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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Carole Peck on Sustainable Agriculture and Eating in Season
  • Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 12:37:23 -0600


Carole Peck on Sustainable Agriculture and Eating in Season "The more you
know food and the more you work with it, the more you like to have seasons
for things.... Let us have what we can have only for a season, let food be
appealing."

Everything Edible in Its Own Season
http://www.carolepeck.com/Editorial/carolepeckonsustai/
An interview by Karen Berman reprinted from The New York Times

Over the last few decades genetic engineering, faster transportation and
better preservation technology have dramatically transformed the nation's
food delivery system, making more varieties of produce available to more
places throughout the year.

Not everybody, however, sees this as a positive development. In the
culinary world, chefs and others are beginning to bemoan the loss of
variety, flavor and nutrition that have accompanied the new technology.

One such chef is Carole Peck, a graduate of the prestigious Culinary
Institute of America and owner of Carole Peck's Good News Cafe in Woodbury,
Connecticut. Ms. Peck has been a trend setter at Le Pavilion in New York
and in kitchens in Hilton Head, Austin and Miami, as well as at her own
Cafe Greco in New York and Carole Peck's restaurant in New Milford. In
1992, Food Arts magazine named her one of the nation's top young chefs, and
Eating Well magazine included her on a honor roll of eight chefs from
around the country. In 1993, she was one of four chefs from among 900 to
cook for the Julia Child Cookbook Awards gala.

In the following interview, Ms. Peck shares her thoughts on the nation's
food production system and how it affects the way we eat:

Q. Thanksgiving was created to give thanks for the harvest at the end of
the growing season. But now the growing season never ends -- you can eat
strawberries when there's snow on the ground. Some chefs are questioning
the wisdom of that. What's going on?

A. The more you know food and the more you work with it, the more you like
to have seasons for things. I get very excited when fiddleheads are only
here for a short time because that's the only time I have to use them. I
don't want to see things like that being cultivated or farmed because after
a while you lose your appreciation of the taste. There are more and more
chefs now who are taking that reversal: Let us have what we can have only
for a season, let food be appealing, let us forget about asparagus when
they're not in season. Let's not try to have them all the time. In the '80s
everyone was looking to have the unique thing, the most different kind of
vegetables; everybody wanted to pay the highest price and have the most
extravagant kind of thing. Nowadays we have all tightened our belts
somewhat and, by tightening our belts, realized, "I don't need to have
these extravagant things out of season."

Q. Is there an ecological factor in this move to eat foods that are in
season and locally grown?

A. I think for some of us there is. I was a child of the '60s and I grew up
in that whole era when we were starting to think ecologically. I know
people will say you're not helping commerce if you don't buy vegetables
from New Zealand or if you don't buy from California in the middle of the
winter. But at the same time, we also have to think about transportation,
all that fuel and energy we waste, and the packaging involved. It's become
too much influenced by corporations -- the loss of different varieties of
fruits because people say, "Oh no, now the Delicious apple travels much
better than the McIntosh." Or the beans now: They're mechanically able to
pick them, it doesn't bruise them, and they have a much longer shelf life.
They've got a bean that's much tougher. People have given up the sense of
taste and variety for the convenience of having it a lot of the time.

Q. How does this fit in with the movement called "sustainable agriculture"?

A. Sustainable agriculture is trying to promote local farmers so they can
maintain their farms and continue to cultivate their land. The problem is
we've lost a lot of our farmlands here in Connecticut. Sustainable
agriculture helps us take back the land, use it again in a productive way,
and start offering products that are grown locally. When you take an apple
that has been picked in the morning or the day before, as opposed to one
you're taking out of cold storage that's been in Oregon and has been
trucked across the country, there's a whole difference in the taste of the
apple. That's the immediate thing you're going to find. But also as the
food breaks down from sitting, you get just a different kind of nutrition.

There are a lot of people out there trying to offer things that they grow
on their family farms and these people have to be supported because, once
they disappear, we're stuck with vegetables that look fine, but where is
the taste? I give these people so much credit because it's not such an easy
life. At the same time, the farmers I know have a real sense of self worth
and accomplishment.

Q. I would bet most residents of Connecticut aren't aware of the variety of
foods produced here. For example, I've read about a pork producer in
Litchfield.

A. I use him exclusively. We have chicken farmers and, of course, eggs. You
can still buy whole cows and they will have them slaughtered and butchered
up for you. There are venison, pheasants, quails. There are quite a few
people who are doing sheep. Quite a few local farmers do a lot of variety
from all your greens to your lettuces, your tomatoes, eggplants,
cauliflower, basically every spectrum of vegetable. I have one woman in the
spring, I get currants from her and all kinds of berries. She does peaches,
apples, she does some pears and then maple syrup in the winter. There are a
lot of people doing all kinds of seasonal things to make their farms work
all year long. In the fall, I use a tremendous amount of local stuff:
Squashes and quinces and apples and pears and cider. It's interesting to
see that you can still maintain supplies late into the season.

Q. Let's talk about that. People praise innovators like Alice Waters of
Chez Panisse; her menu is local and seasonal all year round. But that's
California. How do you manage in our climate?

A. In our climate, we have to find ways to supplement. When it's potato
season, between the farmers' barns and my cooler spaces in the cellars, we
try to hoard stuff away. It's the old system of having root cellars. You do
it with cabbage, with squashes, with potatoes. My winter menus reflect
those kinds of foods.

Q. And in summer at the height of the growing season, do you use 100
percent local produce?

A. Yes. It's definitely possible.

Q. How about winter?

A. In the winter, it probably goes down to about 40 percent. I have to
offer variety. You can't say, in a restaurant, "Well, you can't have that
because it's out of season."

Q. I would think that's just a fact of modern life. You can just hear the
people saying, "What's wrong with strawberries in February?"

A. Well, strawberries in February, I have to agree with them. They come out
of Florida and they're pretty good. What I don't agree with is going to any
length to have something that looks like a strawberry but really doesn't
taste like one.

Q. You are known for cross-cultural cuisine. How does that fit in with
sustainable agriculture?

A. It's easy. When you start to know the cooking of different cultures,
there's a lot of similar dishes. It's using ingredients that are locally
grown in dishes and styles of cooking that are foreign.

Q. What can the home cook do to buy and eat more locally grown foods in
season? The supermarket is often the easiest place to shop.

A. We're not asking people to go out foraging in the woods, but we are
asking them to be a little aware of the things that you can do to improve
what you're eating. It's a conscious effort. It doesn't just happen
overnight. People have to give up a TV program and maybe go in the kitchen
and do something that will be useful for them for a week's worth of food.
Once you get into it, it's amazing the pride you have in yourself. It can
be very simple things: You can take a great head of lettuce that you got on
your way home from work at a local stand and some pears, and make a
wonderful salad. It can be beautiful.






  • [Livingontheland] Carole Peck on Sustainable Agriculture and Eating in Season, Tradingpost, 07/17/2005

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