Iowa Chef responds to Time Magazine’s “Extreme Eating”

Regarding Joel Stein's Time Magazine article "Extreme Eating" - while Mr. Stein is of course free to eat whatever type of food he chooses, I must take exception to his contention that "Dodd was basically telling the Iowans that every night they should decide whether to accompany their pork with creamed corn, corn on the cob, corn fritters or corn bread. For dessert, they could have any flavor they wanted of fake ice cream made from soy, provided that flavor was corn."

I am forced to question whether Mr. Stein has actually been to Iowa (outside of a presidential candidate's rally). While there is indeed a large amount of corn, soy and pork grown here (more than anywhere in the world in fact), to say that this is all we can eat when we choose to eat locally is blindly absurd and typical of a bicoastal mentality that considers America's great Heartland to be little more than "fly-over states."

In fact Iowa farmers can and do grow anything that can be grown outside the tropics. Our support for local, sustainable agriculture is evident in the hundreds of farmers' markets we have, many of them year-round affairs, and the dozens of organizations that support the so-called "locavore movement." The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture is at Iowa State University. Practical Farmers of Iowa and the Iowa Farmers Union enjoy tremendous growth and prestige here and around the country. The Iowa Network for Community Agriculture supports local food resources statewide. There are five Slow Food Convivia here, and eight "Buy fresh, Buy Local" campaigns organized statewide. Edible Iowa River Valley, a member of the Edible Communities family of magazines, boasts a quarterly readership over 36,000.

My restaurant alone provides our guests with all its meat and roughly 60% of everything else (year-round) from more than 30 "Devotay Local Farm Partners," and not to belabor the point, but there is no corn on our menu.

Mr. Stein concludes by saying "I'm going to keep buying food from my foreign neighbors. Because it's the only way we Americans learn about other countries, other than by bombing them." While this may or may not be true, I suggest he spend a little more time learning about his own country first. He can start here, I'll have a table waiting for him.

What do you eat in January? Part Deux

Continuing our winter eats series, we asked a few more Slow Food folks what they eat in January.

Slow Food NYC leader and NY/NJ Regional Governor Ed Yowell had this to say:

A few years ago I began to look forward to the winter disappearance of leafy salad alternatives. It only took dedication to my local, northeast food shed and a little creativity. Some "what and hows" are offered in "The Leafless Season" a piece I wrote back then.

Slow Food USA staff member Cecily Upton shares her passionate winter feelings for pork:

I like pork, a lot. Too much, some might say. For example, my recent birthday party involved friends and family chowing down on 3+ lbs of BBQ at Brooklyn's own Fette Sau. And even though the Year of the Pig is coming to an end, I'm already planning a summer pig roast in my new backyard.

Yum!

Cloned Meat is Totally A-OK. No worries.

by Elizabeth Bird and SFUSA staff

After reports last week that it was likely to happen, news reports today announced that the FDA has given yet another indication that food– that is meat and milk–from cloned animals and their offspring is safe for general consumption. This comes four years after the FDA released its original decision on the health and safety of cloned animals for food production. Uneasy with the reliability of the research on which the FDA based its original decision, both concerned consumer groups and scientists rallied on the issue. The FDA responded by issuing a request that producers heed a voluntary moratorium from selling cloned animals for food production purposes. Today's declaration effectively puts an end to the debate and sets the future of cloned food in America.

The decision is a great victory for cloning companies, which generally promote cloned animals for breeding purposes. Cloning proponents seek to upgrade an entire herd's genetics by using multiple copies of a prize-winning animal. Clones themselves, due to the high cost of the cloning procedure, are not likely bound for the slaughterhouse, but the USDA decision will surely affect the possibility that their offspring can be sold for general consumption.

The FDA's decision dismisses both concern from scientific communities regarding the risks of cloned food, but also ignores ethically questionable practices intrinsic to the cloning process. The FDA has also indicated that it will not require food from cloned animals to be labeled, so the public will have no way of knowing whether they are purchasing a cloned product.

Bonnie, over at Ethicurean, makes an excellent point: how much testing could have been done in this short time? And just because the meat had the appropriate nutrients contained within, does that answer all concerns? What if there's something there that scientists havent thought to look for?

If you have concerns about this issue and would like to express them, consider taking a look at The Center for Food Safety. Their "take action" link allows concerned individuals to write directly to their congressperson and senator to express concern over labeling food from cloned animals.

Also: check out this interesting perspective from Wired mag. The author says: "I'm particularly interested in this line of research because it seems to highlight the distinction between people who want just humane food and those who want natural food." Touches on what it means to care about the origins of your food.

What do you eat in January?

In her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver has a whole chapter entitled "What do you eat in January?" (and she lives on a farm!). And although it is a baffling 50 degrees here in NYC, the calendar does suggest that it's January, as does the food at the market (potatoes, onions, winter squash).

A quick look at the links on Field to Plate will show what's available by season in your area. For us New Yorkers, it's basically a handy tool for figuring out where we wish we lived instead right about now–January is pretty slim pickings compared to, say, California.

And so: what do YOU eat in January?

Slow Food Northeast Regional Governor Rosemary Melli had this to say:

Here's what we do in the dreary New England winter, while we're dreaming of the first greens of spring:

- Beans, beans, beans - must be fresh and cooked just right; combine with sauteed winter greens (kale, collard, mustard, swiss chard); seasoned with pancetta, bacon, proscuitto, sausages, etc.; add pastas and cheeses; combine as soups, ragouts, ragus, etc.

New convivium tastes turkeys

by Cerelle Centeno

A group of foodies in Columbia, SC is in the process of creating a Slow Food convivium. In an effort to spread the word and to begin hosting events, we held a turkey tasting on December 16. The mission of the tasting, presented to us by Emile DeFelice, owner of Caw Caw Creek Farm and Slow Food USA Ark of Taste committee member, was to evaluate a standard turkey compared to a heritage breed. Emile suggested we all bring a side dish made with local ingredients and the convivium-in-the-making's first event was born.

It's an interesting challenge having to evaluate the flavor of a turkey. To submit a heritage breed – in our case, the White Holland – onto the Ark of Taste we needed to report on aroma, appearance and flavor of skin and the flavor of both the dark and white meat. We compared all of these aspects to that of a "standard bird." Both birds were cooked with the same brining process. Here's a look at the two birds photographed by our Treasurer, Jennifer Sipala – the standard is the obviously plump one on the left and the heritage bird is the svelte one on the right.

What struck us was how we're so used to the taste of the standard bird that the "earthy" taste of the heritage breed was surprising. Furthermore, we were disappointed to learn that much of the "plumpness" of a standard bird is really just water. And you can see for yourself that the heritage bird looks more like a bird.

As for the local sides, we enjoyed a couple of turnip dishes, broccoli and of course, collard greens and Carolina gold rice (actually, rice pudding made with Carolina gold – delish!). It was a wonderful afternoon spent discussing turkey, the Columbia convivium and our favorite local restaurants. We encourage anyone living in or around the Columbia area to join us for future Slow Food functions!

Trans Fats

by Leo Rodriguez

Trans fats: what Little Debbie snack cakes, French fries, and that delicious steak at Peter Luger all have in common.

Thanks to recent media attention, most people know that these harmful fats come from partially hydrogenated oils, but did you know that trans fats are also found in nature–specifically, in dairy products and some meat?

From this you might infer that Grandma's shortbread cookies are little
deathtraps, but natural trans fats are not necessarily identical to
industrial trans fats. Most researchers agree that our body probably handles them differently because we've been ingesting them for quite some time. Some think they might even be beneficial to us. Meaning, maybe you can enjoy that shortbread just a little more.

Though none of the research is conclusive, we get most of our trans fats
from fast and processed foods anyway. A tablespoon of butter, for example, has between 0.30 and 0.39 grams of trans fat. In 2006, an order of McDonald's French fries was found to have a whopping 8 grams, more than four times what experts recommend as a maximum.

Real food trumps laboratory potatoes. Again.

I Am What I Ate - Carlo Petrini

Slow Food USA members should have just received the issue 4 of The Snail for 2007. The theme of the issue is American Food Traditions; we asked some people to share with our readers their personal food heritage in a feature called "I Am What I Ate: Food from my childhood." Below, Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini shares his own (non-American, of course!) childhood food tradition.

by Carlo Petrini

My family's origins lie somewhere between the working class and the middle class. Our food culture was first and foremost a product of subsistence, and my grandmother was its guardian. I remember afterschool snacks of soma d'aj, a slice of bread toasted on the stove, rubbed with a clove of garlic and sprinkled with a little salt and oil sprinkled on top. Few would probably dream of preparing such a thing for their children these days, but for me, it was a sort of "education in garlic," and I certainly don't regret it. Two other dishes that were important to my childhood are meat ravioli, made to last the week and totally sublime in the delicateness of the pasta sheets, and rolatine, strips of meat rolled up around a filling of egg, vegetables, cheese, and breadcrumbs, served with Piedmontese salsa verde. This last dish is hardly to be found any more, but when I'm able to find it, it never ceases to bring back a rush of memories.

If you would like to receive The Snail, Slow Food USA's quarterly magazine for members, click here.

Feel free to use the comments section to share your food heritage.

Food Sovereignty 101

Grassroots International, a Boston-based organization that "supports the initiatives of peasants and family farmers, women and indigenous groups to protect human rights to land, water and food," has produced a primer on food sovereignty in partnership with Food and Water Watch.

Understanding that for many people food sovereignty can be a somewhat elusive term, they have produced "Towards a Green Food System," a report that explains the food sovereignty movement's natural alignment with the larger environmental sustainability movement, as well as with food-based movements such as Slow Food. It discusses the main conversational threads from the 2007 Forum for Food Sovereignty, laying out the stakes (the right to sustainably farmed land, the right of a community to control its own seed supply, the right to support small family farms), sharing specific examples from around the world, and making recommendations for individual involvement in the movement.

Grassroots International has several reports available for download on their website, including this one.

Slow Food Challenge

Always a source of the inside scoop on what's great in the restaurant world from local folk, Chowhound also has an active discussion board on all-around food topics. Just two days ago one poster named "frugalscot" posted this simple query:

WINTER SEASON ….a little more difficult.
What type of creative meal can you prepare utilizing only ingredients that are native to your area/region? A radius of say 25 miles from home. (Not written in stone)
As close to 100% local ingredients as possible, please

As of this writing it's received 55 responses. Great stuff posted there

Countdown to doomsday

Here in NYC from 1989 to 2000, we had a large billboard right near Times Square that was a "debt clock." Up top was a running tally of our national debt, and down below was a second digital clock–moving at a frighteningly fast pace–that showed each US citizen's portion of that dollar amount.

It was an amazing tool–a scare tactic, sure, but an unavoidable beacon, casting its beam of light on the country's increasingly debt-ful future.

Here's another clock for you; it has two parallel clocks, one of which shows the world population (guess what! it goes up really really fast), and the one below showing the amount of productive–i.e. arable– land (guess what! it goes down really really fast). There's power in seeing an inverse proportion move with that kind of speed–hard not to see what's coming.