June 28th Newsletter
Bardstown Road Farmers’ Market
Sarah’s Corner
From our friend Sarah Fritschner
Last February, the CEO of one of the world’s largest fertilizer companies warned about a looming food crisis.
Grain farmers will need to harvest record crops every year to meet increasing global food demand and avoid famine, William Doyle, of Potash Corp., told Bloomberg.com. ``If you had any major upset where you didn't have a crop in a major growing agricultural region this year, I believe you'd see famine,'' he said.
That was February. If you’ve been reading the news, you know that a “major upset” in a “major growing agricultural region” has, indeed happened.
Rain in the American Midwest has been a “major upset” to one region of significant corn and soybean production. Preliminary reports estimate a 10 percent reduction in the corn crop, which will likely result in rising prices for food, including everything that made with high fructose corn syrup (which is nearly everything), meat, poultry, eggs, cheese, and milk, and products that contain them. You know, everything.
With the coming food crises, we must get ready for agribusiness to claim quick and easy solutions come from them. Just as the current oil crisis has caused rather abrupt reversals on positions concerning off-shore oil drilling, we can certainly expect agribusiness to exploit the food crises by looking for less regulation of dubious practices such as genetic modification and “efficient” (inhumane and unsafe) animal production.
For here, for now, for some of us, there is another option. Buying from relatively small farms nearby, buying seasonally from farmers who grow diverse crops, allows us a sustainable choice.
Nina Simonds hot and sour slaw
This is my favorite slaw recipe. It comes from Nina Simonds’ “China Express” cookbook – which offers quick solutions to those who often have more vegetables than they know what to do with.
The recipe is a welcome addition to Fourth of July barbecues. It requires rice vinegar, which you can often find in the ethnic food section of supermarkets. I’ve known people to replace the fresh ginger with powdered, dry and it doesn’t taste as good.
1 medium head green cabbage (about 1 ¼ pounds)
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup finely shredded carrots
Dressing:
1 cup sugar
1 cup clear rice vinegar
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
2 tablespoons finely shredded hot red chile peppers, or 1 ½ teaspoons chile pepper flakes
Cut the cabbage in half vertically, cut out and discard the core. Rinse cabbage in cold water and cut the leaves into very fine shreds. Place in a bowl, add the salt and toss lightly. Place a plate with a weight on top of the cabbage and let it sit for 2 to 3 hours at room temperature. Put the cabbage in a colander and rinse, then drain.
Put the cabbage in a bowl with the carrots. Add the dressing ingredients, stir briefly, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate several hours or overnight. Keeps for a week in the refrigerator. Serves 6 to 8.
Caribbean-style flank steak
Use this marinade for any less-tender cut of beef or bison, or on pork chops, lamb or chicken pieces. Use 1 tablespoon fresh herbs in place of the dry ones, if you have them.
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Juice of 1 lime
1 to ½ pounds flank steak, bison, pork chops or other meat for grilling
Combine herbs, salt, red pepper, oil and lime juice in a dinner plate or zipper-style plastic bag. Add the meat and turn several times to cover with marinade. Let marinate 30 minutes at room temperature.
Heat grill or skillet to high. Grill meat on both sides until done to desired taste. If cooking in a skillet, add a tablespoon or two of oil to the skillet. When the oil is hot, add the meat and brown well without moving it, at least 2 minutes, or up to 5 minutes for flank steak. Flip the meat over and cook through. Boneless loin pork chops take about 5 minutes; flank steak about 12.
To make a sauce: If you cook the meat in a skillet, pour out excess fat but leave brown bits in the skillet. Add a cup of chicken broth and boil it rapidly over high heat until reduced to a few tablespoons, then spoon over meat.