Potlikker

John Saturnall's Feast

Set in seventeenth century England John Saturnall's Feast is a swoon-worthy feast for the mind brimming with Lawrence Norfolk's rich imagination,  masterful narrative, fascinating characters, and his astonishing breadth and depth of historical food knowledge that will satisfy the most hungry reader.

John wins a place in Buckland Manor which boasts kitchens rivaling any Michelin Star-rated restaurant operating today after barely surviving starvation and accusations of witchcraft leveled at he and his mother at their isolated village of Buckland. After being run off from their home by villagers, his mother kept him alive by teaching him her foraging skills and by feeding him stories and images of a garden that once existed containing food enough for all. And of the Feast. At Buckland Manor John identifies spices in a pot of broth by his sense of smell:

'Mace... crushed cumin,' John continued. Coriander seeds, marjoram, rue. Vinegar. Some honey and.' His voice trailed off. All four Head Cooks were staring at him. Vanian's black eyes narrowed. 124

If you enjoy Downton Abbey or Upstairs Downstairs this may be your cup of tea because much of it follows John's life 'downstairs' in the kitchen, but John Saturnall's Feast features another perspective as well, Lord Buckland's daughter, Lucretia's, who is most decidedly 'upstairs'. Motherless Lucretia must find her way in Cromwell's England quite on her own when suddenly she finds herself betrothed to a man whom she loathes. She must be a lady at all times, maintain decorum, not marry for love, but is simply a pawn in her father's ministrations.  

Lucretia refuses to eat until her father calls off the marriage and John accepts the challenge to create a dish compelling her to eat. Lucretia and John develop an understanding and he devises dishes in which it appears she has eaten nothing, when in fact, she has eaten a bit. All these years John's kitchen skills have grown rapidly and readers watch as he progresses from peeling potatoes in the scullery to easing stones from peaches in the kitchen, until one day he cooks for the King of England.

Norfolk's ability to have smoke and spices and aromas whisp off the page luring readers by their very nosehairs and pulls them deeper into this world where cookery is a mystical knowledge, cookbooks contain potions and spells, and feasts have the power to balance the natural world. 

    'The Feast belongs to its cook, I told your mother,' Scovell said. 'It was for all, she answered. Those were her last words to me. I understood her nature too late. But she udnerstood mine better. When she left, I believef the Feast was lost forever.' He looked uip at John. 'Then you came.'
    The Master Cook eyed the crowded shelves, the row of gallipots half-hidden in shadow then the low door that connected his chamber to the room beyond.
    'She wrote in her book,' Scovell murmered and it seemed to John that he spoke to the dead women as much as to himself. 'But not on paper with ink. She wrote it in you. And she sent you here. She sent you to me.' 193

So, if you like food, British history, myth, alchemy and witchcraft, this is the book for you.

mindful carnivore

One of the most lovely and thoughtful books I've read all year is Tovar Cerulli's Mindful Carnivore: A Vegeterian's Hunt for Sustenance. What makes it so fantastic, besides his artful writing and reflective passages, is how he describes his journey from dyed-in-the-wool vegetarian into a person (who lives in Vermont) who hunts, kills, dresses, and eats his own meat. In the end his argument is convincing and firmly established.

But, we're not there yet.

In the beginning, like many of us, Cerulli spent summer outdoors fishing for trout, hunting bullfrogs, and carrying a big knife by his side. But experimentation with vegetarianism led him to become vegan and eschew animal products of all sorts by his second decade. He found a woman whose ethics and lifestyle matched his, they married, and they were all set. 

Until... they found a lovely house and started gardening. They had problems with squirrels, then woodchucks eating their crops. He built better fences and tried all logical means of keeping animals out of their garden because their vegetable garden was how they planned to subsist through all seasons (canning, and the whole bit).  So murdering insects made him queasy and offended his ethics. He didn't want agriculture to be so brutal. 

But once Cerulli immersed himself into Earth's cycle of seasons and learned more about deer and the necessity for keeping the whitetail population down--because there are so few natural predators who take them down and keep their proliferation at bay--he understood that sometimes the death of an animal was necessary. And yet, he didn't want to smoke-bomb woodchucks or call in a specialist to kill the deer stalking his corn and other tender veggies. 

Working as a logger for a few years helped soften his mind and heart toward killing of animals as the natural way of things:

Before long, though, I began to se that these deaths were among agriculture's lesser impacts, constituting only a fraction of the story. All it took was a few years working as a logger: work that grounded me in the local landscape and opened my eyes to its history. (41-42)

Then, too, his doctor advised him to add more protein into his diet. Long-term vegetarianism does not do the body any good. I've seen some of those folks, and they look like concentration camp survivors. The vegetarian/vegan diet does not recommend itself, in my humble opinion. But then, I've most always advocated balance and moderation in most everything: Except reading books, and there's never enough time to read; one can never spend too much money on books.

He started small with yogurt, then local dairy and eggs, and moved on to chicken and fish. A visit with an old friend Willie stirred memories of fishing and soon he and Willie hefted rods together. Week by week, month by month Cerulli advanced up the food chain until he decided that it wasn't "so much what we ate that mattered--tofu or trout, chard or chicken--as how that food came to our plates." (67) 

Meal by meal, I began to sense how indebted my life was to other lives, how inextricably intertwined. The blood of deer did run through my veins, and the blood of woodchuck and hare, chicken and trout--the blood of land itself. (56)

The how of "how food comes to our plates" is what the other three-quarters of the book is about: how fishing didn't yield much food, so he turned to hunting. But, he had to qualify for a hunting license, so he went through hunter education. He reflects on the purpose and philosophy of hunter's education and what its emphasis is and what it should be. He talks about the mythology and culture of hunting and guns in America; the complicated place of hunters in American history, and the demographics of hunting and hunters.

Another fantastic addition to the book is Cerulli's feminist analysis of hunting. Having studied feminism in college, he readily deconstructs hunting as a predominately male pursuit and mentions a woman deer hunter with whom he was acquainted whose daytime occupation as a wildlife conservationist was at odds with her pastime of hunting for deer. He never understood this seemingly schizophrenic woman until he began hunting and growing more attuned to nature.

The last few chapters chronicle his time int he woods alone and with hunting partners and they are as much about his growing skills as a hunter as they are about his growing relationship with nature and himself. Being outdoors and hunting is not always about killing the deer but about noticing what is around you and breathing deeply and getting away from what troubles you in your work life or home life.

A few weeks ago after my grandfather had a stroke after surgery, my uncle and I were sitting in the ICU waiting room, chatting about all sorts of things. I asked him when he first went hunting with his dad--the man who was in ICU. And he said that he dad started bringing him along when he was seven but that he shot his first squirrel when he was ten. They brought the squirrel home and Papaw skinned it and then fried it up in a skillet. They ate it. 

Then I asked, "How'd a boy born in Detroit ever learn to hunt?" He laughed about that and said he didn't know. My grandfather likely started hunting when he was in his 30s or 40s when he and his family moved to Tennessee, where my grandmother was from.

But my uncle doesn't get much time to hunt anymore with his work schedule. He says that hunting is his restorative; time for himself to refresh and unwind and just be.

So if you're vegan or vegetarian and you say no to meat or dairy products, you've completely closed yourself off to the possibility of knowing these animals and learning more about yourself and the symbiotic relationship that we have with one another. While reading Cerulli's book I kept picturing vegetarians and vegans as ostriches with their heads buried in the sand. If they don't play with meat or dairy, it will disappear. If they don't buy it, then the producers won't produce it anymore? Is that the logic? Or should you engage with it? I don't know the answers, but The Mindful Carnivore suggested one route after many years of mindful eating, gardening, and hunting. I loved so much about this book and hated when it ended. Look forward to reading more of Tovar Cerulli's work.

I contacted the publisher about receiving a copy of this book for review and they kindly sent me a copy. Just letting you know, so I'm in accordance with the new FTC regulations, but otherwise, I received no other form of compensation. 

urban farm handbook

Naturally the first term that came to my mind when I saw this title was "city-slicker," and that's in this book's subtitle, The Urban Farm Handbook: City-Slicker Resources for Growing, Raising, Sourcing, Trading, and Preparing What You Eat. It's published by my favorite Northwest press, Skipstone. Please, Skipstone, expand your food publishing scope. You're a natural in this subject. 

If you live city-side and can't exactly leave, or don't want to leave--and I can see why you wouldn't want to. Lot's of benefits to city livin: public transportation, the possibility of a smaller carbon footprint because you can walk or bike wherever you need, cultural diversity, diversity of all sorts, really. And a plethora of events to choose from, foods and markets to choose from, too.

But surely, reconciling your urge to live off grid in the nitty gritty city poses a few problems. Like getting around all the crazy ordinances that prevent you from keeping chickens within city limits, which is something that my particular slice of city is dealing with right now. I've written my city commissioners because I want to keep chickens. We have less than an acre. And I investigated keeping dairy goats a few years back, and the guy with the city with whom I spoke wasn't too encouraging, so I didn't pursue it. He asked, "You ain't planning on breeding 'em, are you?" Guess I could move.

Right. We could all move. Wrong. Moving isn't as simple as it used to be. Real estate tanked. Property on the market in my modest neighborhood moulders for 18 months or more. So Annette Cottrell and Joshua McNichols' book was published at the perfect time and offers fantastic solutions for those who feel trapped by their lifestyle, but want a different lifestyle. Basically this book is about going local, and not leaving your city to do so.

Oh yeah, one caveat, The Urban Farm Handbook is specific to the Pacific Northwest, so all ya'll southerners and otherners who read my blog, we're SOL. But, it's fantastic reading. It illustrates Annette's logical progression from locally sourcing each product: Grain, Eggs, Dairy, Veggies, etc. But, a few paragraphs down, I tell how the book is divided, and Annette writes about what fruits and veggies are in season in each section of the book. Naturally that varies somewhat between the PacNW and the Southeast. She includes a sample produce eating plan on page 105, and that's likely wonky for we southeasterners, too. 

Annette (or is it Joshua?) goes deep into soil conditioning, compost, biochar, etc. and how to make the most of what you've got in your small lot or plot. They provide the basics of composting and testing, of course, and that will get most everyone started. Yet, from the very little I recall from my natural resources courses, the topography and soil in that region is very different from here. Welcome red clay soil. Anyway. 

Another cool thing about this book are the producer profiles. Annette and Joshua got friendly with farmers, beekeepers, and gardeners, so readers meet several interesting characters, described as "old hippies or high-tech dropouts". Recipes are included for every section, and I was particularly enchanted by chapters fourteen and fifteen (raising small animals for meat) which give pointers on rendering lard or tallow, a lost skill if there ever was one. And remember, you are what your animals eat. If you eat animals. I struggle with that more each day.

What started this whole "Crazy Bus" project was when Annette Cottrell bore two boys, both with vastly different nutritional needs. When her pediatrician wanted her to supplement with processed, unnatural foods, she researched and built a garden and fed them from the fruits of her labors. She buys cuts of animals from local farmers and harvests fruits and vegetables that she cans each seasons. 

Joshua's story is much the same as Annette's, after the birth of his son, he planted fruit trees, a kitchen garden, and a blueberry patch in the yard of the home he and his wife made together. They yearned to sell out and move to the country, but their jobs had them tied to the city. He met Annette via an online forum and she offered to give he and his family a locavore makeover.

Amazing how children change our lives, isn't it? They change our point of view and turn us into better people who search for alternatives to what we've grown up with or settled for. I feel this way. I choose organic fruits for my daughter. Who knows what food choices were made for me that have contributed to my health issues? I want to save her from those problems. 

What's most appealing about this book is that it leaves a lot of space for readers to use what information they can and cobble together an approach that matches their lifestyles. For example, Joshua talks about how he uses a bread machine to make his bread, but that Annette is hard core. She kneads her bread by hand. 

Beginning with Winter, the Urban Farm Handbook is divided seasonally into four main sections. Annette begins with grains and remarks that she spent $6 for bread at the store made from grains that weren't local, but when she starting making and baking her own bread, after finding a local source of grain, it costs her 50 cents to make a loaf. I know, I'm wondering if either price really captures the true cost of the loaf of bread--the cost of transportation, gasoline, etc.  In chapter two Annette answers the question about whether its cheaper to buy store-bought eggs than to keep backyard hens. I won't give you the answer, but she says 

most of those 'free-range, organic' eggs at at the farmer market-the ones that cost five to seven dollars a dozen- cannot hold a handle to backyard eggs.

Other than all the "specific to PacNW" stuff, there's so much of value in this book that is universal and applicable to everyone, no matter what region you/we live in. Chapter thirteen is all about building food community, and that, my friends, is the most important thing in my estimation. So much rich information within this book, besides this chapter. But it reminds us about the age-old tradition of bartering as a means of commerce. And chapter fourteen "going whole hog" reminded me of a thought I had while at the Southern Food Writing Conference earlier this month. John Guenther of Muddy Pond Sourghum Mill talked about how he and his family raise cows for beef to sell to people (as a side money-making endeavor). I meant to follow up with him about that and see what kind of arrangements that takes, because I want to get away from the big business meat machine.

The end bits include Annette's calendar which makes planning your next year easier. You PacNW peeps will know when to get new chicks and ducklings, when to make herb tinctures, etc. Over a dozen small-font pages of edible plants are listed which makes figuring out what to plant in your small-plot garden easy. And the resources in the back include where to find grains, chickens, goats, supplies for cheesemaking and home dairy, foraging, gardening, beekeeping, food preservation, local farmer markets & csa programs, buying clubs, meat, and soaps and lotions. Those resources are both bibliographic, educational--as in a governmental organization, or a business or trade organization.

The publisher and they sent me a review copy of Urban Farm Handbook. Just letting you know, so I'm in accordance with the new FTC regulations, but otherwise, I received no other form of compensation. 

flag pond ramp festival

May twelfth was the twenty-seventh annual Flag Pond Ramp Festival, but it was my first time attending. They didn't establish the festival until I was a (very young) teenager, so it's not anything my parents would have taken me to as a child. Plus, while I'm technically a Unicoi county native (since all people in Unicoi county not born at home are born in Johnson City/Washington county, TN hospitals), I'm not eager to claim that identity. Oh, it's complicated and suitable for another type of blog, but not this one. And since it's one of those things that kind of happens in my back yard it doesn't seem exotic enough to capture my interest, so I've never been. Also, I asked one my of friends in the know whether it was any account. He said to skip it. Since I delayed in getting tickets to the Lake Eden shindig, we ended up at the Ramp Festival instead and that worked out just as well. 

Would have written about the ramp festival experience while it was fresher in my memory except that Ian had a gallbladder depositing us at the ER early Sunday morning (the thirteenth) and I sat at his hospital bedside all week comforting him and blogging was not a priority.

Nonetheless, the ramp festival was worth the $7 I paid for a plate of the best eating I'd had in a great while. I think that if Ian had made it home from work in time to come to the ramp festival with us and had eaten ramps, he wouldn't have had the gallbladder attack. Oh, the power of the ramp.

Funny, that at my age (40) I had never eaten a ramp. Since they became all the rage in the big city, I have even less desire to eat something so trendy. It's just the way I am, the anti-trendy. My grandfather and I hunted them on several occasions in the forests of Tennessee and North Carolina. He knew several patches. And undoubtedly he offered them to me, but I declined.

As did Elsa when I offered them to her. Folks who eat raw ramps are shunned. The odor is offensive, you see. My father-in-law mentioned that when he was in the reserves that the ramp-eaters were obvious from the non-ramp-eaters. But, cooked ramps are tender and subtle as -- gee-- a communion wafer. 

Seven dollars bought a large plate filled with bacon, ramps and potatoes, soup beans, cornbread, cole slaw, your choice of pickled items, dessert, and a drink.

Elsa is not an adventurous eater. We goad her into trying new things. Ironically she loves soup beans, a food I avoided as a child. We shared a plate. She ate the beans and nibbled the cornbread. My potatoes were half and half: half cooked with ramps and half plain; Elsa ate some of the plain. Both were delicious as they were seasoned with bacon fat. 

She saw the skillet/pile of bacon as we edged through the line and trilled "Bacon... I love bacon..." and the kindly man in charge of the bacon area slipped her two pieces before we received our plate and our serving of bacon.

Seating was limited, so we wandered everywhere before landing on the steps outside the cafeteria. The festival was held in the former Flag Pond elementary school building. Fortunately we weren't too much in the way. Elsa was happy. She made a craft, swang on the swings, and played on the playground. She made friends with the people who stood around us in line. Everyone loves a toddler, especially when she shouts out "My Daddy works in Carolina." And then acts all shy when they try to make further conversation with her. Chatting with folks at festivals is always fun. I absorbed information about ramps being early this year, and even earlier over in North Carolina. 

Ramp festival next year? Sure thing!

girl hunter

Figuring out how you feel about a book can be tough. After complaining about the lack of foraging or hunting books written by women, finally there is one. And so I can be happy, right? Sure thing!

Girl Hunter: Revolutionizing the Way We Eat, One Hunt at a Time fits nearly into the genre of memoir I'm naming "corporate-to-culinary" or "grey suit-to-toque" because there have been dozens of such books published in the past seven or eight years, and likely thousands more untold stories of people who tire of the rat race or were dumped out of it due to the economy, and so have turned to another means of making a living, or reconciling their lifestyle with a sustainable and reconcilable of generating income. 

Georgia Pelligrini participated in the killing of five turkeys while working for a chef on a Rockefeller estate. She butchered the turkey and

the experience awakened a dormant, primal part of me, and more so, it made the kind of sense to me that I could feel deep in my marrow.

She wanted to learn more and connect more intimately with the natural life-cycle of her prey and the seasons.

Eventually she met The Commish, the commissioner of game and wildlife for the state of Arkansas who took her under his wings and introduced her to hunting and fishing in the Arkansas Delta where much of the book is set. She describes the region as one whose demographics are the same as they were before the Civil War.

This is one of those preserved places, its authenticity both inspiring and heartbreaking at once. It is where you make your own destiny and you make your own food. 

The Commish describes how the young  people leave the states which reduces the state income and thus plunges Arkansas further into poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment. She remarks that living off the land is easy when you have no choice. 

Besides the time she spends hunting and fishing in Arkansas she makes trips to other states such as one to Texas for javelina. She's made lots of friends via her blog/website and occasionally they contact her with opportunities to join a hunt. So Jim invited her to meet his family in west Texas and hunt javelina. Then there was the semi-scary experience in Montana hunting grouse with Wilbur, Kurt, and Sammy. 

From the start, I worried about Pelligrini going off with strangers. Of course, since she had a gun and above average butchering skills, I hoped she could protect herself. I'm up for adventure--foraging, hunting, skydiving, what-not, but any person must be careful when meeting people in person they've friended over the internet (although I've had the best of luck with that and invited blogpals for overnights at my home which turned out to be most pleasant experiences).

Oh, and the recipes! Mostly I bemoan the dearth of gamemeat recipes in southern cookbooks. Seriously southern cooks, if you're a bone fide southern cook, then you've dealt with some game meat and you know how to incorporate it.

But. I'm wishing for game meat now. I threw out about a pound of deer steak last year because I had not used it. Pelligrini's recipes are mouth-watering. Poached Dove and Pears in Brandy Sauce. Moroccan Elk Stew. Duck with Cherry Sauce. 

But what I loved most of all was her chapter on squirrel hunting. Apparently--having never eaten squirrel, i didn't know this--squirrel meat is nutty, sweet, buttery, and tender because the adage "you are what you eat" is true. So a squirrel who feasts on acorns is, according to Pelligrini "better tasting than any other meat in the woods." The love of squirrel meat was so great, especially in the eastern US that many marvelous guns were crafted in their honor.

There is so much to recommend this book. I learned a great deal from Girl Hunter, and that's what I love best about a book, that it imparts new knowledge and understanding. 

Pelligrini hops across the pond to the UK to spend Thanksgiving with a college classmate in the village of Ellington where they go on a hunt for woodcock and pheasant. They shoot gund worth $100,000. So several things were interesting here. I learn about aging meat. I hadn't thought about it so much before. But they used to age the woodcock and pheasant, let them hang in, oh a barn or pantry, I guess, until they turned green and their heads popped off, so they had a bit of flavor to them. And then they were cooked and eaten. 

Shooting clubs are common in British schools like debate or sailing. Being a sure shot is an essential skill that making you a well-rounded person. Guns are associated with class and sophistication. Knowing how to shoot demonstrates your high class.

Yet in the USA guns--and we're talking rifles and shotguns, not revolvers--are not associated with high class, they're associated with and the less-evolved backwoods element, think something out of Deliverance and making grown men squeal like piggies.

In the end Pelligrini hopes that if you read her book and follow her journey into hunting and fishing, that you will be inspired to make your a wild journey of your own into becoming a completely different person than you were before.

She makes a compelling case:

I am a more thoughtful eater, a more thoughtful chef, and a more awake human being. I am a fuller woman and in a waym, I am much more like Diana than I ever was... there are even days, stepping out into the morning when I think perhaps that I could rule the forest and the moon. 

hunt, gather, cook

How I wish for a spate of foraging books so I could write about "the spate of foraging books being published." Alas there are two that come to mind that were published this year. The Langdon Cook book I reviewed last month and Hank Shaw's Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast.

They are similar, but different. Shaw covers territory much like Langdon: greens, nettles, acorns, berries. And he feasts on crabs, clams, herring, shad, and other fresh and saltwater fish.

The real difference is that Shaw's book breaks out the big guns and brings the reader along for a philosophically compelling argument favoring hunting, killing, dressing, and eating your kill. Naturally one must know how to shoot in order to kill ones food. Shaw eases readers into it slowly with small game such as rabbit, hare, and squirrel, then advances through the book to deer, elk, antelope, and elk. He follows up near the end with upland game and waterfowl.

And as to guns--before we arrive at the paragraphs where I wax on and on about my gun-filled childhood--I consulted my DH whose abiding interest is guns and asked him to read Shaw's section on choosing a proper gun for hunting and killing your meat of choice. Shaw uses a .270 for everything from jackrabbits to deer, but Ian thought that using a gun that size on a jackrabbit would turn a rabbit to fluff. It's a bit overkill. And he agreed with Shaw's advice about selecting a gun to fit you. But it's easier that Shaw leads you to believe. Buying spacers to put into the gun's stock can change its length and angle and can make any gun fit you.

Shaw argues that the self reliance of killing an animal and delivering it to table outweighs any other feeling you might experience in life. He says

No butchers, no supermarkets, no one telling you what you can and cannot do.

Undoubtedly this appeals to a slew of demographics. Take Generation X for example; I'm talking 'bout my generation. We buck authority. Killing our own game and bypassing the USDA, and the corporate meat industry would appeals to us, no?

Surely it appeals to the locavores? They can't argue with a rabbit shot in their own backyard, can they? There's nothing more locally sourced than that.

I ate up Shaw's book with my greedy, greasy, bloody fingers because guns were ever-present in my East Tennessee childhood. And every chapter he wrote reminded me of tramping along behind my Papaw in the woods when we set off on a day's walk with a quasi-feral Lhaso Apso called Sampson trailing behind.

As a part of the region's recent agricultural past and a necessity for supplementing the diet and scaring off varmints of both animal and human kind my paternal grandfather (city-born in Detroit, Mich., he took to country living easy) and his son, my uncle, hunted deer each season and fished from the Nolichucky next door to their home. Several rifles hanged on a rack in the living room, and Papaw's blue pickup truck featured a gun rack in the back window. He's the same one I've mentioned making venison stew and his own cherry wine in other posts.

As to other gunmen in my childhood, my paternal grandfather, also known as Papaw--I differentiated them as Papaw Ros or Papaw Don, but simply called them Papaw--kept his rifle somewhat hidden on a rack in the hallway between bedrooms of his house.

And my dad had pistols which he taught me to shoot when I asked him to when I reached young adulthood-- though he brought me along for target practice when I was a young thing and I kept my ears covered as he shot. Recently he revealed my keen eye (and hand/eye coordination) to his parishioners during a Sunday sermon and told them ought nobody to mess with me. Always nice for a preacher's daughter to gain a reputation like that in church, right? Especially straight from the preacher's mouth.

Besides private life, guns were present in school. In middle school we received mandatory hunter's education. I forget if it was seventh or eighth grade now, but whether we planned to get a hunting license or not, and gender be damned, nobody was excused from hunter's education curriculum. And here's the kicker: when I went to college for a year in Alaska, the second thing asked of me after checking into the dorm (first was my name) was did I have any guns to register? Um, no. I do now. But then, no. Lots of my schoolmates at SJC hunted. Heck when you hiked or camped taking a powerful rifle was smart because I barely averted rendezvous with bears on several occasions.

I know, this is more about me than it is about Hank Shaw's stellar book. My point is that the foraging movement and the publication of Shaw and Cook's inspiring books make it seem as though the foraging or the food-to-table movement is a 21st century Pacific Northwest discovery. But, if they're the only people writing, blogging, and publishing about foraging, then, in a sense, foraging assumes that association and identity even though the information contained within Hunt, Gather, Cook is universal and applicable to most geographic locales, except, perhaps, the desert and arctic regions.

Being simpatico with the land is centuries old. Surely this century's blossoming of it is thanks to Helen and Scott Nearing. Their book Living the Good Life (1954) and their example single-handedly inspired the 1960s back-to-the-land movement and reading Melissa Coleman's memoir This Life is in Your Hands: One Family, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone, last week helped me realize the real roots of the foraging/locavore and self-reliance impetus we see today. Sometimes those movements skip a generation, or wax and wane. But in Maine, it seems the trend kept on keeping on.

Actually, Shaw points out that feeding ourselves via grocery stores and restaurants erects barriers preventing us from understanding the seasonal availability of fruits and vegetables as well as gaining a true sense of complete self-reliance as far as feeding ourselves and our families. So he ties theories and practices together quite well. Man, he's persuasive. Read this book and it will change your life. He recommends you start slow and not try to fish, hunt, and forage all at once, especially if you're holding down a full time job.

Relying upon grocery stores and restaurants created a generation gap or two or three. Information conveyed from mother to daughter, grandfather to grandson in the fields, forests, gardens, and streams has left many of us without basic skills for understanding how to skin a rabbit, how to kill a chicken, how to pluck a duck (or any other kind of fowl) or what to do with a catfish once you've caught it.

Shaw goes well beyond the basics though and uses his years as a restaurant cook to concoct dreamy recipes for wild game such as Oil Poached Bluegill Salad with Summer Veggies, Swedish Moose Meatballs, and Wild Duck Ragu. If you've followed the blog for any amount of time, you've no doubt read my criticisms citing new southern cookbooks for their dearth of game meat recipes. Shaw's Hunt, Gather, Cook receives honorary membership in the southern cookbook genre for its plethora of game meat recipes. In fact, no southern home or public library should be without Hunt, Gather, Cook. 

In these troubled economic times (I could smack myself because I hate that warbly reference when I hear it on radio) more and more families should turn to foraging, hunting, fishing, and hey, why not even keeping their own chickens, too, in order to stave off hunger and to keep costs down. But more so, to bolster self-esteem, to boost self-reliance, and to re-ignite the independent spirit our country was founded upon, she blogs somewhat tongue in cheek, somewhat, not. Wink. Wink.

forage me this--fat of the land

Should you stumble upon Langdon Cook's blog, Fat of the Land--which centers around his foraging of flora and mostly aquatic fauna in Washington-- or encounter any of his writing in Outside, Gray's Sporting Journal, or other publications where his work appears, you're in for a rare treat. Several months ago that was my luck and then when I discovered a book based on his blog was published by Skipstone, I contacted them to ask for a review copy and they kindly obliged and sent their catalog which is filled with impressive titles, most of which focus on Pacific Northwest topics and therefor aren't particularly useful to someone living in the loamy armpit of Appalachia as I sometimes identify my locale.

But enough about me.

Cook's prologue sets up how his foraging began-- ostensibly to impress a woman would did not eat at McDonald's. And then each section of the book progresses seasonally. Within each section he includes one flora to three or four fauna, as a general rule. Beginning in winter Cook covers razor clams, squid, and stinging nettles and provides a recipe for each.  His coverage of each topic is thorough and he addresses each with context such as description, history, and in the case of the razor clam, how we can blame the Grandmas for their overharvest and depletion given the gentle clam's ubiquity at the dinner table. Nowadays the digging season is limited to less than a month with a limit of fifteen clams per day. Cook's description of the clam makes the mouth water. He describes them as six inches in length and as the "King of American comfort food."

Having spent a year by the sea, I know little of ocean creatures, and now I hold Cook responsible for much of my education on the subject of squid. In "Doin' That Squid Jig" I learned how to fish for them, how they move and communicate, the basics of their anatomy, a brief history of squid fishing, and Cook's recipe for Risotto Nero Con Calamari.

Each chapter was beautifully written as Cook interwove past with present and anecdote with fact. His facility with words tickled me and when he used chockablock on page 121 I was smitten. While he stars as main character in each foraging adventure he gives center stage to his friends and to fisherfolk and foragers alike from whom he takes advice, advises, or fails to communicate with altogether through no fault of his own.

Yet, as the tob-billed figure in the book, Cook never presents himself as the expert or as the person with all the answers. He references books and other people. As he embarks on each adventure he prepares to fail. Sometimes he does so brilliantly, or merely half-fails, captures a partial limit. But he tries again, perfects his technique, and refines his skills. He never quits. And so this is one of the strenghts of Cook's essays: there is no perfect foraging form; it's all free-style. 

Endowed with Cook's rich penstrokes, or keystrokes as the case may be, Dave and the homeless men who questioned him about taking their "dandy lions," and Cora and Lori, and Steve in his XXX wetsuit, and Trouthole, Warpo, and everyone else leap off the page into your lap and leave their ashy (in the case of the morel-hunting Coras from the burn site) residue, or seawater in the middle of you living room.

Reading Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager reminded me of my childhood in some ways. My Papaw Don took me foraging for ramps and we spent long afternoons together in the woods with a quasi-feral Lsha Apso--don't ask. Don made cherry wine, cooked venison stew from deer he hunted, gutted, and dressed himself, and showed me how to nail a catfish to a tree and strip its skin away from its flesh with pliers. After bringing it inside to the kitchen he breaded it in cornmeal, tossed it into a cast iron skillet, and fried it. He was a cook in the Navy. He cooked from scratch while his wife, my mamaw used a lot of boxed and canned goods, which I find perplexing.

Cook's chapter "The Inhuman," describing how he dove for Ling Cod, stabbed, and caught one, took me back to my summer working in Alaska as a seafood processor. Fortunately I worked most of the season on the frozen side and saw quite a few Ling Cod come my way. We worked twelve hours shifts and god so slap happy at times the puns fell from our mouths uncontrollably when Ling Cod was on the line: "Oh my Cod!" There were more, but I've since forgotten. It was long, long ago.

Ultimately Cook's book inspired me as well. Dandelions. I have dandelions in my yard because I don't use chemicals to treat my lawn, and his description of dandelion encrusted bread tickled my fancy. I encourage Elsa to blow the seeds into our yard all the time because a proper yard interests me not. More foraging for me, for us, actually. Elsa loves the outdoors. My plan was always to have her hiking, camping, canoeing. Now, it's to have her identifying plants, foraging, picking berries, mushrooms, etc.

heartland

"Midwest comfort" doesn't roll off my tongue. Does it yours? Nor is there a liquor by that name. But if you call the midwest home and you know its comfort and feel a fondness for its landscape then you can appreciate how a place and its foods grips our hearts, minds, stomachs, and ultimately, our bowels. Heartland by Judith Fertig is a thick walnut of a book whose photography and recipes cover twelve states: Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska. 

Incidentally, I'll take this opportunity to be straightforward in outlining my minimal midwestern cred: My grandfather was born in Detroit and his people were from Ireland and Germany by way of Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. My husband's parents are from Ohio and I've visited parts of Canton and Cleveland and sampled those regional cuisines (they are not foreign or peculiar at all--the cuisines, that is). Likewise, I've traveled thorough the midwest and visited all the twelve states except for Michigan, Minnesota, and the Dakotas.

People love land, community, and what those tings represent and Fertig's introduction ties recipes and traditions to foodie trends such as artisan bakers, micro-breweries, and charcuterie. She also looks to midwestern literature and draws from scenes in My Antonia to illustrate the role food plays in the work of regional authors.

Fertig organizes the book traditionally into pantry, breakfast and brunch, breads, appetizers and drinks, salads and soups, main dishes, and deserts. And then her end matter includes resources, permissions, credits, metric conversation and equivalents and an index. 

This is another lovely coffee-table type book that's too nice to bring into the kitchen and cook from. It's perfect to browse and drool over, and the photography by Jonathan Chester and Ben Pieper contribute to the book's overall excellence. Some of the more eye-catching recipes are home-rendered lard, egg pasts, bacon-infused vodka, no-knead clover honey dough, clover honey challah, farm girl cosmo with rosy rhubarb syrup, and the garden gimlet with fresh herb syrup.

This reminded me a great deal of Cider Beans that I reviewed in November simply because both books embody a "new" regional cooking and not the traditional regional cooking that we associate with that region. One of the sections that I loved in this book was the section on foraging. 

If you've been living under a rock the last two or three years, foraging--or wildcrafting as I've always known it as---has made a come back. There was an NPR story late last month. Fertig's book includes a section on foraging that features the Omaha tribe and their traditional foraging of elderberries, pawpaws, wild greens, ramps, morels, and hickory nuts.