Webber Maura - Recipes from Americas small farms : fresh ideas for the seasons bounty

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Every Tuesday afternoon, a crowd gathers on a busy Manhattan street corner, watching for the big white truck that soon arrives. A brigade forms to unload crate after crate of gorgeous, fragrant vegetables: bright orange cherry tomatoes (luckily, we're allowed to eat just a few as we unpack, because their aroma is irresistible), delicate fingerling potatoes, tiny striped squash, teardrop-shaped cabbages, big-as-a-penny raspberries, and basil that is as potent as perfume.

As we fill our bags with the visibly fresh produce, passersby, lured by sight and scent, stop and ask, What's going on here? We explain that Tuesday is CSA day, that all of us are members of a Community Supported Agriculture project. In the spring, we bought shares in the harvest of Stoneledge Farm, a small certified organic farm located about two hours north of our neighborhood. Now, from June to November, we receive our bounty. Every week, our farmers harvest all the vegetables that are ready, and bring them to this central location for us to pick up. Every week's share is a surprise package, always fresh, always delicious.

By itself, this little scene wouldn't make much of a difference to the overall health of the environment or to the farming community. But it's being repeated in more than a thousand locations in the United States each week, supporting more than a thousand small farms whose very existence would be threatened without their shareholders. And the movement is growing every year. As Alice Waters, chef of Chez Panisse, has said, Community Supported Agriculture is the most positive-spirited movement in the country today.

The CSA concept originated in Japan almost forty years ago by mothers who wanted a more personal connection to their food source; they called their farm-to-consumer co-ops teikei, which translates roughly to food with a face on it. In 1985, the first American CSA was organized in South Egre-mont, Massachusetts, by Robyn Van En, a food activist. For the next decade, the movement grew slowly; then in the late 1990s, it took off as people became more aware of and interested in food issues, and as many of them became determined to buy food that was produced by nearby, responsible farmers.

CSA Principles

As farm activist Wendell Berry teaches, How we eat determines to a considerable extent how the world is used. With this in mind, it is important to remember that the goals of CSA support a sustainable agriculture system that

• provides farmers with direct outlets for farm products and ensures fair compensation

• encourages proper land stewardship by supporting farmers in transition toward low or no chemical inputs

• strengthens local economies by keeping food dollars in local communities

• directly links producers with consumers, allowing people to have a personal connection with their food and the land on which it was produced

• makes nutritious, affordable, wholesome foods accessible and widely available to community members

from the Robyn Van En Center for CSA Resources

There's no overall organization of CSAs, no governing body; each group makes its own way and its own rules. Some CSAs require members to volunteer their time; others simply deliver to each member's door. Some offer only vegetables; others include fruit, meat, dairy, honey, and other products. Some have fewer than a dozen members; others have hundreds. But the idea is the same: Farmers and communities join together to support each other so that the communities can receive the freshest, most nutritious, and tastiest produce available, and so that the farmersknowing that their crops are soldcan concentrate on farming as safely and as well as they can without worrying about marketing.

Why do we do it? Why do so many people from every economic, ethnic, and educational level take the time and make the effort to get their food through CSA when it is so much more conveniently available and neatly packaged on supermarket shelves? And why do so many farmers complicate their already demanding profession by connecting themselves with a mass of members rather than with a few wholesalers? Part of the reason that CSA has grown so rapidly is that the food tastes so much better. Zucchini just pulled from the vine have a sweet tenderness that is utterly lacking in those that have made a five-day trip in a refrigerated van. Onions that arrive still encrusted in soil are stronger and richer tasting than the ones that have been sitting in supermarket barrels for months. CSA farmers are able to provide varieties that are too fragile to ship by conventional methods. It's not uncommon for people to say, I haven't tasted a tomato like this since my grandmother grew it in her backyard, says Laurel Shouvlin of Bluebird Hills Farm in Springfield, Ohio.

Health is another factor. We all know that vegetables are good for us, but the nutritional value of vegetables begins to decline as soon as they are picked; so the fresher your food, the more nutritious it is. Linda Nash of Sunflower Fields Family Farm in Postville, Iowa, says that huge conventional farms can never sell something to someone that was picked fresh that morning. That's what I can do. Besides, the varieties that are bred for easy growing and for transportability are not the ones that are best for us. That pink, cottony tomato has had all the good stuff bred out of it, both vitamins and taste, says Terra Brockman of Henry's Farm in Congerville, Illinois.