A summer photoethnography

 Beers on a Minneapolis rooftop patio

City boys on a Minnesota farm

Summer picnic (Minnesota)

Farm pizza kitchen (Minnesota)

Sunday musing...

"To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art." --M.F.K. Fisher

The Anthropology Song

I have to post this here. It is not particularly new, but it is simply awesome.

An Apology to Peas

As a child I exhibited mediocre eating skills. I was not the worst eater in the world, but I was far from adventurous. Now that I have friends with children I see them tearing their hair out trying to get their kids to eat any sort of fruit or vegetable. All except my friend Sasha who has absolutely no problem getting her almost-three-year-old son, Dylan, to eat anything. Dylan is amazing. I only hope that Ben and I will be blessed with such an audacious eater for a child. Sasha strolled into work one morning telling me that Dylan did not eat lunch the day before because he devoured a three-egg omelet for breakfast. A three-egg omelet!! Dylan loves salsa to the point of drinking it straight from the jar, and he eats more raspberries than a baby bear. The point of telling you about Dylan is that I was not like Dylan as a child—far, far from it.

I ate bananas, occasionally (I went through phases), and I always liked strawberries. For the most part I was fine with fruit. However, vegetables presented an entirely different situation. Raw vegetables were fine, but only with Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing to dip them in (much to my mother’s chagrin). Cooked vegetables, on the other hand, did not go over well in my books, and the worst culprits were peas.

My mom accompanied dinner with peas a lot. I understand why. A bag of frozen peas provides the green on your plate in merely four minutes in the microwave. And don’t get me wrong, my mother is an amazing cook (of course I did not appreciate it back then). She did not serve copious amounts of peas because she did not know how to prepare anything else. But more often than not, if she made roast chicken, pork loin, or any sort of casserole thing she would pull out the bag of frozen peas to go on the side. Easy-peasy.

I don’t even remember when I started to like peas. It was not an epiphany in my life. When I was about twelve or thirteen I began to try foods that I previously thought were volatile, and often the moment was like clouds parting with angels singing down to me as I thought to myself, “My God! This is amazing! How could I have not liked this before?!” Avocados were such a food. Peas on the other hand never provided me this moment of manifestation.

However, I now love peas. Yes, I don’t just like peas; I love peas. They are so versatile. I steam them in the microwave and add just a pat of butter with some salt and pepper. Or I can turn two bags of frozen peas, an onion, and some chicken broth into an amazing soup in less than half and hour. Thrown into pasta peas provide color and delightful bursts of sweetness. Combined with crumbled bacon and sautéed garlic, peas transform into an elegant side dish (although that magic may be in the bacon). And oh my goodness, I even love frozen peas straight from the bag. Yes, still frozen. They are the perfect, cold, guiltless snack food for a hot Sunday afternoon.

So, I owe peas an apology. I am sorry for pushing your around on my plate for so many years. I am sorry for all the faces I pulled at you. I was a philistine back then. As Manuel from Fawlty Towers would say, “I [knew] nothing…”

Moral of the story: Don’t hate on peas.

Meat Manifesto part II: Political Reasons

When I was writing my senior thesis in college, my advisor grilled me, as usual, during one of our meetings, “Melissa, you need to talk about the politics of this.”

I was writing my thesis on the newspaper coverage of the debates around oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, and I was struggling with a section of my paper that I did not perceive as political. I merely thought it was coincidence, happenstance--simply “the way things are”. My advisor then said to me, “Melissa, everything is political.” She pulled a tomato out of her bag of groceries sitting next to her desk, and she said to me, “This tomato is political. Tell me how.”

I started to think. At first, I thought she was off her rocker. It was a freakin’ tomato. Some people like tomatoes; some people don’t—what is political about that? But then I thought, and I said, “Well, the sticker on it says it is from Mexico. Who picked that tomato?”

“Yes!” she said. “And how much did they get paid? Who is their boss? How much is he getting paid? How did this tomato get to the supermarket where I bought it? What determined how much I paid for this tomato? You see, everything is political.”

The lesson I learned that day in college stuck with me. I find that indeed, everything is political. I promised that the word “politics” would foreshadow an upcoming post about meat. Well dear reader, finally, here it is.

Part one of my meat manifesto explained the rational (and to some extent, moral) reasons why I eat meat. When I think about whether or not to eat meat in an intuitive, thought-out way, it makes sense that eating meat is perfectly kosher. I am acting in the natural order of the universe. However, the most crucial point I made in that post is that this particular realization is not the end of the meat discussion; it is just the beginning.

So here we get to the politics. How do I define politics? For now, let’s define it as, “assumptions or principles relating to theory, or thing, especially when concerned with power and status in a society,” to borrow from the Oxford English Dictionary. Look back at my tomato example. How does the tomato relate to the people or institutions that hold power and influence in our society? A tomato is not just a tomato—there is a whole story behind it. So what is the political story behind meat that convinces me it is politically a good idea to eat it?

I consciously eat meat for two distinct political reasons that intertwine with each other. First, I believe in eating meat in order to support the farmers and ranchers who raise domestic animals in a way that upholds both our “domestication contract” and our environmental duty to ensure that we leave behind a planet that provides for future generations. As I explained in Part I of my Meat Manifesto, eating meat that is reared in the correct way is both morally OK and environmentally sustainable. I believe in using my money to support the small guys; it is a political statement, and it means that I enjoy the tastiest and most excellent meat there is.

The second political reason I choose to eat meat is because I believe that the mainstream alternative to meat eating—a diet and food industry based on soy and corn—is just as harmful to the livelihoods of others, and to the environment, as the mainstream industrial meat industry. Although it is easy to be repulsed by the intensive and industrial way that the majority of our meat is produced, simply cutting meat out of our diet does not absolve us of the atrocities of the industrial food system. As I said before, in this day and age, even the vegetarian diet need serious examination.

Let me explain further…

The problem with current day, mainstream vegetarianism is that too many non-meat eaters replace the meat in their diet with highly processed soy products. Logically, this makes sense. Soy is high in protein, and food items made from soy (tofu and not to mention the countless fake “meat” products like fakin’ bacon, soy lunch “meats,” Tofurkey, soy “sausage,” etc.) feel “meaty” and satisfying—they fill you up. It seems easy to give up meat if you can still eat “bacon”.

However, if we examine these soy products a little further we find that the soy (and corn) industry is just as ethically and ecologically irresponsible as the industrial meat industry.

I do not want this post to turn into a rant against the soy industry and the problems with excessive human soy consumption, so I will try my best to stay on track here and keep this as directly related to the meat debate as I can, but bear with me as I veer off the meat-track for just a bit. Don’t worry; this will come full circle. But first, I need to give you a little political background to genetically modified crops, because most of the soy that mainstream vegetarians base their diet on comes from GM soy crops.

Genetically modified crops are a very, very new phenomenon in the global food system. In 1990 there were no GM crops on the market. However, in 2008, 90% of soy grown in the United States was from a genetically modified (GM) strain of soybeans. We still have yet to learn of the possible benefits and consequences of this scientific breakthrough. Never before have humans been able to alter the genes of a living species, let alone eat the results. However, this debate is ongoing and based on predictions and still-yet-to-be-determined scientific evidence. I see the major problem with GM food as something that is not related to nutrition, but to politics and power. Let me illustrate my point with a specific example.

A decade ago, two European biotech plant researchers found a way to splice a daffodil gene into a rice plant. When this plant matured, the rice grains turned a translucent yellow color. That yellow color (from the daffodil plant genes) was due to beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is the same nutrient that makes oranges, carrots, bell peppers and most other yellow or orange foods yellow or orange color. In humans, beta-carotene becomes the essential nutrient known as Vitamin A. Vitamin A assists our bodies in all sorts of ways, many of which we know (like eyesight—remember your mom told you to eat lots of carrots so that you could see in the dark??) and many of which we are only beginning to understand (like how it is related to cancer prevention).

Left: conventional white rice. Right: Golden Rice. Image from Macalester University Environmental Studies homepage.

When we discovered that we could put an essential nutrient into a rice grain, it seemed as if we had a scientific miracle—viola!—a possible answer to world hunger and malnutrition. Vitamin A deficiency causes blindness and death in millions of undernourished populations in Asia and Africa, where rice is also a staple food. This new breakthrough seemed as if it could save millions of lives.

However, there was a huge catch. This grain could not be distributed free to poor farmers because biotechnology companies owned more than forty different patents on the various methods and lab tools that are necessary to create the new variety of rice. While the actual strain of rice, known as Golden Rice, was discovered with public money and thus was free, the process necessary to make the rice was patented. This “invention” was essentially owned by agribusiness—anyone planting Golden Rice would have to pay royalties on the patent.

The story of Golden Rice is not the first having to do with GM crops, and Golden Rice was certainly not the first GM food invented. However, the story illustrates what I see as the major shortcoming of genetically modified organisms—a problem of ownership. Once the United States Supreme Court determined that GM crops could be patented, biotech companies started a GMO-race to invent as many patented crops as they could. Within a matter of years we had new strains of frost resistant tomatoes (made by splicing halibut genes into the tomato plant), potatoes that had pesticides spliced into their genetic makeup, (causing any bug to eat their leaves to wither up and die), and Roundup Ready soy and corn (I’ll get to this one in a bit). Huge multi-billion dollar companies held the patents to each one of these new plant species. Agribusiness owned plants—living organisms. Agribusiness owned food. The top executives saw world hunger as an enormous business opportunity. Recently, an executive from a large food company said, “The solution to global hunger is to turn malnutrition into a market opportunity.”

(There is more here to be said about the story of Golden Rice and the patenting laws around GM crops, but this would steer my discussion farther off course into the benefits vs. risks of genetically modified foods. I want to try to keep this discussion reined in and related to the meat debate.)

The GM patent race continued, and the US patent office granted two of the most influential GM patents to Monsanto for their Roundup Ready soy and corn. In 1996 Monsanto made Roundup Ready Soy available for the market. Roundup, the most commonly used herbicide in the world, was (and still is) the shining star of Monsanto. Essentially, their scientists discovered a way to splice the herbicide into a soy plant’s genes, making that soy plant resistant to the effects of the Roundup herbicide. A farmer could plant a field of Roundup Ready soy and spray his entire field with Roundup; every living thing except for that soy plant would die. Easy-peasy farming. No more weeds, no more pests.

Now, here is the major the problem with the fact that Monsanto owns the patent for the Roundup Ready soybean: any farmer using Roundup Ready soybeans must pay royalties to Monsanto. This means that farmers cannot save the seed from a Roundup Ready crop to plant the following season—that is patent infringement. Farmers must purchase Monsanto Roundup Ready seeds year after year. However, the problem is not so cut and dry. Plants, even genetically modified plants, are living, breathing, and breeding species. Left to their own devices, plants will cross-pollinate, spreading their genes to ensure the survival of their own species. If Farmer A purchases Monsanto Roundup Ready soybeans and plant them in his field, there is nothing stopping bees, birds, and the wind from carrying the pollen (and hence, the plant’s genetically modified genes) down wind to the fields where Farmer B has planted a field of organic, non-GM soybeans. The next year, when Farmer B plants the seeds that he saved from his organic soy crop, unbeknownst to him, he plants a genetically modified, Roundup Ready crop.

There are countless cases in which Monsanto’s representatives sought out farmers such as Farmer B, accusing them of patent infringement. Monsanto reps (and their lawyers) came and tested the fields of farmers in the area of where Roundup Ready soy had been planted. Naturally, cross-pollination took place, and Organic Farmer B is now being sued by Monsanto for patent infringement. Often these farmers have no choice but to settle the case, and destroy their entire crops and all of their saved seed. It has happened time after time in the past fifteen years.

Here is a YouTube Clip from a fabulous documentary, The Future of Food, in which a farmer explains his run-in with Monsanto:

And if you are interested, here is another YouTube Clip of Vandana Shiva, an Indian food activist, explaining some of the major problems with GM crops (including Golden Rice)

As I said before, at least 90% of the soybeans produced in the United States are now genetically modified. There are no laws that require food manufactures to disclose that they use GM soy to make their products, so there is a good chance that if you are eating soy that is not USDA certified organic, you are more than likely eating genetically modified soy.

I said I would bring this full circle, back to the meat debate. What does this all mean in relation to my meat manifesto? Well, the fact that many modern day vegetarians base their diet on soy means that they are, consciously or not, supporting this industry. This money all goes back to Monsanto, and by eating GM soy your dollars support a company that is bankrupting small farmers and creating massive mono-cultures of soy fields that are in turn doused with herbicides. In a field of Roundup Ready soybeans, every living thing on that plot of land is dead except for the soy plant itself. I believe that this “farming” practice is far more detrimental for our planet than a system where cows, chickens, and pigs graze on open grass pasture.

I refrain from entering the debate over whether or not GM crops are good or bad for human health from a nutritional science standpoint. I can see that a crop like Golden Rice could save the lives of millions of people. However, it does not matter how nutritionally superior that crop is if it is owned by agribusiness and requires farmers to be indebted to a large corporation. The fact that GM crops are controlled by multi-billion dollar biotech companies that bankrupt small farmers is reason enough for me oppose such a system of farming.

As I said before, I believe that basing one’s diet on soy is just as environmentally and ethically detrimental as basing one’s diet on industrially farmed meat. The impact upon the earth and the lives of other humans and animals is just as great. That being said, just as we can eat meat in an ethically and environmentally responsible way, so can we lead a vegetarian lifestyle in an ethically and environmentally responsible way. However, we must not believe that by cutting meat out of our diet we are being environmentally responsible eaters. Today, every type of diet needs to be consciously examined.

Unfortunately, our food system is not transparent, and to understand what exactly we are eating takes a fair bit of research. I hope that this changes. I believe that first and foremost we need to institute labeling laws, forcing food processors to disclose where and how the ingredients in their products are grown, farmed and produced. The European Union already has such laws in place. The United States is pathetically behind on this front.

Everything that I mentioned thus far is reason enough for me to refuse to pay for, and eat, the vast majority of soy products that I come across. And this leads me back to my first political reason for eating meat: to support the farmers who are raising meat in an ethically and environmentally responsible way. With every dollar that you spend on food, you are voting for the food system that you believe in. Twenty years ago, organic food was scarce. Many people did not know what the term “organic” meant. Because of consumer awareness, which quickly resulted in consumer demand, organic food is now a $20 billion industry. Consumers do have the power to change the system. If more and more people use their money to support small ranchers and farmers, more small ranches and farms will be able to survive.

Support farmers like this guy with your food dollars

I realize that Monsanto and other large biotech companies will never become obsolete, but I am certain that if enough people choose to spend their money on ethically and environmentally good food, we will ensure that there is a viable alternative for those of us who do not want to partake in the industrialized mainstream.

I also understand that at this point we enter the debate as to who has the money and the means to purchase environmentally and ethically “good” food, and that is a tricky debate—one that I certainly am aware of, and unfortunately do not have all the answers to. This is a debate that is best suited for another post. (However, you can read some related thoughts of mine that I wrote about in a previous post.)

Ultimately, I think the key is to remember the tomato lesson—that everything is political. The choices we make do affect the society that we live in. It may seem that we have no effect in shaping the system that we are a part of, however, the reason that I can buy organic grass-fed meat from a small farm in Missouri is one hundred percent due to the critical mass behind the food movement—one hundred percent due to the political choices by everyday consumers. Politics seems like a daunting and bad thing, but politics can result in good things also. That is why I hope that if we have the luxury to make a choice, we do so in the most educated and conscious way possible.

The conclusion to my Meat Manifesto is yet to come. I promise that it will be more optimistic and a bit easier to “digest” than this behemoth of a post.

***The first image of this post is from the blog, Surviving the Middle Class Crash, where you can read further about Monsanto and GM crops

Pot Roast and Happy Pigs

I have things to tell you.

I just have not been in the mood to think about food politics lately--and I know that I need to finish telling you about meat. Unfortunately, this discussion gets so political, and I want to figure out a way to discuss the issues without sounding like I am standing on my soapbox screaming into the void.

So for now, a brief anecdote and......drum roll please........a recipe {gasp!}. Yes, I previously said that I do not write about recipes, and I do not intend this to be a recipe blog, simply because there are so many recipe blogs out there in the bloggosphere. However, I have been talking about meat, thinking about meat, dreaming about meat (and cheese, actually), and cooking lots of meat, so I thought that I would share my new most favorite way to eat beef.

First, my anecdote.

Happy animals really, really, really do make wonderful meat. The day before yesterday, Ben and I and two of our friends drove four hours to Ann Arbor, Michigan for lunch. Now, we did not just go anywhere in Ann Arbor for lunch. This was a pilgrimage--a pilgrimage to Zingerman's Deli, the most amazing specialty food shop in North America...in my humble opinion. As my friend Charlie put it, "If I had to spend eternity in any one place, it would be Zingerman's." Yes, it is that amazing.

Not only does Zingerman's import the best of the best of the most amazing food products in the world (think 115 year old balsamic vinegar, for a mere $700 for the 2 oz bottle), but they have a policy that states, "What you see, you can taste" (the only item in the store this policy does not extend to is that 115 year old bottle of balsamic vinegar).

Well, so what does this have to do with happy animals and amazing meat? Well, Zingerman's was one of the first places in the United States to sell Jamon Ibérico when it finally became available in the the US in 2007.

Jamon Ibérico is cured ham made from the cerdo negro (black pig), native to southern Spain. After weaning the pigs, the producers of Jamon Ibérico feed the piglets barley and maize for several weeks before they are let loose to romp around the oak forests of Southwest Spain. During their lives, they mainly feed upon acorns--which are like ice cream to pigs,their absolute favorite food--roots, herbs, and anything else they can forage for on the forest floor. For several weeks before they are slaughtered, they are fed solely on acorns.



The curing process begins by salting the hams from the slaughtered pigs and leaving them to dry for two weeks. The producers then rinse the hams and leave them to dry further for another four to six weeks, at minimum. The curing process for premium hams takes at least twelve months, although some producers cure their jamones ibéricos for up to 36 months.

The result is like no meat you have ever tasted. It is sweet and nutty. The fat on the ham is snow white, and melts like frosting on your tongue. If you ever have a chance to try Jamon Ibérico, I highly recommend it. It really shows you how the lifestyle and diet of an animal affects the way the meat tastes. As I said, these pigs are some of the happiest pigs in the world. They are left to roam free and be social, dig and burrow in the earth, eat and bath in the sunlight. And when that inevitable time for slaughter comes, they are slaughtered in the most humane and least stressful way--a far cry from the way pigs are slaughtered at industrial meat packing plants.


OK, so onto a recipe. A friend recommended that I post the recipe for my new most favorite way to eat beef: pot-roast.

When you are living on a tight budget, rib-eye and New York strip steak are just not a feasible option. Chuck roast, on the other hand, we can work into the grocery list. I strongly believe that it is so well worth it to eat meat far less often, and spend more money on the good stuff when you do. This means asking for 100% grass-fed beef, preferably from a ranch or farm that you know about and have done your research on. A good butcher will be able to tell you where he gets his meat from. So, for this recipe, really try to use only the best quality beef you can find. I bought 100% grass-fed beef raised on a farm in Michigan--I bought it at Whole Foods, for $5.99 a pound. A 4.4 lb chuck roast cost me just about $25.00, but I cut it in half, freezing the other part, which means that dinner for Ben and I was just $12.50, for some damn good meat. And we have the other half of the roast to look forward to another time. So the following recipe is for a 4 lb roast, I used a 2 lb roast and halved the recipe. Just make sure that if you do half the recipe, you use an appropriate sized pot--one that fits the roast snugly and is not too big.

Red Wine Braised Pot Roast
adapted from Molly Stevens' Zinfandel Pot Roast with Glazed Carrots and & Fresh Sage (All About Braising, W.W. Norton & Company, 2004)

Serves 6--Braising time: about 3 hours

A 3.5 to 4lb boneless, 100% grass-fed beef chuck roast

coarse (or kosher) salt and freshly ground pepper

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

2 carrots, coarsely chopped

1 celery stalk, coarsely chopped

2-4 cloves of garlic (depending on how much you like garlic), peeled and smashed

1 cup of robust, dry red wine (only use wine that you would want to drink--don't use 2 Buck Chuck). I have used Cabernet, Malbec, Zinfandel, and Tempranillo, all with fantastic results. Just remember that all the flavors and nuances of the wine are going to be concentrated in flavor in your final roast, so really only use wine that you would want to drink--this does not mean expensive wine, just decent drinkable wine.

1 cup beef, veal, or chicken stock (I always use chicken stock, just because that is what I always have on hand)

A handful of fresh, leafy sage sprigs (about 3-4)

A handful of fresh parsley

8-10 black or green peppercorns


1. Heat the oven to 300 degrees F

2. If your butcher did not tie your meat for you, tie some kitchen twine around the meat so that it holds together in a nice shape that is easy to pick up with tongs.

3. Pat the meat very dry with some paper towels (this is very important to get a nice brown crust). Season very well with salt and pepper, all over. Heat the olive oil in a heavy, Dutch Oven pot. With the heat at medium-hot, add the the beef and DO NOT MOVE it for at least 3-4 minutes. This will ensure that you get a nice brown crust. If you move it around, it will not brown properly. Repeat this on all the sides of the meat until it is nicely browned. Remove the meat from the pot and set it on a plate to catch the juice. If there are any charred bits in the pot, wipe them out with a paper towel, but try to leave the lovely dripping in the pan, because they will add lots of flavor to your roast.

4. Return the pot to medium-high heat and add the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring often, until just starting to brown--about 5 minutes. Pour in the wine, scrape the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to release all the delicious brown crusty bits that were stuck to the bottom. Breath in the wonderful aroma of red wine and browning onions (you must savor this whole process). Boil the wine, and wait for it to reduce by about half--about 6 minutes. Add the stock, return to a boil, and boil to reduce this by about one third--about another 5 minutes. Return the meat to the pot, and throw in the sage, parsley, and peppercorns. Cover with a piece of parchment paper, pressing down so that it nearly touches the meat and the edges of the paper overhang the pot but at least an inch. Cover the pot tightly with the lid. (The parchment paper ensures that the moisture distributes evenly as it evaporates and condenses inside the pot.)

5. Place the pot in the lower third of your oven and braise until for tender, about 3 hours. You should turn the roast over about half way through, but I have forgotten to do this before, and it still turned out OK, so don't freak out if you forget.

6. Remove the pot from the oven. Life the beef out with tongs and set on a carving board with a well to catch the juices, and cover with foil to keep warm. Strain the cooking liquid, pressing down on the solids to remove as much juice as possible. Discard the solids and return the juice to the pot, set over high heat. Let the juices come to a boil and reduce until you like the consistency and flavor--should be about 1-2 minutes. You can adjust the flavor with a little salt or pepper.

7. Remove the strings from the roast and cut into 1/2 inch thick slices. Pour juices over the meat and serve with roasted vegetables and mashed or roasted potatoes. Pass remaining sauce around the table, along with a bottle of red wine--of course. Savor every bite.

**Bonus** Don't forget to make roast beef sandwiches with Dijon mustard, arugula, and blue cheese the next day with your leftovers!!!

Sorry, I don't have a photo--we ate it too fast for me to remember to take any pictures.