's about a character named Ezra Meeker.

The book, rich with old photos,  is based on Meeker's letters, mostly to his wife, Eliza Jane. She and Ezra came west on the Oregon Trail in 1852 and settled in Puyallup, Washington.  Meeker, along with his father, became a wealthy hop grower and broker, but at the close of the 19th century, he went bust.  The hops were infested with bugs, controlled only through exceedingly expensive methods. Ezra was also on the board of a bank, though not involved until it began to decline, all the other officers having abandoned it. He personally covered the bank's losses, all its customers, by spending most of his own money.

Unimaginable in this era of Bank of America et al?  The mid to late 1890's were a time of bank closings and financial downturn in the US.

Once gold was discovered in the Klondike area in 1897, the race was on. But, unsurprisingly, so many masses of people arriving in an inhospitable area did not find enough to eat. People suggested that there was more money to be made in supplying miners than in engaging in mining itself. "There are no fresh vegetables of any kind here," said one. 

Meeker took note of this and decided to supply both fresh and dried veg, as well as reconstitutable eggs to the populations springing up in Yukon tent cities. He specialized in granulated and sliced potatoes, dried cabbage, squash, sweet potatoes, turnips, pop corn, and fresh oysters from the east, hauling everything first by steamer, then along icy trails with "teamsters," and floating produce down the Yukon River.

Even lemons.

He was 67 when he started. In three years he had made possible the movement of almost 100 tons of food. And throughout those years, he wrote regularly to Wife, back home in Washington, signing himself Husband. It was Eliza Jane who supervised the dehydration of the eggs, and the preparation and packing of the veggies.

As for the phrase slick as a mitten,  Ezra lost his assets that way, he said, swiftly. I picture a thick leather mitten, coated with ice.

ps  Meeker planned the town of Puyallup, and named it. The name honored the native people there, known as the "generous people," but whether their generosity extended to the deeding of their lands to white settlers for hop growing I do not know. ..

Scary Sweet Alarms Young Gardener Before Halloween

A student assisting First Lady Michelle Obama and others dig up root veggies at the White House Garden today recoiled from the alarming sight of a giant sweet potato, dirt still clinging to its nether parts.

The fate of the sub-terrestrial beastly batata is unknown.

Organic Bananas Taste Better

After a two week utterly informal comparison test, I have decisively concluded that organic bananas do indeed taste better than the usual, much better. 29 cents each vs 19 cents at Trader Joe's. I focused in on the organic bananas because their  texture was firm, their flavor not icky and cloying, and one had the sense that these were fruits  that had not traveled thousands of miles in refrigerated ships and trucks, though of course, they must have.

It's well known that commercially grown bananas experience their share of herbicides and pesticides, as do the people who work with them in the fields and pack them in the sheds. That alone makes the move to organic--only a dime more per banana!--the appropriate choice.

Along with the taste.

Fruity Food News--Baby-Shaped Pears in China

Clever entrepreneurial farmer Gao Xianzhang in Hexia, northern China, is making a bundle selling 10,000 pears molded into baby form--selling them for 5 pounds UK each, according to this report in the Daily Mail.  ( Take a look at the mold at the link above.)

G-18 Spouses Dine Down on the Farm

Michelle Obama just hosted the 18 wives of the economic summit G20 leaders meeting in Pittsburgh----the 2 male spouses were not on hand-- at the working farm of Teresa Heinz, head of the Heinz Endowments, and the wife of Senator John Kerry. The visitors have apparently enjoyed a meal the details of which have been kept under wraps, or perhaps, en papillotte.

Here's the food story according to Sandra McElwaine in The Daily Beast: "The meal, catered by super chef Bob Sendall of All in Good Taste, who is known for foolproof soufflés and jumbo lump crab cakes, is top secret. No one will spill the beans—literally—except some of Heinz’s fresh organic veggies or free-range chicken might make it to the table. Or maybe Michelle will opt for Sendall’s most sought-after item: Toffee Taboo—thin sheets of Belgian dark chocolate with toffee cashews and almonds, a salty sweet dessert he has been concocting for years. (Before the summit even started, one unidentified dignitary requested pancakes from Pamela’s Diner. During a campaign stop in 2008, the president made a pit stop at Pamela’s and called the pancakes “outstanding.” Because of the massive security, the restaurant hasn’t a clue about how it will manage to get the pancakes to the customer, but they’ll be ready for delivery, as requested, on Friday morning.)"

Homage to Norman Borlaug

Reading Randy Cohen's piece in the NYT this morning, in which he asks why people don't make more tv shows or films about "heroes" who do astonishing work without any need for guns, led me back to Norman Borlaug. He died recently, age 95.

Borlaug was a plant pathologist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work in developing and spreading around the world high yielding wheat varieties resistant to disease.  In 1986 he established the World Food Prize to honor those who had worked to lessen global hunger. He was close friends with one of our gurus, John Niederhauser, the legendary potato breeder who was a World Food Prize Laureate in 1990.

You can read about Borlaug in many places. Here at Wiki, and his NYT obituary here.

Early on, hungry people made an impression on Borlaug. In 1935, still a student,he was a leader in "the Civilian Conservation Corps, working with the unemployed on U.S. federal projects. Many of the people who worked for him were starving. He later recalled, "I saw how food changed them ... All of this left scars on me".

We had chatted with the engaging Dr. Borlaug on a few occasions, and recognized his and Niederhauser's shared global views,  deep intelligence, diligence and high energy. These were not narrowly focused office guys, diddling around 8 hours a day. They never stopped working.

Borlaug was attacked in later years by those who felt his approaches had led to ecological degradation and an over reliance on chemicals. In a NYTimes interview with John Tierney, he said, "...some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things".

He worked to lessen the use of pesticides, in the end, but continued to lament that governments were not doing more to address the world's burgeoning populations.

 We expect to have ample food to eat, every day, but we pay little attention to those whose toil provides it. Food production is not sexy, so don't expect a mini series on it any time soon.

Pollan Writes of the Elephant in the Room--Fat Americans

In today's NYTimes, Michael Pollan writes that no discussion of health care reform, costs, and so on should overlook "...a rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet."

Bravo!

It's obvious, it has been said and written before, but there it lies, maybe less like an elephant and more like what an elephant leaves behind after digesting a good meal.

When Foodie Spouse and I applied for a slightly different health insurance policy several years back, we were asked if we smoked--no, never--and if we "used alcohol."  Nothing was asked about our diet, nor about our level of physical activity.  I asked the asker why her company was not interested in knowing any of that.

Silence.

You can get better auto insurance rates if you show evidence of being a safe, skilled driver. My health care provider apparently could care less that we might be a better risk for them than an inert couple hooked on fast food and soft drinks.

But, as Pollan points out, once the pre-existing condition loophole is removed with the passage of a proposed health care bill, "... health insurance companies will promptly discover they have a powerful interest in reducing rates of obesity and chronic diseases linked to diet."  

According to Pollan, currently it costs the country $147 billion to handle obesity in the United States.

Yesterday evening, out walking with the terrier, I watched young parents leaving the neighborhood soccer fields with their kids after practice. A pretty, seriously overweight blond mother looking well shy of 30, and her hefty 6 year-old daughter climbed up into their Jeep, the mom with some effort.

This is not only nuts, it's irresponsibly sad.

Mastering the Concord Grape

A North American native, the blue/purple Concord grape was developed by a transcendental fellow named Ephraim Wales Bull in Concord, Massachusetts.  Working with seeds from native wild grapes, Bull experimented, and after planting 20,000 cuttings, he finally claimed success in 1853 by winning a grape competition at the Boston Horticultural Society.

According to the history posted at The Concord Grape Association, Mr. Bull never harvested much financial success for his efforts. " He sowed--others reaped," is apparently carved on his tombstone.

That said, I bought some delicious C. grapes this morning at the growers market and recalled my mother explaining to me back in the day--I was 5?--how to eat them. Pop the grape in your mouth, squeeze it open with your teeth, swallow the juice and the gooey center containing the seeds, and spit out the skin.  Today I decided to research that notion--just checking, Mom!--and found that some people do that, some chew the gooey middle and spit out the seeds, some like the combo of juice and tangy skin, etc etc.  Methods to suit all tastes.

Chewing or not chewing the center is akin to the oyster dilemma. It was my Dad who taught  me about sliding the oyster off the shell and into the mouth, there to be chewed lightly if you were him, or swallowed whole in all its sea watery-chilled goodness, if you were me, and 11.

Now that I have come of age, I ,too, chew my oysters, lightly, and also chew my Concords, maybe every other time.

( Bull's first Concord grapevine, courtesy USDA.

Land and Oil-Rich Nigeria Faces Food Shortages

Check out this revealing report from the Washington Post on how Nigeria went from being an exporter of food from well-run large farms to being unable to feed its own people, following the discovery of oil in the 1970's, and the subsequent abandonment of its farm-based economy.

"Today, about 90 percent of Nigeria's agricultural output comes from inefficient small farms, according to the World Bank, and most farmers have little or no access to fertilizers, irrigation or other modern inputs. Most do not even grow enough food to feed their own families."

Appalling? 

The key here is on small farms. Their supposed inefficiency stems not from their manageable size, but from the lack of small-scale financial and technical support from the government for farmers, the majority of whom are women.

Best of Britain To Feed Downing Street G20 Guests

For those of us curious about what Brit Celeb Chef Jamie Oliver is preparing to serve at Downing Street for this evening's big wig dinner, here's the word from The Guardian:

"The politicians and their wives will begin their meal at Downing Street with a starter of organic Scottish salmon served with samphire and sea kale, and a selection of vegetables from Sussex, Surrey and Kent.

For the main course, Oliver has plumped for slow-roasted shoulder of lamb from the Elwy Valley in north Wales, with Jersey Royal potatoes, wild mushrooms and mint sauce.

Dessert will be an old teatime favourite – bakewell tart and custard.

Vegetarians at the meal will be offered a goat's cheese starter followed by lovage and potato dumplings for the main course.

Pork has purposefully been left off the menu to avoid awkward moments with the Muslim guests, such as the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Only the contents of the bread basket have a vaguely foreign flavour – Oliver has chosen to serve Irish soda bread.

Oliver said: "I'm very, very proud of my country and its food traditions and I know that the guests at Downing Street will be in for a real treat.""

Samphire? It's a seaside plant in the UK that is named after St.  Peter, French version, St. Pierre. According to this, samphire is mentioned by the Bard in King Lear, a dollop of lit I must have missed back in the day.

BTW  Spouses will dine separately from the annointed leaders, but partake of the same meal.

( Tks to http://www.theworldwidegourmet.com/products/herbs/samphire/ for photo.)