Food Carts and Recipe Duels

Some meals are best left to restaurants. Long, multi-course affairs with wine pairings and a different amuse bouche for each diner or conceptual, intricate dinners decked out with foam and exploding truffles are beyond pleasurable, but not something most of us would want to make ourselves or even enjoy on the fly. And, much of the time, these are not the meals I crave, dream about, or plot to put together on a long Saturday.

Usually I want simple, straightforward food that tastes great and looks like it was made by human hands.

I think most of you do too.

There are several cities in our country experimenting with new ways for getting just this kind of food into our bellies cheaper, quicker, and better. Chefs are doling out meals ranging from fried-whatever-you-can-imagine and khao man gai to handmade local sausages and artisanal pizza, to hungry office workers, elitist hipsters and vacationing families. They’re brining good food to fast food wastelands and transforming parking lots into foodie meccas. Those of you in Portland, Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington DC surely have eaten lunches, dinners, and late night snacks at your roaming squadrons of food carts, not realizing how fantastic these mini-kitchens are. I know I grew complacent.

But I now know how empty an empty parking lot can feel, and I now know how satisfying that 1:30 am cone of fries can be.

Atlanta, unfortunately, is home to archaic zoning ordinances that make it close to impossible to own and operate a food cart. These days there are a few cart-like vendors but, until the rules change, there is no way for carts to populate Atlanta like in other cities .

Luckily, it looks as if things might be starting to change.

The Atlanta Street Food Coalition, mostly made up of Hayley Richardson and Christiane Lauterbach have begun mobilizing current and future food cart owners and lovers to petition the city for change (go ahead and sign the petition here). They organized a great event a couple weeks ago to raise awareness for the chefs already trying to bring their creations to the street.

I hung around for a bit and tried some pretty good food, made simply and delectably.

Good Luck Bowl: collards, black-eyed peas, cornbread waffle

Coppa Pizza

Ginger Creme Brulee

Speaking of good and simple food, did any of you hear that two of the best sources for creating these meals at home, food52 and Cook’s Illustrated, are having a duel? Apparently they’ve been, um, exchanging words since this fall, and they are, right as I write, culling and/or developing recipes for roast pork shoulder and sugar cookies. The recipes will be judged on Slate and the winner will get the title of Best Method for Creating Foolproof Recipes (or something like that). Will it be the power in numbers that comes from internet-saavy homecooks or will it be the tried-and-true science behind a trained kitchen of experts?

Personally, I like both. I use cookbooks like textbooks and I love resources like Cook’s that provide a wealth of information along with their reliable recipes. I also think that online food site like food52 bring an impressive level of creativity and ingenuity that can inspire cooks of all levels to develop their own recipes and palates.

I ran my own little test this Easter, just to verify my two-is-better-than-one thesis Granted, my test was, um, the opposite of scientific and was pieced together after the fact, but I think that the strength of both publications shone through anyway.

In addition to Martha’s fabulous mac and cheese and an Italian Easter Bread recipe from Gourmet, I baked up a daffodil cake from the most recent Cook’s Country and a pomegranate molasses-glazed ham from food52 (a winner and editor’s pick).

The cake was seriously beautiful, and crazy-simple to make (as long as you can whip egg whites to a medium peak, you can bake this cake). The perfect complement to our strawberries and cream, its crumb was both delicate and creamy, and the hint of orange mimicked the warm sunshine in our backyard that afternoon.

The ham? Holy crap, it was good. The reddish glaze baked up into a complex, spicy caramel crust, and its je ne sais quoi permeated to the depths of the meat. I stood in the kitchen, long past full, picking at the crispy bits long after lunch ended.

Who needs a winner?

The Meat Beat

I don’t know if you follow foodie news sources with the same obsession…er…rigor… as myself, but if you do, this whole sustainable meat business probably caught your eye. It started a few weeks ago (well, it really started much longer ago, with the likes of Michael Pollan et al, but, ugh, I don’t want to go there) when Nicolette Niman (yes, that Niman) published an editorial in the New York Times arguing, basically, that vegetarianism doesn’t do all that much to help with global warming. She argues that meat can be farmed and butchered sustainably, and, in these cases, the act of producing meat does not contribute much to carbon dioxide and methane emissions. Obviously, she acknowledged the harm that industrial meat farming has on the environment and health and … the list goes on; however, the gist of the article is that you can be a meat eater and a tree-hugger, too.

Not surprisingly, the editorial proffered a flurry of debate in the food press–prestigious and otherwise. Many derided Niman’s claims of meat’s inner innocence and I am sure there are many vegetarian/vegans kicking and squirming at the very thought of responsible carnivores. There is still a lively debate going on over at the Atlantic’s food site, and I recommend that you check it out before tossing in your two cents.

But–what does this have to do with me?

I recently got to write up a short piece for WW on a couple of up-and-coming butchers in the Portland area. Both are making their names for themselves with a badge of sustainability, and both have given me a lot of food (heh) for thought surrounding this issue.

The younger of the two, Berlin Reed, came back out to Portland at the end of the summer after spending a stint working in the Brooklyn (NY) food scene. Most recently, he held the post of butcher at Greene Grape Provisions, a store that seems to be doing a lot right. He basically taught himself how to cut up animals, how to cure bacon (including lamb! bacon! yes!) and how to source the most ethical meat possible. Best part about Berlin, though, is that he used to be a vegan. Militantly. He was so vegan that he wouldn’t even sit next to, let alone have a legitimate conversation with, meat eaters. For him, it had always been an ethics issue. He knew about the horrors of industrial meat production and wanted nothing to do with it.

Once he found good meat, though, his veganism was gonners. His first bite of flesh in 14 years was rib-eye, and he hasn’t looked back. In the last year, he has penned himself The Ethical Butcher, writing a blog, networking with farmers, making insane bacon* and being an advocate for sustainable omnivorism. But all of this is in my story. You should read it.

The part of his story that got left out of editing, and what really got me thinking, was his derision of pescatarians. I know a lot of pescatarians. In fact, most of my vegetarian friends eat fish regularly. I’ve always been a bit confused by that choice, but I never understood why I couldn’t accept it as reasonable. After Berlin and I got to talking, I remembered some images I had seen of shrimp farms in god-knows-where Asia and thought, those look just like the shots of Tyson chicken farms that made me so ill. And then Berlin brought up migration patterns and worldwide oceanic ecosystems and dwindling populations and shipping and … oh yeah, fish and other seafood are just as unsustainable as meat. There just aren’t evil corporations like Tyson for us to shake our fists at. Sure, there is sustainable seafood out there. Programs like the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch do a great job listing safe products, and even give you a really easy color-coded system to check on tomorrow’s future dinner.

Yes, it’s tricky to keep up with fish sustainability. Today’s green light will be tomorrow’s red flag, but really, if you think about it, it’s not that much harder than remembering peaches are not seasonal in December or that there are no winter squash in July. Some seafood (farmed shrimp) will never be sustainable to eat, just like New Zealand kiwis will never lose their giant carbon footprint. So pay attention. If you do choose to eat only fish, do it with the same responsibility you attribute to avoiding meat. Think local. Think seasonal.

Speaking of local seasonality, let’s talk giant Oregon animals. Let’s talk grass-fed beef and heritage-breed pigs.

It turns out, there are way more Oregon ranchers raising these awesome animals than it seems when I walk into New Seasons and look for my bi-weekly meat purchase. Many of these ranchers, it turns out, don’t show up in New Seasons because it is way more lucrative to send their animals clear across the country than it is to wrangle the financial hardships of selling to small local shops. Since USDA regulations require that all meat products sold retail in the United States be slaughtered and processed in USDA-certified facilities, and since these certified slaughterhouses are gigantic and inhumane and few and far between, it is hard for local ranchers to maintain the level of sustainability required to pass muster financially and ethically in Portland’s picky foodie market.

But there’s a loophole. If you sell a live animal to a person for personal use, you the farmer are allowed to slaughter the animal however you choose. This loophole has allowed the formation of what are called meat CSAs–consumers can contact a farmer and request a whole or half animal, which is then slaughtered and processed on site to insure humanity and sustainability. Most of the time, this huge hunk of flesh will get divided among friends and stuck in meat freezers all over town. The problem is, most people don’t know the first thing about getting involved in a CSA like this. And, most farmers don’t have the time to meet potential customers.

Camas Davis is trying to fix this. Since returning from a summer spent learning the craft of pig butchery on a small family farm in France (um, so jealous), she has been working to form the Portland Meat Collective (PMC). By becoming a member in the collective, you will enter into an organized and streamlined version of the meat CSA system. Camas will act as liaison between farmer and shopper, enabling many more people to be involved in the process. In addition, and this is the most awesome part, PMC members will get to take butchery classes with Portland butcher-chefs, learning the best way to break down and eat their animal. This is my idea of a Saturday afternoon.

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My take on all of this sustainable meat dialogue is a bit mixed. I am obviously not a vegetarian. I take great care in selecting the meat and fish I do eat, and I feel like I am very aware of the way in which my purchases affect my place in the whole global warming/good health/ethical eating system.

However. The problem I have with the argument that, “yes, meat is okay because there is sustainable meat out there” is that, yes, there may be sustainable meat out there, but it’s not everywhere, and it’s certainly not affordable for much of the country. I can afford to buy expensive meat because I only do it so often and I am only feeding myself. I am also lucky to be surrounded by so much good meat here in Portland. Laurelhurst Market. Tails and Trotters. The Eastmoreland Market. New Seasons. To consumers in, say, Vidalia, Georgia, this is not the case.

I think that we live in an exciting time foodwise. There are so many young people out there who are devoted to Slow Food and organics and locavorism that we really do have a shot at changing the food system in this country. It is starting to change, and I think the poor economy actually helps (of course it’s cheaper–and better!–to eat food grown in your own backyard), but we’re going to need more people out there growing beautiful produce and raising happy animals.

The only way we can get better food more accessible to more people is if we have more people out there growing it. We need more farmers.

With any luck, I’ll be out there doing my part in the next couple of months. Keep your fingers crossed.

*If you have a couple extra bucks, you really should contribute to Berlin’s quest to get his bacon in the Portland farmer’s markets. He’s currently part of a funding program called Kickstarter, which helps young and creative entrepreneurs get dollar bills for their projects. Participants get a certain amount of time to get a set amount of money in pledges. If they meet their goal in the allotted time, they get the money. If not, no dice. In Berlin’s case, if you pledge $20 or more, you’ll get a tee shirt. If you shell out the big guns ($50 or more), you can get the opportunity to design your own bacon flavor and get it named after you.

Happy 4th / Time for Lunch

Oh, Independence Day. The one day a year where I willingly don the flags colors, on my clothing, and in my food. It doesn’t seem like a statement of politics today, but rather an embrace of another over-the-top holiday consisting mainly of food, drinks, and very loud explosions. Today, though I’d like to ask you, readers, to think about another way in which you can celebrate the holiday with an act perhaps more patriotic than wearing red, white, and blue.

I’d like to invite you all to take a look at the Time for Lunch website. Time for Lunch is a campaign, organized primarily through Slow Food USA, to bring the upcoming review of the Child Nutrition Act to the country’s (and Congress’s) attention. The Child Nutrition Act is a bill that governs how the National School Lunch Program feeds kids in the nation’s public schools. Most importantly, the Child Nutrition Act sets a limit on the amount of money that a school can be reimbursed for the cost of their cafeteria’s food. Right now schools receive only about one dollar (one dollar!) per child per meal. No wonder my memories of school lunch consist of powdered mashed “potatoes,” square rubbery “pizza,” and canned “peaches” (and these foods were served on the best days; I was lucky enough to have a choice to eat school lunch or bring my own. Many children today do not have that privilege). The Child Nutrition Act will come under review this September, and Time for Lunch is asking Congress to consider doubling the amount of reimbursement – from one dollar to two.

In addition, Time for Lunch is advocating for stronger control of the types of additional foods sold in school, like the French fries, cookies, and chicken wings from the “a la carte” line in the cafeteria, as well as items sold in vending machines scattered around many schools’ premises. The presence of these types of food encourage poor eating choices among students – I remember many of my high school friends eating French fries and a cookie for lunch every single day of the week. Why would they want to suffer the inevitable stomach ache and sugar crash from such a diet? Because their parents weren’t there to tell them otherwise.

Finally, Time for Lunch is asking for the continued and increased support of Farm to School programs. In the last year, my high school has added a kitchen garden to its premises (the result of a student-organized senior project) and they will hopefully begin eating from it in the fall. More programs like this are possible, but there needs to be more funding. Apparently, the last time the Child Nutrition Act was reviewed (in 2004), a section was added to provide an unspecified amount of money to schools to hold lessons in local eating and healthy eating, but Congress never appropriated the funds. Time for Lunch is asking Congress to guarantee mandatory funding for programs like the one started at my school.

I know that this might seem like a lot of political advertisement, but I really believe that support of groups like this can do a great deal to improve not only childhood nutrition in this country, but also over-all public school education standards. It is common sense that students will pay attention and learn better when they have a full stomach and proper nutrition. A meal of powdered mashed potatoes or gummy pizza simply does not provide the brain food necessary to be a successful student. It is also common sense that such proper nutrition cannot be provided on a dollar a day.

Take a few minutes today and show your support. Time for Lunch is putting together a petition to show public support for the review of the Child Nutrition Act; all you have to do is sign it. It only takes a minute. You can also check out their Eat-In potluck program that will commence on Labor Day. Find one in your area and get involved. It will be fun, helpful, and, most importantly on a day like today, patriotic.