Sharon October 14th, 2009
In her superb book _This Organic Life_ writer Joan Dye Gussow talks about making do with flood damaged produce - and why she doesn’t just go out and buy fresh, perfect stuff.
“We harvested 37 pounds of onions, but despite my best efforts, some of them cured with soft spots where mold had gotten underneath the outer layers and would work its sway through the whole onion if we didn’t stop it. So we had to cut up many onions and freeze teh good parts - or cook them. All of which accounts for the fact that a year and a half after we arrived in Piermont, I found myself one morning cutting up a half-rotten onion to salvage, and realized that a year earlier ?I would have thrown the whole thing away.” Gussow, 103
And
“The lesson I take away from the realization that our crops will sometimes be drowned is not that those of us who live in the colder states can’t be relatively self-reliant; we can. And although Alan and I would have been wise to choose higher ground, I’ve seen no sensible agricultural scenario that suggests that anything can be done to insulate food production from the vagaries of nature. If we wish to feed ourselves from our own regions, and allow others to do the same, we will need to try and adjust our choices and our appetites to what Nature will provide in a given year. We need accept the fact that in some years we won’t have al the potatoes and onions we want. On the other hand, we will sometimes have more raspberries than we can eat, and the crops that succeed will be both safe and tasty.” Gussow, 107-108
Yesterday, I was reminded of this passage as I set myself to salvaging food from my garden. In my case, it was my sunflowers and dry corn. I’d noticed that blue jays after my sunflowers, but hadn’t seen that they’d gotten to the corn, too. The sunflower damage seemed minimal when I checked a few days, so I optimistically elected to leave the sunflowers up a few more days, until our expected first hard frost down in the insulated lower garden. This was a mistake, big time - yesterday, after our frost, I went out to gather the heads, only to find that most of them were very nearly empty.
Now this was non-trivial because those sunflowers are one of the ways I’m trying to minimize my dependence on the feed store and purchased grains - my chickens and turkeys will happily empty a head in a few minutes flat, and each seed reduces my grain costs. The corn is an even bigger issue - this was food for us, a sweet grinding corn I love - there is no comparison with the bland cornmeal corns available most places. Fortunately, the jays didn’t get the majority of the corn - but I was still out there, pulling any ear that had even a short row of kernels around it.
Ours was a tough garden year - we had over 20 inches of rain alone in June - you can tell the history of the year by my garden - I have two long areas that were planted in the lower garden after the beginning of July - these areas are flourishing. Everything else…well… there was a lot of salvage this year. It doesn’t matter - we still cut the bird pecks out of the tomatoes, break off the slug damaged bush beans, eat the stunted vegetables, dehydrate potatoes or sweet potatoes too wet to store well. It is food, and you don’t just waste it.
And this, I think, is a mindset that is worth getting into early on. It would be easy to say “oh, it was a terrible crop, why bother.” Or perhaps to say that the birds can have the last of the sunflower heads - after all, they are, we are told in the Torah, entitled to a share of the grain as well. Fair enough, but now they’ve had their share, and I’m taking mine. Even if it is imperfect. Even if it wasn’t what I dreamed of.
The ability to make something of vegetables caught by frost, flooded, stunted by drought, partially eaten by some creature is one of our gifts - food preservation methods can mean that something that would otherwise have been lost can be saved - onions that won’t store well can be dehydrated or frozen, as Gussow points out. Or new recipes arise for green tomato pickles, the outer leaves of cabbage and green pumpkin pie. It is food, and you don’t waste it.
Today, in front of the woodstove, my children and I will draw back the husks of our corn, and hang it up to dry further in the house. Most of the ears are full, some are not, but we will save what we can - because it is our food. When we committed to growing it, we committed to this - that we will regard our food as primary. I’ve no sorrow in buying to replace a lost crop, or to expand upon our gardens - that is normal and natural. But if I grow it, and I possibly can, I will eat what I grow before I rely on other sources.
It is hard to believe how differently people who live through food scarcity regard food - in some cultures, to tread on a piece of dropped bread is a sin, and a deep one. In Elizabeth Erlich’s superb memoir of Jewish food, and of learning from her Holocaust survivor mother in law, she observes her mother using her thumb to ensure that every drop of egg white was removed from a shell, and when she enquires, her mother in law observes that her own father died of starvation - how could she ever waste food.
We are told that the only good and safe and healthy food is perfect - we are lied to and told that perfect looking is better for us, even if it has been doused with chemicals. Up to 20% of all produce in the US is discarded and wasted simply because of cosmetic imperfections. We thus lose the old habits of thrift and care, and the value that says “this is food, we do not let it go to waste.”
I don’t want to lose that. Asher came out with me to pick the corn, in a cold drizzle. We picked the little ears and put them in bushel baskets. We picked the big ones. He helped me spot the last few, and when he said “are we all done?” we didn’t stop until we were sure. Not because I don’t want to feed the jays - but because it is food, and if I choose to feed the birds, it will be consciously, with intention, not because I let food, good food, go to waste.
Sharon