A Literary Culinary Journal
Swiss tasting week, referred to as “La Semaine du Goût” in the French-speaking part of the country, starts on Thursday, September 12, and runs until the 22nd. Each producer, restaurant and farm participating offers events. I will list a program of events, by day, in the Geneva area.This event is sponsored in part by Slow Food Switzerland. Here is the schedule for Thursday, September 12.
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by Diana Zahuranec
From the archives
For the second post in this mini series on fermentation, let’s get into the “why” of fermentation.
Cultures from all over the world have fermented a food or drink. The principle reason has been to preserve their harvest. Over the winter months, fermented vegetables last and provide a source of calories, nutrients, and an accompaniment to the endless plates of what I imagine were sausage, jerky, smoked meat, and potatoes.
A 3 -litre jar of salsa, ready to start fermenting.
I like to imagine what the first aspiring fermenters thought when they heaped their extra produce into a large mound in a dark, warm, covered area, poured brine over top (or not), and – fully aware that vegetables rot – left it to stew before digging in with their hands. “Let’s see what this tastes like! Sort of sour but…”
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Food writer, Culinary Chemistry, The Rambling Epicure
by Jenn Oliver
From the archives
Soy sauce has been around as a staple condiment in Asian cuisine for thousands of years, used for flavoring all manner of dishes and foods. It’s prized for the “umami” character it gives to the overall taste of a dish, and can have a wide range of subtle notes beyond the obvious saltiness.
For example, Japanese tamari is often wheat free (I stress, not always). Still, most of the soy sauces available on store shelves contain wheat. While there is some debate as to exactly how much gluten from wheat survives the fermentation and processing, the Celiac Disease Foundation Foundation does list soy sauce as a food that may contain gluten and needs to be verified. The Mayo Clinic also states that soy sauce should be avoided unless otherwise labeled. There is also considerable anecdotal evidence of experiences of people being “glutened” by soy sauce (my husband included). Therefore, for those who must eat gluten free, soy sauce immediately becomes a food that requires attention and is a complicated topic.
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by The Femivore’s Dilemma
Are you a Grist? This word was recently added to the Urban Dictionary.
The word was coined by Peggy Orenstein in her essay “The Femivore’s Dilemma” for today’s New York Times Magazine, says Natural News, and is obviously inspired by the term “locavore.”
Educated career women, or “femivores”, all over the U.S. are choosing to give up their careers and go back to the farm (sometimes an urban farm) and back to the kitchen — often the same women who refused to take anything even vaguely similar to a Home Economics class, much less a class in agriculture. DIY, raising chickens and gardening are back, and there is an abundance resources available on the Internet for those who are new at it offering detailed how-to’s and recipes for all of it, with popular DIY sites such as Mother Earth News, Middleground Farm, and Mother Earth News. Femivores often reach out from their newly chosen isolation through blogs and social networks, and share their discoveries, successes and failures with other femivores, such as writer Esmaa Self on Middleground Farm or “backyard eggs”.
This became the subject of a heated debate a few weeks ago when Michael Pollan’s book came out. On Is Michael Pollan a sexist pig? Emily Matchar questioned whether Pollan was a “sexist pig” in saying “we need to get back in the kitchen,” since “American women cook 78 percent of dinners, make 93 percent of the food purchases, and spend three times as many hours in the kitchen as men.”
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GOOD reports that the corporate giant Procter & Gamble’s aim is to send zero manufacturing waste to landfills. Already in 2007, Procter & Gamble launched a team in charge of turning manufacturing waste into worth.
Click here to read the GOOD article.
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A New York Times article by Kathryn Shattuck says a key ingredient in keeping the Slow Food movement going is investment capital.
An attempt at this is just what is happening in the Boulder Theater this week, where some 650 business people and potential investors are meeting to exchange views. “As venture capitalists increasingly bet on food start-ups, Slow Money, a nonprofit that catalyzes the flow of capital to small and local food enterprises, supports what Mr. Tasch called the heroic grunts: the food producers and their fiduciary counterparts, or “food-ish-iaries,” committed to healing and investing in a broken system, either through manpower or money.”
Click here to read rest of this article.
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Broccoli Spray, by Ilian Iliev ALL RIGHTS RESERVED (C)
Click here to catch up on your food-related reading for this week:
and much more.
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by Jonell Galloway
Common sense might well tell you that it is more likely that the food really gets to the country in need of aid if you send it in the form of food and not dollars. According to more than 30 studies, the custom of “shipping food overseas in American-flagged vessels is inefficient, costly” and even harmful to the very communities the U.S. is trying to help. This information is supported by experts, who say this manner of distribution drives down the price of local produce by as much as fifty percent. The U.S. is the only country to give food aid in this manner, and Obama is proposing change that could matter.
Click here to read The New York Times editorial.
Official photographic portrait of U.S. President Barack
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by Jonell Galloway
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From artsy
Photo courtesy of Ilian
to philosophical and literary
The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture (Photo credit: elycefeliz)
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Meet Jonell Galloway, a freelance writer and editor specialized in French cuisine. 
