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 Topic: Eat Local Foods Coalition of MaineThe new items published under this topic are as follows.
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There are many wonderful white foods that grow in Maine -- pearly sweet corn, nutty parsnips, the flesh of a tart apple, good milk and cheese -- but winter specifically features two Maine heavyweights in this color group: potatoes and scallops. Potatoes come in many colors, but the classic white fleshed varieties (with buff, brown, or red jackets) are what I think of for making mounds of fluffy mashed potatoes so prevalent on holiday tables this time of year.
We actually eat only the opalescent grey abductor muscle of the scallop organism (of the Pectinidae family), but we rarely get to see the other bits (such as the bright red roe). You know when they're cooked because they turn a brilliant milky white. Although dragged scallops are available year-round, winter is the season for diver scallops that, when hand harvested by careful fishermen, are sustainable, sweet, and grit-free by nature and don't contribute to the destruction of the ocean floor. Troquet, a restaurant in Boston, currently features these pale but mighty Maine ingredients in a single dish to delight our winter taste buds.
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Warmer waters in November may feel like a Florida vacation to a lobster, allowing them to hang out in the shallower coastal waters to catch a few more rays. Normally the lobster families are packing up their summer cabanas and heading to deeper waters this time of year to escape the rapid decent in coastal temperatures. Along the way they have tended to stop for a bite to eat in many of the "free" netted diners along the way, ending up on your and my dining tables. October and November have recently been a boon to lobstermen, but not this year. Whetever the reason, combining the lower hauls with the spiraling cost of diesel fuel and bait and the question arises: could these Maine symbols of freedom and self-sufficency be on the same path as the Marlboro men?
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As if we need an excuse...the Belfast Coop and Food For Maine's Future have challenged Mainers to cook at least one meal this month using 100% local ingredients as part of their Eat Local Challenge effort in 2007. While we may not have the summer bounty of fresh tomatoes, sweet corn, and green beans that we relish from our own garden or local farm stand, we do have lots of tasty and wholesome Maine food to choose from this month, whether it's an entire Thanksgiving feast, or a quiet family dinner (MPBN audio story) on a weeknight. So look a little closer at the "source" labels at your favorite food store this month and take the challenge. You may be surprised to find out how good it tastes to eat only Maine food for an evening.
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The Maine Cheese Guild is opening their doors to the public this Sunday, October 7th, to show off the high quality of cheeses that earned them 17 ribbons at the 2007 American Cheese Society competition. "Cheese lovers from New England to the West Coast were greatly impressed with the wide array of artisan cheeses being made in Maine, and this Open Creamery Day is a way to celebrate the harvest season and the bounty of Maine cheeses available," Guild president Jennifer Betancourt says. From Brooksville down to Westbrook, Maine's superior climate for grass and dairy animals is featured in cheeses from simple chevre and Jack to "world class" European styles of cheese are made and sold.
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Camden becomes the center of Maine's food universe this weekend - September 14th through 16th - when Maine Fare lights the pilot light and starts cooking with gas. The festival includes marketplace exhibitors, presentations, panel discussions, cooking demonstrations, book sales and signings, and fresh local food everywhere. It will kick off Friday night with "Tastings," a MOFGA fund raiser that features lots of Maine food and drink served by some of the best chefs in Maine who feature local food on their menus every day.
And that's just the main event! In addition to the marketplace activities and presentations, a series of special events will complement the festival:
- Professional-caliber cooking classes provided by local chefs in some of the most lovely venues on the Maine coast.
- Special dinners offered at some of the finest local restaurants.
- Three guided tasting events with Maine handcrafted food products: Maine's Beers, Breads, and Sausages; Maine Wine and Cheese; Maine's Smoked Seafood and Spirits.
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Gad-Zukes!
Posted by: erector2 on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 04:34 PM |
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Swimming in zucchini yet? Discovered an anonymous basket of these large dark green fruit left on your doorstep last night? It's a shame that this fast growing gourd gets such a bad rap because when young and lightly cooked (pan-fried with some onions or shallots, then tossed with cultured butter and sea salt) it can provide a light and nutty counterpoint to many of the other big summer bumper crops. The secret when growing them is to grow ONE plant., no more than two, and harvest daily. Once the bounty swells into firewood worthy sizes (seemingly overnight), there's not much they're good for except doorstops -- even hogs have a hard time getting excited about dining on those logs. However, between tiny and too big, zucchini is a very versatile ingredient in many clever dishes: chocolate zucchini cake? Actually it's very moist with a grassy tone that mellows out the bitterness of the cocoa.
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Clam Dance
Posted by: erector2 on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 04:16 PM |
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Anyone who went to the beach (ocean or fresh water) in New England knows what a fried clam is: oddly shaped, alternately soft and chewy, a hot savory nugget that spreads a sweet- salty sea breeze across your palate. Properly made out of soft-shelled clams (never "clam strips"!), they are THE oceanside lunch in Maine (and someways south), as important as lobster has become for a visitor's plate after dark. Maine clams and other shellfish have had a rough time the last few seasons, but they never go out of style, and now the NY Times samples clams on the way up to Portland. That kind of survey misses many prime spots in Yarmouth, Searsport, Bucksport, as well Bar Harbor and beyond. But that's OK -- most Mainers know where to find good clams, and at least north of Portland we won't have to stand in a long line for them.
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All year we wait for the big three -- corn, beans, and tomatoes -- to come into season so we can savor those strong flavors of summer, and now they're finally here by the bushel! If you haven't already been overwhelmed, head to your nearest farmers' market as soon as possible. All three are best enjoyed at their peak as the star of their own show: sweet corn on the cob with butter and salt; steamed or sauteed green beans with butter and a quick squirt of lemon; thick slabs of sliced tomatoes seasoned with salt, pepper and maybe a few wisps of chopped basil. After gorging on these classics you can mix things up in the spirit of the season by grilling your corn and beans: soak the corn with its husks in water for an hour, then put the whole thing on a hot fire; toss green beans with olive oil before grilling. Tomatoes don't grill well, but for variety with them they can be served at the end of the meal, as well as at the beginning: why not try tomatoes as part of your dessert?
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Cheese makers of the Maine Cheese Guild won 17 ribbons including six blue ribbons for first place in their category at the 2007 American Cheese Society (ACS) Competition. Ten of the participating Guild cheese makers won at least one award. The judging took place at the annual ACS Conference, held in Burlington, VT this year, and included a record 1208 cheeses entered from 200 North American cheese producers making this the largest US cheese competition in history.
The winners from Maine competed in a broad range of categories and styles using cow's, goat's , and sheep's milk, several of them organic. Because the competition provides useful feedback to cheese makers from the judging in addition to the chance to win a nationally recognized award for their efforts. This is the first year that the Guild organized as a group, with help from the Maine Department of Agriculture and other supporters, to generate as many competition entries as possible, which resulted in over 30 entries from Guild members up from 5 entries in 2006.
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Raw Power
Posted by: erector2 on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 07:31 PM |
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Raw milk has achieved a cultural milestone: a puff piece in the NY Times featuring pictures of smiling New Yorkers (including babies!) in soft focus pictures admitting to risking "illness or even death to drink their milk the way Americans did for centuries: straight from the cow." Illness or death? That's how I would have described the risk of participating in one of New York's more celebrated events: the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest on July 4th. Actually, shouldn't that tag line be applied to the act of eating ANY foods from China at the moment?
Maine is one of the 26 states that allows the regulated sale of raw milk, as is New York. It's great to see people who are interested in learning more about their foods, how they are processed, and making their own choices about what to eat. It's also nice that fluid raw milk is largely a local food because it has a shorter shelf-life than pasteurized (or ultra-pasteurized) milk. But it's unfortunate that we still approach raw milk (and lately any raw food like spinach) as if it's nuclear waste. Pasteurization alone doesn't make food safe -- proper handling at every processing step makes food safe, whether it starts out raw or cooked. But given this constantly reinforced fear of raw products, one publicized incident where a raw food is blamed (justifiably or not) could cause our government regulators to outlaw this and every kind of raw food in the name of food safety. Salad greens from small farms are in danger of disappearing from store shelves because a gigantic greens processor in California had a hiccup in their quality control. Raw apple cider (and other fruit juices) were outlawed a few years ago, which drastically changed the Maine food landscape forever. Despite (or because of) the positive attention it has lately received, could raw milk and raw milk products be next?
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One test of an idea's success is the appearance of serious arguments attempting to refute that idea. Although it might seem hard to argue against the idea of supporting local food, that's exactly what has been proposed in an op-ed article in the NY Times by James McWilliams. McWilliams points to an academic study by researchers at Lincoln University in New Zealand questioning whether the food miles traveled by New Zealand products are as harmful as the environmental impact of ALL agricultural practices including distribution, what McWilliams calls "life cycle assessments." The only example used in the article is that lamb produced by the "clover-choked" pastures of New Zealand, then shipped frozen to Britain generates much less carbon dioxide in its production than grain-fed lamb grown in Britain. Of course that assumes that no New Zealand lamb is ever fed grain. And it ignores lamb in Britain that is raised primarily on pasture. The fact that the authors of the study are from a New Zealand university might also cause one to pause while digesting this information.
Critical analysis of the stated benefits of buying locally are important as we continue to argue for a wider adoption of this practice that we feel benefits farmers, consumers, and the environment. But assuming that the numbers hold up, that's just frozen lamb shipped by boat. Anything that's flown from New Zealand (fresh lamb, seafood, fruit, vegetables, etc.) could not be said to have a lower environmental impact than the local equivalent no matter how much better their cultural or harvest practices. It also ignores the fact that most food around the world is grown using equivalent practices (or worse in the case of recent Chinese products!). Comparing apples (shipped 11,000 miles) to apples (grown locally), it's hard to point to any agricultural practice that might justify the long-distance version. In most every case, the benefits of buying locally are demonstrable and obvious.
The best thing about buying locally is that you have a better chance of talking to the food producer to ask them questions you might have about how the food was grown and where it was transported from. It's almost impossible to get a frozen leg of lamb from the other side of the earth to speak -- it must depend on others to speak up for it.
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Summer Blues
Posted by: erector2 on Wednesday, July 18, 2007 - 06:23 PM |
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They roam just off-shore along the Atlantic coast in wild packs, terrifying and/or devouring other marine life that finds itself in the wrong place at the wrong time. They are piranha-like in their ravenous intensity, and have been known to nibble on a human swimmer or two. They are energetic fighters at the end of a rod and reel -- fun to catch if you can hold onto them. They are also delicious to eat. They are bluefish and they come to Maine waters every summer along with the warming ocean water: wriggling silver bundles of hunger who have dark rich flesh that grills well, and tastes better marinated with sharp notes like citrus or soy. The trick is to cook them super-fresh, no more than three days old, filleted right after being caught to avoid the "oily-ness" they're sometimes known for. They taste like the the deep dark summer soul of the ocean.
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From August 2nd through the 4th, participants at the Kneading Conference in Skowhegan will learn about growing and harvesting grain, processing the grains into flour, and mixing and shaping doughs made from the flour, and the many different ways wood fired bake ovens help produce mouth-watering crusty artisanal loaves. Beyond these useful skills is a larger idea: the Kneading conference is meant to be "a way to bring the cycle of food production back to a small circle that fosters ecological and community sustainability," Amber Lambke -- one of the conference organizers -- said. "At the center of this idea is the need for partnerships between farmers, millers, oven builders, bakers and community members."
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Maine is one of the few states that will license and allow the sale of raw milk to the public through retail stores. This has stimulated a flourishing artisanal cheese making scene in Maine because there are many sources of high quality raw milk. It also gives consumers the same choice about what kind of milk they would like to drink as they have when they buy a cut of raw meat -- rare or well done? We can control our food and the risks associated with them based on basic information like who produced the food and how. Despite what some government agencies would like you to believe, there is no such thing as 100% safe food. Who thought they could be poisoned by toothpaste, after all? Meanwhile, in an effort to reach the mirage of 100% safe food, government agencies and large food retailers would prefer to reduce our choices about what we can eat. A symbol of this "Large Food" movement has surfaced in one of the most hallowed sanctuaries of flavor: the tiny hamlet of Camembert in Normandy, France.
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Bit By Bit
Posted by: erector2 on Tuesday, June 19, 2007 - 03:03 PM |
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Land is the most important component in our ability to grow food now and into the future. You can't grow crops or livestock without it. In addition, we need access to the waterfront to harvest seafood from the ocean: docks and piers for vessels, and beach front for access to shellfish beds. However the best soils for farming are also the best soils for building homes, and waterfront land is most valued for development fetching prices ten and a hundred times more than land away from the water. Brunswick has just announced that it has secured 168 acres of shorefront property on Maquoit Bay, land that will be permanently protected from development and will double the city's public access to the waterfront, thanks to a number of grants including money from the Land for Maine's Future. This brings the total of Maine's coast protected by this state program to 25 miles so far, which is only one percent of all Maine's extensive coastline.
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In our late efforts to reduce our use imported petroleum, many are turning to agricultural crops as alternative sources of fuel and other products we use petroleum for, such as plastics. But when our agriculture has mostly been asked to feed us and now may be expected to fuel our economy too, it could be a zero-sum equation. Corn prices have doubled over that last year with the rush to ethanol production, and this is driving up the price of food that uses corn as a raw material (eggs, milk, meat, as well as things made with corn sweeteners for example...).
We've already had people work on turning potatoes into ethanol for fuel as well. Now potatoes are being turned to provide polymers for plastic. This is seen as a boon for potato farmers, and the initial intention is to use waste potatoes (a grade that never makes it into the food stream): "This could open up a whole new value-added use for potatoes," said Amanda Sears, associate director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center. "The potato-based plastics industry won't take away food, but it can utilize the waste."
What if this becomes successful -- will we need to dip into the food grade supply? How will this affect policies favoring agriculture intended to increase local food production? How will this affect our ideas about low-impact sustainable agriculture if it's more important to replace foreign oil in the short term?
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"Food Miles" is a new term describing the distance an ingredient has traveled before you serve it as a meal, and more people are coming to the conclusion that we are using too many of them. A famous Cornell study discovered that the ingredients in most meals served in the US had travelled an average of 1,200 miles to the plate. That figure may be as high as 1,800 miles here in Maine because we are not centrally located. In these times of rising fuel prices, sourcing our food more locally not only gets us fresher and more tasty ingredients, and not only supports our local community's economy, but it may also help reduce our dependence on oil -- what a bargain!
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Rhubarb-O-Rama
Posted by: erector2 on Wednesday, June 06, 2007 - 02:22 PM |
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Those funny red and green "celery" stalks are in abundance right now, their giant leaves propped above the lawns of many Maine homesteads, and the cut and washed stalks can be found in almost every farmers market. It's tart but fruity, and mixed with a little sweetener turns into a powerful punch of flavors converted from spring sun and cold rain. Rhubarb pies and crisps are a New England classic, and Susan Loomis's Farmhouse Cookbook features a brilliant and simple rhubarb cake recipe that has become an instant classic. But this funny fruit also pairs well with meat: roast pork with a rhubarb sauce is wonderful, and salmon shines alongside poached rhubarb.
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Legend has it that poutine -- french fries covered in gravy and cheese curds -- was invented in Montreal, although it's pretty clear that whoever created this "unholy mess" (une maudite poutine) was French Canadian because it can be found on menus in many parts of Maine with a French Canadian heritage. All of a sudden, however, poutine is turning up farther from Quebec as a novel indulgence -- perhaps by way of Dysart's Restaurant in Hamden? Most notably New York City has fallen for this "mess" in a big way, which also means it has begun to morph into dishes that native Quebequois might not recognize: with strips of fried pork belly added; with Stilton cheese and a red wine sauce; with Marinara tomato sauce; and -- only in the Big Apple -- tarted up with fois gras.
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Maine meat producers should be giddy with anticipation of a very good year: the NYT reports that high quality beef has become so scarce that some steakhouses are closing early and even limiting reservations because they are having such a hard time finding good cuts, even when they are willing to pay more for them. A hard winter in other parts of the country may be one of the factors, but overall it's the price of corn rising 60% over the past few months that is putting a crimp on feedlot producers who depend on cheap corn for their critters. Because most grain is imported from distant suppliers Maine's cattlemen are less dependent on grain for feed than they are on our high quality pastures to fatten up their stock, so their margins stand to soar. In addition, an increased interest in grass-fed beef has led to more farmers moving completely away from grain to qualify for the higher prices in that market which may go higher as the cost for all beef rises.
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"A root with a face only a mother could love," celeriac (or celery root) is a bulbous knobby tuber amid a tangled mat of hairy roots prized for its nutty flavor and ability to absorb and elevate sauces when raw or cooked. Most farmers market customers normally reach right over this ugly duckling to reach for a glowing tomato or basket of greens. Some chefs can't get enough of the root, literally, and are trying to convince Maine farmers to add it to their acreage. Last year Skylandia Farms up in Aroostook County grew 500 pounds on a whim, and sold it (through Crown of Maine Organic Cooperative) in a week! This year he'll have 10,000 seedlings in the ground before long. Fans of this funny root include Brian Hill of Francine Bistro in Camden who adds celeriac to his "Root Cellar Gratin" whenever he can get it.
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First Time, and now the Times have turned their gaze to the growing movement of Locavores: people who make an effort to buy their food from local farmers whenever possible. We do this to reduce the energy necessary to transport food long distances, to support our local communities by keeping farms in business and keeping dollars closer to home, and we do this because it often tastes better.
The biggest knock on eating local is that it costs more, which is true only if you compare apples to orange soda. The national attention on eating locally is timely because the Farm Bill is up for it's five-year renewal, and so much of what is written into the Farm Bill affects how and what we grow, and therefore it controls our food options. Over the last thirty years this has meant more processed food made from a few commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton) grown on highly mechanized gigantic farms far away from our population centers. Can we do better? Cheap grains make cheap carbohydrates (soda!), and cheap grains feed animals to make cheap meat. Can we blame the commodity crop subsidies offered in the past Farm Bills for the loss of farming capacity in Maine, where we don't grow large amounts of these crops?
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The concern about our disappearing honey bees is growing, and the scientists are scrambling. Theories about why hives are emptying at an alarming rate abound: pesticides and herbicides, new viruses or fungal infections, genetically modified pollen, al Qaeda plots, invasive foreign predator wasps, even microwave radiation from cell phone towers. Twenty-seven states have been hit by this mysterious "colony collapse disorder" already (plus parts of Europe, Central and South America), and the snow is still melting in a big portion of the fruit producing states, most of which require pollination by insects. Signs of hives infected by new pathogens are being discovered, but scientists wonder whether other factors are weakening the bee's natural immune systems and that has allowed the infections to spread. How much food can we produce without the help of these wonder workers? What would Maine food look like without apples and blueberries (both highly dependent on bees for pollination)?
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Although the overall temperature of the Earth appears to be rising, instead of an equal rise in temperature, it appears to be causing climate changes around the globe. In Maine if any trend could be blamed on climate change, it might be a shift to the cool and wet springs we have experienced over the last few years. This is unfortunate for our local greenhouse businesses, which have anticipated better weather (normal weather?) than we've been getting lately (more snow anyone?) and are suffering for it.
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Are three better than one? Suddenly there are THREE Farmers Markets set to open in Augusta this season. The Augusta Farmers' Market at the Turnpike Mall will begin its 10th year at that site on May 23; the Farmers' Market at Mill Park is set to run May 1 through Oct. 30; and Larry Morse will anchor a Friday Market on Mount Vernon Avenue, which had been located at the former Edwards Mills site for the past four years.
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Somerset County produces more syrup than any other county in the United States, most of which comes from operations deep in the north woods along the Quebec border accessible only by logging roads. The Lariviere brothers -- profiled in the PPH -- started working in their family business by emptying buckets of sap into a horse-drawn tank which was evaporated over wood fires. Now they monitor miles of plastic tubing that link tens of thousands of trees to central collection tanks for sap that is concentrated by reverse osmosis before being boiled into syrup. Together the brothers produce 5% of all of Maine's 300,000 gallons of maple syrup on their 900 acre lease helping to make Somerset County the number one syrup producing county in the US. Vermont as a whole produces 130,000 more gallons of syrup than Maine according to the latest statistics, and they also sell more of it (30% vs. 3%) retail while most of Maine's syrup is sold in bulk, which may be why Vermont is better known for maple syrup.
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Not mass-produced miso (which is a fermented grain paste used in Japanese and other asian cuisines), but miso that has been made in Conway, Massachusetts for the past twenty five years at South River Miso. South River makes 11 kinds of miso that are fermented up to three years in traditional cypress vats. One of the varieties, a dandelion-leek brown rice miso includes Maine sea vegetables. South River miso’s fresh ingredients and texture add a "multidimensional flavor" to miso soups and other dishes according to Mike Berard, chef de cuisine at Asia Nora, an organic restaurant in Washington. "It’s not a bland, uniform paste," he said. "You can still see the chunks of beans and grains. It’s the best out there, hands down."
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It appears that the invention of the wheel might have started during celebrations when people feel compelled to toss wheels of cheese and watch them roll. Part of the Easter celebration in Siena (Italy) involves a competition of people who launch a wheel of Pecorino cheese with a leather strap around the walls of the city. The winner gets to keep the cheese, although I'm not sure the extra flavor it picks up from the cobblestones and when it wedges under a nearby Fiat actually improve what they started with...
Meanwhile, Belfast will be celebrating their Celtic heritage this July 19th - 22nd, and one of the featured activities will be rolling an 8-10 lb round of Gloucester Cheese down a steep hill. It's expected to end up in the Bay before anyone can catch it, which should wash a bit of the sand off their prize.
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UPDATE: The Other port city took home the silver slice of cake Sunday night...and Anthony Bourdain provides a cheeky review of the evening's festivities (don't say I didn't warn you...).
The Food Network will be serving silver pieces of cake at their first Food Network Awards ceremony, to air at 9:00pm on April 15th, and Portland is one of three finalists for "Delicious Destination of the Year." They are pitted against the OTHER Portland (in Oregon, which is named after Maine's largest city!), and Minneapolis for this title, and although the ceremony was taped in February, the winner's name has not been leaked. "Not only do they take advantage of their amazing seaside bounty," Sussan Stockton of the Food Network said about the Bayside city, "but they have developed a system of local farmers, bakers, creative chefs and foodies who keep raising the bar on the quality and diversity of their offerings."
It should come as no surprise given the number of other food awards and citations that have come to the Portland food scene:
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Feast on Easter
Posted by: erector2 on Wednesday, April 04, 2007 - 11:18 AM |
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Since Easter occurs immediately after the Lenten fast, it's no surprise that much of the celebration revolves around food, and lots of it. Sheep breed only seasonally, so lambs always arrive in the spring, and along with the whole "lamb of God" idea, this has become the meat of choice for Easter celebrations in most Christian cultures. Although Maine's lambs tend to be born a little later due to our long winters, many Maine shepherds try to arrange to have lambs ready for Easter, when they get the best price.
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Eggs are an ancient symbol of rebirth, so it's not a surprise when they show up on the Seder table, or out in the lawn with a colored and decorated shell. So spring is also egg season: the increase in day-length naturally stimulates the hen to lay eggs in preparation of raising a clutch of chicks through the summer. Chicken egg production -- without the help of artificial lighting -- peaks right now, levels off mid-summer, and then drastically declines as the shorter fall days turn to winter. Some chickens will continue laying eggs through the dark winter, but much less frequently than now. Other domestic birds only lay in the spring, or stop laying eggs completely in the fall.
Given this surplus of fresh eggs, we should celebrate -- regardless of our religious ideas. A soft-boiled fresh egg from a chicken that is allowed to scratch for some of their food outdoors is a revelation: a tender white surrounds a molten glowing orange yolk full of the rich herbal flavors of plants and insects the hen has foraged. Those who prefer hard-boiled eggs are also rewarded with those grassy highlights in whatever is mixed with the chalky yolk. Just make sure you cook your eggs in a way that avoids creating the bitter green sulphurous ring around the yolk.
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It's almost certain that the lambs blood used to mark the doors on the first Passover was locally produced, and it's nice to think that most traditional Passover dishes can be made with Maine-grown ingredients in April (although who wants to roll out their own matzoh..?). Latkes, or potato pancakes, are a good unleavened example of this: potatoes, eggs, and a bit of flour fried into a golden-brown greeting of spring and giving thanks for freedom in a better world. But don't limit yourself to potato as the vegetable of choice in these fried treats -- recipes for fried pancakes come in a great variety.
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Out of 5300 miles of coast line in Maine, only 175 miles have the combination of deep water access and shelter for moored boats, and of that only 20 miles are currently publicly available -- down from 25 miles in the '90s -- and this "working waterfront" continues to shrink as all waterfront property values skyrocket due to private development pressures. Meanwhile, the declining wild stocks of fin fish in the Gulf of Maine make it easy to justify turning a working wharf into a hotel or luxury housing.
The Maine Legislature is currently trying to halt the loss of Maine's working waterfront, and insure that it will be available to the seafood and marine industries in the future. A bond to help this effort will have it's public hearing on Tuesday, March 27th at 1:00 pm in Room 228 in the State House. Out of 5300 miles of coast line in Maine, only 175 miles have the combination of deep water access and shelter for moored boats, and of that only 20 miles are currently publicly available, down from 25 miles in the '90s and this "working waterfront" continues to shrink because all waterfront property gets more and more valuable for private development. The Maine Legislature is currently trying to halt the loss of Maine's working waterfront, and insure that it will be available to the seafood and marine industries in the future. A bond to help this effort will have it's public hearing on Tuesday, March 27th at 1:00 pm in Room 228 in the State House.
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While college basketball fans wonder who will win the national championship in March, Maine food fans sometimes wonder where their favorite flavoring comes from and how it is made. Thankfully, March also brings us Maine Maple Sunday, which is March 25th this year, when you can drive most anywhere in the state to see that sweet golden stream oozing out of the previously dormant forest and into the sugarhouse. Just make sure that the sugar solids range between 66 percent and 69 percent of weight at 68 degrees!
This season's weather has been a bit odd, and the sugar has been slow to flow -- even Governor Baldacci had a dry tap when he drilled into one of the Blaine House sugar maples Tuesday to highlight the upcoming Maple Sunday event. "Right now, we should have been into two or three boils," said Ron LaRue in Mount Vernon this week, admitting he had only completed one so far. Mike Smith in Winthrop agreed: "Right now it's slow. It's discouraging because if we get a warm spell, the buds may pop. And once they come out, the sap has an off-flavor to it."
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Maine's new Ag Commissioner, and Newport potato farmer, Seth Brandstreet has made a splash by announcing that Wal-Mart will now feature 10-pound bags of potatoes with the "Get Real. Get Maine!" logo as part of a statewide campaign to urge more purchasing of local produce. Officials on-hand at the Waterville Wal-Mart where this campaign was announced said that Hannaford and other grocery chains will also participate by labeling potatoes as well as other produce like milk, apples, and Backyard Beauty tomatoes.
One of the biggest challenges for consumers devoted to buying local foods is determining which foods are grown locally," Bradstreet said when explaining why emphasizing the use of the Get Real, Get Maine logo would be important.
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Although Irish Soda Bread (which is related to our native Brown Bread) seems to be the focus of many food pages this week, nothing says "St. Patrick's Day" at the dinner table better than a boiled dinner (except green-dyed beer, perhaps, which is neither natural, nor really food...). It's especially appropriate because it comes at the end of Maine's storage food season when much of what is left in the cellar would be cabbage and root vegetables and salted meat. It may be plain and simple to prepare, but the combination of a corned beef brisket (or a hunk of pickled pork) boiled with some good vegetables somehow combines into a savory supper that perfumes the kitchen and dining room with the true scent of "home cooking." The only thing that could make this easily achieved 100% Maine-grown dinner any better would be a dollop of stone-ground Raye's Mustard from Eastport on the side, preferably their Aroostook Gold variety. Yes, indeed.
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From the press release (copied in full through the link below):
"The Oxford County Ag Group is sponsoring three public meetings for consumers, service providers, farmers, or anyone that is interested in the future of agriculture in Oxford County. The third meeting in the series will be held on March 12th at the Molly Ockett High School in Fryeburg at 5:00 pm. "
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Wintery Mix
Posted by: erector2 on Wednesday, February 28, 2007 - 10:35 AM |
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Sometimes the term "chowder" is applied to the kind of Maine weather we can expect in February on or off-shore, but no one is quite sure how it came to define the bone-warming and soul-filling seafood soup that New England is famous for serving. Every Every Maine fishermen has their own fog busting recipe based on using the scraps of their catch that didn't sell (probably the same way that Mediterranean fishermen invented bouillabaisse). The world famous No Name restaurant still serves a version that fortified generations of Boston seamen as they waited out chowdery weather. Sam Hayward, chef at Portland's Fore Street Restaurant, offers an inspired version using the sweet and tasty little Maine Shrimp that are now in season.
By far the best description of what true New England chowder is and how it got to be that way (most NE'ers would call the Manhattan version "tomato soup" *) is in John Thorne's magnum opus Serious Pig (see the chapter titled "Family Tree"), which includes the following recipe published in the Boston Evening Post on September 23, 1751:
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At the same time that Whole Foods has opened its first store in Maine, and that Whole Foods has made an offer to purchase its largest competitor (Wild Oats, which also has a store in Portland), the huge marketer of natural and organic products has come under increasing scrutiny for its business practices and whether it has been "straying from its roots" and is "lagging behind [its] leading shoppers."
Co-founder and CEO John Mackey has admitted that "Whole Foods needs to do a better job of helping local growers sell directly to our stores" but also points out that Whole Foods is committed to making their customers happy. He is not concerned about the recent slide in the company's stock price because he is committed to long-term value and not the short term focus that he feels Wall Street over-emphasizes.
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Bad News Bees
Posted by: erector2 on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 - 10:55 AM |
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Imagine that when your apple tree blooms this May that you will have to get on a ladder and pollinate every flower in order to have a chance to get fruit. But before you climb that ladder, first you need to find another variety of apple tree and harvest enough of that pollen to use on your tree. Ready? Go!
Thankfully bees and some other insects do the bulk of this work for you, which is why the apple and blueberry farmers in Maine will make sure to have bee keepers bring hives to their fields and orchards when they flowers. But bees have been stressed recently, for a variety of reasons, and bee colonies continue to die at an alarming rate, so it's getting harder for farmers who depend on bee pollination to find those hives. "Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food," said Zac Browning, vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation. What happens if there's not enough bees to go around in the future?
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It must be the frigid weather, but suddenly and simultaneously the food pages are filled with recipes for spaghetti with bolognese sauce (BGlobe, NYTimes, SFGate), something that can advantage of many Maine winter crops such as canned (or fresh!) tomatoes, beef and/or pork, garlic, and dried herbs. Substitute a nice potato gnocchi for the spag, and you can really put the Maine in this yummy and warming winter main dish.
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With or without an heirloom bean pot, our cold and snowy weather is the perfect time to enjoy a mess of smoky sweet baked beans. The NYT offers a short-cut (two hours of cooking instead of ten) to enjoying this Maine heritage dish, but if that's still too much of a commitment you can always open a can of Portland brick-oven baked B&M beans to enjoy a warming plate of stick-to-your ribs food. If you can invest the time into putting a pot on the back of your cook stove all day/night, you might enjoy trying some of Maine's many varied varieties of dry beans, too.
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Now that the weather's turned cold, those sweet and tasty Pandalus borealis have appeared in the Gulf of Maine and are available to purchase, often out of the back of a pickup truck by the side of Route One, announced with a handmade sign. Although small, these shrimp usually have much more flavor than warm water shrimp, and can be a highlight of any seafood dish, whether you cook them yourself, or you enjoy them at a restaurant that features local food whenever possible, like the wonderful El Camino in Brunswick where they recently served them Cuban-style, with jalapeño, chopped, lime-juice-marinated onion, garlic, cumin and tomato over black beans and rice. The best part of getting them fresh from the boat (via those pick-ups) is that you get them head on and the females still have roe stuck to their legs, both of which add tons of flavor to stocks, soups, and chowders.
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While lobster stocks remain strong -- perhaps because fewer ground fish are eating the lobster fry -- larger boats are looking for fewer fish, and the smaller boats running out of smaller ports like Stonington are finding it hard to even make a bowl of chowder, much less support a family. The NYT has published a look at the state of Maine's seafood industry, profiling the Penobscot East Resource Center and many of the Stonington based fishermen who contribute to their efforts to bring back a healthy groundfish resourse.
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Chef Dan Barber bemoans the state of agriculture that has been shaped by the U.S. Congress's past farm bills: not only has it been bad policy (70% of farms lost to bankruptcy or consolidation over the last century), but "the food that we grow on 200 million acres of harvested cropland is inedible."
As Congress prepares to address a new farm bill for the next five years, Barber offers his suggestions from the viewpoint who cares deeply about the quality of the food and the people who produce it:
- reward diversity over yield
- tie any subsidies to plant and soil health
- establish insurance discounts for farmers who practice environmental stewardship
- discourage long-distance shipping
- recognizing each region’s agricultural strength
- certify all satisfactory state meat inspection programs
- ENFORCE country of origin labeling
- makes ag corporation internalize the costs (environmental, social) they impose on society
- ensure more money for things like the Conservation Security Program
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If you like Maine Potatoes, you've got to love the Holiday Season because besides the ubiquitous call for the mashed version of this very Maine vegetable, Hanukkah means latkes -- fried potato pancakes. At their best (golden brown, lightly seasoned, crispy on the outside and pillowy on the inside) they are an addictive reminder of how potatoes were a marvellous discovery. There are as many different recipes for the BEST latkes as there are families that celebrate the festival of light, but they all feature spuds (well, almost all) mixed with eggs and grated onions -- here is the NY Times latest, here is the Boston Globe's version -- and are usually served with sour cream and apple sauce. But do you grate raw potatoes, or cook them first? Do you soak the potatoes in water? Do you squeeze after grating? There's no better way to start an arguement among latke lovers than to ask, "what is the best way to make them?"
Meanwhile, Hugo's chef Rob Evans annually explores every other method of serving Maine's emblematic tuber at his special Potato Dinner.
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Surimi Scam?
Posted by: erector2 on Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - 04:27 PM |
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Is Alaskan chopped and formed pollack that is dyed red simply "lobster flavored" seafood, or is it "imitation lobster"??? The FDA had insisted on the latter label in the past, but that appears to be changing, which would allow Alaskan fish processors to be a source of "lobster flavored" seafood all of a sudden, to complement their "crab flavored" product universally known as "imitation crab" or "surimi"
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From the KJ article:" In an Olympics-style ceremony, a new generation of rock star chefs displayed their medals to enthusiastic cheers, claps, and whistles from the audience. "Months of careful planning led to this Monday night awards potluck feast. Mt. Blue Middle School teacher Weslene Marble, Western Mountains Alliance's director Tanya Swain, and University of Maine at Farmington's Community Health students Jasmine Brooks and Alyce Cavanaugh pooled their expertise to educate students about eating healthy locally grown foods."
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When the 80-foot freezer ship, American Freedom, arrived in Portland harbor Thursday morning directly from an overhaul in the boatyards of Norway and Poland, it signaled the latest phase in Maine's relationship with it's rich but troubled fishery. The vessel is meant to work in cooperation with smaller trawlers, allowing them to target abundant stocks of herring and mackerel and deliver their catches to the freezer ship at sea, and could provide local fishermen with a much needed new market.
Meanwhile in Washington, D.C. the federal governement contemplates updating the Magnuson-Stevens Act which governs how fish are managed in federal waters, within 200 miles of shore. "Whether we are talking about a 300-year-old fishing village in Down East Maine or remote fishing outposts in Alaska's Aleutian Islands, we must be bound by a thoughtful balance between sustaining both fish and fishermen," said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine during the debate.
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Maine cheese continues to gain attention, this time in a BDN article reporting on the work of the Maine Cheese Guild.
From the article: "The industry has mushroomed," said Shelley Doak, the Maine Department of Agricutlure's director of the division of animal health and industry. As for the cheese, she credits the guild as "a bright, competent, energetic, enthusiastic group that is really fine-tuning the artisanal cheese industry and putting Maine on the map. It’s very exciting if you think of the quality of the products. They have found a niche market that literally adds flavor to the quality of life in Maine."
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The NY Times semi-annual fashion supplement, "T Style", features an article about Four Season Farm in Brooksville, where Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch demonstrate that wonderful and varied crops throughout the year in Maine, especially through the winter. Their pioneering techniques in cold weather agriculture have launched a thousand hoophouses (literally), and put a smile on the faces of many chefs seeking inspiration beyond those important storage crops during the snowy months.
Speaking of meat, the same writer -- Heidi Julavits -- also describes her experience purchasing a quarter share of a beef animal from a local (Aldermere Farm in Rockport) farmer, especially her adventure using up some of the odd bits that came along with the hamburger and steaks. She achieves success with various "round" cuts, but founders on the heart, however, which is a shame because when cut into inch-sized squares and marinated in balsamic vinegar with thyme, then quickly sauteéd and served with a bitter green salad, she would have been very happy with that part.
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Fall is the time in Maine to harvest root crops for storage: carrots, beets, potatoes, and rutabagas (but leave the parsnips in the ground for a sweet spring treat). These vegetables together with cabbage crops form the backbone of great hearty winter meals, especially when roasted to bring out their natural sugars. Recently, more farms have been building larger root cellars to store these crops for local sale through the winter, in part inspired by programs organized by the Western Mountains Alliance who want to encourage more Maine farmers to focus on local customers.
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Maine Fare in Camden got a scintillating start on September 15th when ticket-holders to the Tastings dinner that kicked off the weekend celebration of Maine Food were treated to a ten course tasting menu composted almost exclusively of Maine grown food. For this fundraising dinner that benefitted MOFGA, nine Maine chefs were challenged to create dishes using 100% Maine grown ingredients to be paired with beverages created from 100% Maine grown ingredients. Even the salt and (red!) pepper on the tables were produced in Maine.
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A weekend festival celebrating Maine food -- Maine Fare -- will be held in Camden September 15 - 17. The festival will begin with a dinner Friday night hosted by MOFGA called "Tastings" which will feature Maine chefs cooking dishes that feature 100% Maine grown ingredients. That will be followed over the weekend by a Maine Marketplace at the Knox Mill, as well as cooking demonstrations, seminars, tours, and talks all over Camden.
"This is a really great start to what I hope will be an annual festival," said Warren native Brian Hill, chef at Francine Bistro in Camden, who will cook for "Tastings" as well as hold a cooking class on Sunday. "There's such a great food movement here, and it only gets attention a few months of the year. We want to show that the exuberance goes on all year long."
There is potential for the festival to become a national destination in future years, according to organizers. "Come to Maine to follow the food map," said Nancy Harmon Jenkins. "Then go home and tell all your friends how good life really is in Maine."
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The Maine Lobster Promotion Council has decided that Maine lobsters need some new bling: a plastic bracelet that announces that this "Certified Maine Lobster" actually came from Maine. Yesterday Governor Baldacci officially decorated the first lobster with the tag to kick off the program. Afraid that the term "Maine Lobster" is headed the way of "Kleenex" or "Jello" by becoming the generic name for any Homarus americanus, the council trademarked the term "Certified Maine Lobster" and devised this tagging program that can by used by any Maine lobster dealer.
According to the AP story covering the announcement, the Council is right to be worried: "As it is right now, the general term of an American lobster is a Maine lobster," said Kevin Weber, executive chef at the Cliff House, a famous seafood restaurant in San Francisco. In the same article other lobstermen don't know what the fuss is all about: "...there's no better lobstah around than lobstahs from New Hampshire," said Bob Nudd, a lobsterman who fishes from Hampton, N.H.
UPDATE -- New Hampshire fishermen have now officially weighed in on the subject: "There is a difference between Coke and Pepsi. But there is no difference between these lobsters," says Erik Anderson, the head of the New Hampshire Commercial Fishermen's Association. "They don't do anything different. They don't do anything more in the state of Maine versus any other place to enhance the taste of the lobster."
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Pull a carrot out of the earth, wash it in a little water, and it's ready to be steamed, go in a salad, or drop into a stew. It takes a few more critical steps to move a meat critter from farm to fork, which has always been the challenge of accessing local meat, especially for restaurants looking for high quality fresh cuts of meat. Because a chef can't easily point to a cow and say, "I'll take that one," some farmers often have no other option than to sell their animals into livestock auctions where "grass-fed" and "organic" means little, the farmers are paid a commodity price, and the resulting meat carries no label that indicates how or where it was grown.
The NY Times reports that despite disappearing slaughterhouses, a small group of New York farmers, butchers, and chefs are cooperating to establish viable distribution systems for getting high quality local livestock through the maze of regulations, logistics, and processing hurdles so fresh local meat can be featured in local restaurants and retail shops.
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In a conversation with Michael Pollen, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey has promised to prioritize purchasing from local farmers "out of the back-door" at all 184 Whole Foods stores (which now includes Portland's Whole Grocer). The San Francisco Chronicle reports this news while analysing how Whole Foods lives up to the promise of "Locally Grown Food" currently printed on their bags. In the Bay Area, where almost any item could be available locally in July, the Chronicle counted between 17 and 40 different locally sourced items in area stores. Only 10 locally sourced items were counted in a New York City Whole Foods store.
Meanwhile the Boston Globe charts the influence of the "locally grown" message in central Massachusetts, where more and more people are supporting local farms.
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Despite strange rains and recent violent hailstorms, 135 blueberry growers who participated in this year's annual field day at University of Maine's wild blueberry research facility in Jonesboro agreed that this year's berry harvest "should present a strong, above-average crop come August." The constant supply of moisture, despite being over-supplied at times, is credited with sizing up a good number of green berries already on the shrubs.
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Flying through the air, actually, carried by millions of bees who are pollinating apple orchards, blueberry barrens, and raspberry canes right around now. Most of these bees are actually tourists (MPBN audio archive, requires Windows Media Player...) travelling up from the South (primarily Florida) where they have gotten a head-start on developing their colonies to reach a dynamic capacity of 40,000 to 60,000 bees per hive. Maine raised bees are still building their hives because of a later start.
Even though most bees are tourists, they are making Maine honey, and the NY Times now reports that "single flower raw honeys" are a hit with chefs and gourmets these days. Perhaps this summer we'll see a raw Machias blueberry honey at a farmer's market soon, or enjoy a dish prepared with Aroostook raspberry blossom honey.
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Gardeners and farmers who planted lettuce and radishes and greens seeds in late April should now be reaping a bumper crop of leaves (heads will need a little heat before they form), especially given the gray and wet whether which these plants don't seem to mind. This calls for creative menu planning when a simple salad with dinner does nothing to dent the supply. Lettuces can be boiled to wrap meatballs, or braised in chicken broth. Radishes can be improved with a dot of soft butter and sprinkle of sea salt (plus a cold beer if one wants to go all the way). My neighbor is overwhelmed with arugula right now, and has taking to braising the greens with a touch of white wine as a side dish. The recent NY Times food section offers her a Bean and Salt Cod Salad With Arugula and Capers as another means of enjoying this taste of late spring.
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Three existing Portland Public Market vendors have announced that they will be moving to a new home on Monument Square in anticipation of the PPM building being sold. Maine Beer & Beverage Co., K. Horton's Specialty Foods, and A Country Bouquet will join former PPM vendor Borealis Breads in a new space that was formerly occupied by the Surplus Store at 28 Monument Square. "Wine, beer, cheese, bread and flowers. It's a great nucleus of products to build on," affirmed Maine Beer & Beverage Co. owner Bill Milliken.
Is a mini-Public Market better? Is it worth investing State money to make happen? Maine's Department of Agriculture has awarded the Portland Downtown district a $20,000 planning grant, a step toward relocating the public market concept to Monument Square.
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"I think the farmers' market movement has failed consumers in not making it possible to buy everything they need for Saturday night dinner," claims Nina Plank, former director of New York City Greenmarket, and present director of two new "hybrid" markets in lower Manhatten that will offer products that weren't specifically grown and produced by the vendors. NYC's Greenmarket, like most of Maine's Farmers Markets, has strict rules about the origin of the products being sold at their markets, insisting that they be grown by the people selling them with limited exceptions for bakers and the creation of processed products that incorporate the farmers' produce -- like the sugar in fruit jams may not be local, for example, but the fruit is grown by the producer.
This new "hybrid" market will expand the idea of a "food web" to encompass the entire Northeast, as well as allow "food artisans" to offer scratch made from other farmers, using local ingredients whenever possible but would not rule out a handmade guacamole made with local onions and peppers as well as avocados and limes from California, for example.
Should Farmers' Markets offer more than strictly local items? Would that attract more customers?
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Fiddleheading
Posted by: erector2 on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - 10:11 AM |
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If you time it right, just as the last of your winter squash turn black with rot, and that row of parsnips you left in the ground is gone, tender green things begin to poke out of the ground: the first (and best) dandelion leaves, wild onions and leeks (ramps), and here in Maine there are the fiddleheads. These aptly named shoots of the ostrich fern are found in rich wet spots along roadsides as well as on the banks of streams and rivers. They provide a welcome flavor of warmer weather to come, as well as much needed cash for those who pick them by the hundreds of pounds. Luckily they seem to be able to tolerate our annual wild harvest, so with any luck they'll remain a reminder of a time before tractors and supermarkets.
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Fiddlefest, Slow Food Portland's Spring Food Festival is going to be held Sunday, May 21st from 5-8 pm at the SMCC dining hall overlooking Willard Beach in South Portland. Ten of Southern Maine's best chefs will be preparing spring dishes for sampling, there will be fiddle music, a silent auction, activities for kids, and more.
Tickets are available beginning May 4 at the following locations: Rosemont Market, Standard Baking, Aurora Provisions, and One Fifty Ate
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Maine is poised to battle through another heavy season of Red Tide affecting the state's shellfish industry this spring. Red Tide refers to spring blooms of an algae that normally lives well offshore but can be pulled close to shore where shellfish will feed on them. It doesn't affect the health of the shellfish, but the algae produces a nerve toxin that can kill humans who eat those shellfish.
Last spring an unusually wet spring created perfect conditions for spreading Red Tide throughout the New England coast. This spring has been exceptionally dry so far, but other conditions have favored an enormous bloom of the algae, and shellfish beds have already been closed in Southern Maine.
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Larry's Pastry Shop in Ellsworth will close for good on Friday after more than 50 years of providing crullers and community for the community. "It's not just the product people go in there for," a long time customer says in a BDN article. "It's the people, it's the banter." Co-owner and daughter of founder Larry Pelletier, Launa Picard points out, "a good product, a fair price and a kind word are never going to go out of style."
But, as more locally owned food businesses close, while chains like Dunkin Donuts and Tim Horton's expand, what will our food choices look like 50 years from now?
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Looking somewhat like red-veined green aliens emerging from pods below the earth, rhubarb has started popping out of the warming soil and should be abundant in Maine backyards and Farmer Markets. This unusual vegetable that's treated like a fruit (in pies and cakes) can also be featured in untraditional dishes like soups and stews.
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Johnny's Selected Seeds in Albion and Winslow will be sold to its 120 employees in an effort to maintain its ties to the state and provide employees with a dependable future. Founder and current owner (with his wife) Rob Johnston, Jr. has been pondering his and the company's future for a while in light of no clear succession path and other sale options that could jeopardize the company's future in Maine. The solution he decided on was to offer the company directly to the employees.
"We could have been very generous and just handed it over and said give us a job, " Johnston said. "But I think an owner has to pay a proper price, so they appreciate what they have."
Johnny's Selected Seeds sells a variety of hardy vegetable, herb, and flower seeds to home and commercial growers around the US from their Maine facilities where they also work developing new varieties of vegetables, some of which have won prestigeous breeding awards.
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Soil Sorority
Posted by: erector2 on Tuesday, May 02, 2006 - 10:36 AM |
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"Maine Women: Living on the Land" is the title of a new book, DVD, and photography exhibit that is touring around the state, currently at the Hudson Museum in Orono through May 26th. It's a profile of ten women who work make things grow in Maine: Betty Weir in Cumberland, an early member of MOFGA; 90-year-old Sylvia Holbrook, a dairy farmer in New Vineyard since 1932; Mary Philbrook speaks of an ancient connection to the land as the first woman Micmac tribal chief; Jenny Cirone, the daughter of an island lighthouse keeper in South Addison who pastured sheep on nearby islands; and more. They describe a hard but fulfilling life spent in a close relationship with the Maine Land. The exhibit moves to the State Capitol in June, then will be shown at the College of the Atlantic in October.
The book and DVD are packaged together and published by the Farnsworth Museum.
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"Cage Free" has become such a selling point for eggs that industrial Maine egg producers have decided to liberate some of their layers. Two of Maine's largest egg producers, Radlo Foods and Dorothy Egg Farms (who currently produce 100 million dozen eggs a year between them), have teamed up to convert some of their traditional chicken barns -- where 80,000 layers live confined in stacked wire "apartments" (as David Radlo refers to them) -- into a single-layer "cage-free" henhouse for only 20,000 birds who have to be taught to lay in nesting houses that line the walls.
"It costs a lot more to put chickens in a house, rather than an apartment complex," Radlo says in the KJ article linked above. "But if the market wants it, we're going to produce it." Although most of these "cage-free" eggs are Boston bound, there's hope for Mainers: "I want to sell eggs as close to the source as possible," he said.
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The Bangor Daily News has a good article highlighting the current shortage of large animal veterinarians that support Maine's current livestock farms. Lack of access to vets puts livestock farmers at risk. Although state and federal efforts are being made to address the shortage, time is running out.
"I think that is the root of the problem: people are so disconnected from the farm," says one of the few remaining farm vets, Dr. Peter Caradonna in the article. "They are just not aware that as farms are lost, the companion services - livestock dealers, farm machinery dealers, vets - are also lost. Eventually, it will be their local food supply that will be lost."
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Maple Madness
Posted by: erector2 on Thursday, March 16, 2006 - 04:23 PM |
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"March Madness" in Maine means maple syrup -- the high school boys and girls basketball champions having been crowned already. Sunday, March 26 will be Maine Maple Sunday in 2006 when sugar makers around the State open the doors of their sugarhouses for the public to join them in their rites of spring - making maple syrup. So whether you like it over a stack of pancakes or a bowl of snow, get out and celebrate how sweet the end of winter can taste.
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Valerie Jean's, An American Bistro is a new restaurant overlooking the Piscataquis River on Main Street in Milo. Chef and co-owner Melissa Ettinger landed in Milo after cooking 10 years at Clay Hill Farm in York, Maine, and she is committed to offering good food made from local produce. "I want to give them the best they've ever had at a really good price," Ettinger said in a BDN article. "Everything we do here is done the best we can possibly do it, mostly from scratch."
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"Mustard" at the Olympics in Turin often referred to style moves by the athletes, like the infamous board-grab that cost snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis a gold medal. But Raye's Mustard of Eastport grabbed the gold at the 2006 World-Wide Mustard Competition in Napa Valley, CA with their Maine-made Downeast Schooner, voted top Classic American Yellow Mustard.
Raye's Mustard Mill is North America's only remaining traditional stone-ground mustard mill, using a process developed in Europe during the Middle Ages that grinds mustard seeds and spices between two Maine granite mill-stones to produce the richest, creamiest mustard anywhere in the world. In addition, Raye's is producing one mustard made ONLY with Maine-grown seeds, a first in the industry.
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The Associated Press highlights the recent growth and high quality of Maine cheese in an article comparing the recent interest in local artisan cheeses as "reminiscent of the boom in microbrewed beers in the 1990s.."
Caitlin Hunter, owner of Appleton Creamery and president of the Maine Cheese Guild is quoted in the article saying, "People are getting more sophisticated about the foods they eat," Hunter said. "It's reflected in artisan breads and artisan beers and artisan wines. Twenty years ago there weren't artisan breweries or vineyards or lovely local bakeries like there are now."
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FOX television celebrity Homer Simpson feels so strongly about Maine Potatoes that he had "Eat Maine Potatoes" tattooed on his arm in a recent episode of "The Simpsons." This kind of passion for Maine spuds must have contributed to the record prices paid for the 2005 crop.
"Any time you can get that kind of recognition for any product, it's substantial," says Maine Potato Board Executive Director Donald E. Flannery, who insists the Board had nothing to do with this colorful endorsement.
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Wal-Mart has announced that it will source all of it's wild-caught seafood from sustainably managed sources, as certified by the independent Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). As Wal-Mart is one of the largest buyers of Maine lobster, Maine Public Radio just ran a story on how will this may affect one of Maine's signature products, which has not yet received the blue "eco-label" of certification from the MSC.
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FedCo has long been known in Maine as a seed (plus trees, bulbs, and growing supplies) company that takes great pains to offer varieties that grow well in Maine; or to tell their customers when a variety may NOT be best suited to the Maine climate, but why you should try to grow it anyway (melons of any variety come to mind in my garden...). Now their cooperative vision of great seeds growing great food is being spread beyond the Piscataqua River, as this profile of the company in the Boston Globe demonstrates.
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Maine wineries lobbied in Augusta to allow shipments of up to 24 cases of wine per winery to consumers in Maine. "If you are going to save the family farm in Maine, you have to give us a chance," said Stephanie Clapp of Cellar Door Winery in Lincolnville. According to a KJ article, Steve Linne of Blacksmiths Winery in South Casco said his business could grow by 30 percent if Maine allowed these shipments as many other states already do.
Meanwhile, in Freeport Maine potatoes are now being turning into super-premium vodka and being marketed nationwide. "It has a subtle sweetness, from potato sugars that can't be fermented. And the finish is very, very smooth," according to Bob Harkins, CEO of Cold River Vodka. They currently convert about a million pounds of potatoes into 7,000 cases of the vodka, which retails for $31.99 for a 750ml bottle.
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According to Crown of Maine distributors as well as Farm Fresh Connection there is already more demand for storage crops (onions, squash, garlic, carrots, beets, etc.) -- except for potatoes -- than is currently being met. Therefore the Western Mountains Alliance, through their new Maine Alternative Agriculture Association project, is sponsoring a free seminar on low cost storage methods on February 21 to help Maine farmers make these and other crops available from local producers throughout the year.
From their press release: Steve Belyea of the State Department of Agriculture, Jim Cook from Skylandia Farm and Crown of Maine Cooperative, Jay Robinson, who does mixed vegetable production on two farms in Somerset Co., and Ross Adams, a Farmington producer will be the presenters. We’ve asked Steve to come prepared with specifics for low-cost, on-farm storage plans for particular crops; Jim comes with years of experience in multi-crop, cooperative storage; Jay will explain his individual storage solutions; and Ross will share his plans for a cooperative storage facility on his farm."
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The news that national food retailer Whole Foods will enter the Portland market earlier than expected by purchasing and converting The Whole Grocer into a Whole Foods store has meant there are fewer independent outlets offering locally grown food in Maine's largest market. Whole Foods still plans to move to another location, at the intersection of Somerset and Franklin Arterial, when that property is completed, but the buy out allows the chain to begin a relationship with Portland shoppers at least a year earlier.
Wild Oats, another national natural food retailer opened a store right next door to the Whole Grocer in 2003, is quoted in the PPH article on the Whole Foods buy out is unconcerned about competing against this larger chain store in the Portland market. "We know what to expect because this has happened in other markets," said Sonja Tuitele, a Wild Oats spokeswoman.
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...and it's not for the reason you think. After years of reduced fishing days for Maine shrimp (actually the "Northern shrimp", Pandalus borealis) -- only 25 days of fishing allowed in 2002-03! -- the population had finally rebounded to the point that fisheries managers were willing to allow 140 days of shrimping this winter in the Gulf of Maine. Maine fishermen looked forward to a rewarding winter season as a result, but what happens if you have a party and no one shows up...?
"Nobody's buying nothing," Portland trawlerman Branimir Viducic said Friday in a PPH article that describes a number of factors for the market void: shrimp processors that closed during the reduced seasons, over supply of world shrimp. In any case, if no one is buying, pretty soon no one will be fishing for them, and you won't be able to obtain this local seasonal seafood treat at any price!
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In the same space that now sells blue jeans and houses a bank, after less than two years in operation, a McDonald's restaurant in Altamura, Italy turned off the golden arches sign for the last time in December 2002, a victim of the bakery next door. "What took place was a small war between us and McDonald's," said Onofrio Pepe in a NYTimes article, a retired journalist who founded an association here devoted to local delicacies. "Our bullets were focaccia. And sausage. And bread. It was a peaceful war, without any spilling of blood."
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Diversification is becoming an important tool for farms to keep their bottom-line in the black. One creative example of this is the Benson Farm in Gorham, a dairy farm that now processes its manure with shellfish waste to create a compost mix that represents a significant part of their present income. "For some reason, people have a romantic interest in shellfish compost," Eddie Benson said in a PPH article profiling his effort, as well as several other Maine farmers (Smiling Hill Farm in Westbrook, and the Barker Farm in Leeds) who have successfully diversified so that they can ensure that they will be able to keep farming. Benson continues, "[t]he whole compost business, I do that so I can do this," nodding toward his 150 high quality Holsteins.
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New Seasons, a Portland, OR based food retailing chain has placed an emphasis on selling "local" foods and products that are grown, caught or processed in its region, the northwest, including Northern California. The NY Times latest Dining section features this store's efforts and what it may reflect about US food buying habits. In the article, Michael Pollan, the author of a forthcoming book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, sees this as the next trend in food sourcing: "Buying national organic products does very little for the local economy. Organic has important values having to do with pesticides and how land is treated, but now that it is industrialized, buying organic doesn't necessarily support living in a place that still has farmers consuming less energy. Moving organic food across the country uses just as much energy as conventional. I think this is becoming more important."
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Portland businesswoman Mary Allen Lindemann is planning, along with about two dozen other local business owners, to celebrate "Independent's Day" this coming July 4th by kicking off a campaign to encourage consumers and businesses to buy from local stores or suppliers. "You have only so many dollars to spend," Stacy Mitchell is quoted as saying in a recent PPH article about this Buy Local movement in Maine. Mitchill is a Maine-based senior researcher with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which is headquartered in Minneapolis. "If you think about redirecting that locally, you're getting more bang for your buck, and all of this translates into a stronger economy."
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Ancient Seed
Posted by: erector2 on Thursday, January 05, 2006 - 04:02 PM |
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400 years ago the French explorer Samuel de Champlain mapped the coast of Maine as his ship wandered south along this green undiscovered continent. Near Saco he and a group of sailors rowed ashore for fresh water and any other provisions they could find, stumbling upon an Indian camp. In their written history of the village they describe an agricultural society growing the holy trinity of New World agriculture: squash, corn, and beans. In 2005 a group of academics and archeological volunteers seek to verify this brief visit by finding seeds for these crops.
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You can support the Maine Farmland Trust AND Maine at Flatbread restaurant in Portland on Tuesday Dec. 27th. All evening long, Flatbread will be donating $3.50 from every full pizza sold, and $1.75 from every half pizza to MFT. They will also be having a raffle with $100 gift certificate to Johnny's, Patagonia clothes, a gift certificate to Paris Farmers' Union, MOFGA goodies, and more. It should be a fun event, and it would be great to get folks interested in local foods to turn out in support of the organization.
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Letter to Santa
Posted by: erector2 on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 07:51 AM |
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On behalf of all of us who are working to support Maine food, Roger Dorian of the Eat Local Foods Coaltion of Maine, has written a letter to Santa, republished in the Bangor Daily News, to ask for more people to purchase Maine grown food, the"gift that keeps giving." The letter is availble in full below.
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The New York Times Wednesday Food section featured the fifth annual Potato Dinner at Hugo's Restaurant in Portland. Potato farmers, such as Jim Gerritsen from Woodprairie Farms in Bridgewater and Jim Cook from Skylandia Farm in Grand Isle, as well as potato lovers attended this nine-course dinner where potatoes were integrated into each dish.
"I've never worked with so many different kinds before, so many textures," Rob Evans, chef at Hugo's Restaurant said. "The Carola has this creamy flavor, the Butte is light and silky. I never thought Maine produce could compete with California, and the ingredients are not as opulent, but all you have to do is pay attention."
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Restaurants around the state will celebrate the bounty of Maine's fall harvest by featuring Maine raised, grown and harvested foods. This will be the sixth annual Maine Menus Month, sponsored by the by the Maine Department of Agriculture with support from the Maine Restaurant Association.
"Maine restaurants that serve locally grown produce, meats and locally harvested seafood are becoming known around the country and the world for the quality of the food they offer," said Mary Ellen Johnston, the Agriculture Department's development director. "Sponsoring Maine Menus Month is one way we can support both the farmers and the restaurants that they supply."
Visit www.getrealmaine.com to see a complete list of all participating restaurants, who will also display the "Get Real, Get Maine" logo during the month.
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On the cusp of the autumn equinox, as the weather turns cooler, many kinds of greens become available from Maine farms. Lettuces and other tender greens that bolt in the heat of the summer can be grown again. In addition, cabbage comes into its own, featured in coleslaws (a salad that goes back to Roman times), and sauerkrauts as this year's harvest is "salted away."
Another "green" part of autumn is the money school children will make during their annual two-week school recess helping with the Aroostook County potato harvest.
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Down East Genius
Posted by: erector2 on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 - 09:52 AM |
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"You could have knocked me over with a feather," Ted Ames said about receiving a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship Award of $500,000 over five years for his work on Maine fisheries history and health. Ames, a Stonington lobsterman and fisherman and scientist received the award because he had he has "fused the roles of fisherman and applied scientist in response to increasing threats to the fishery ecosystem resulting from decades of over-harvesting" according to the foundation.
Ames was last in the news in June announcing plans for a unique lobster hatchery that is hoped to help stabilize lobster poplations and catches into the future.
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Local garlic is fresh right now, having been harvested in August and carefully dried to allow for long storage. Much of Maine's crop consists of "stiff-neck" or "hard-neck" varieties (Russian Red, German Extra-Hardy, Phillips) that have origins in Eastern Europe and are cold-tolerant. It's well known that cold growing conditions produce more intense garlic flavors, which is why Maine's crop is prized by gourmets. Garlic lovers will be celebrating the pungent harvest at the Town Hill Garlic Festival in Bar Harbor on September 24th, as well as at the Common Ground Country Fair September 23rd - 25th in Unity.
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Ogunquit residents will decide whether to ban "fast-food or formula restaurants" at the polls November 8th as the result of a successful petition drive. The petition proposes a zoning ordinance that is very similar to one that voters in York approved in May 2004, as opposed to Freeport's strict design review for new structures that has banned garish golden arches and other architectural elements of fast food businesses. "Ogunquit has been a very unique community" says petition organizer Mary Breen. "It's a quaint little village, and I'd like to keep it that way."
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Perhaps due to the cold spring or a late molt, mid-summer lobster hauls are low up and down the coast, keeping the price high for Maine's summer visitors who enjoy cracking claws and tails while they're here. Tourists have been paying the prices according to restaurant owners interviewed in the PPH linked article.
Higher wholesale prices are helping lobstermen pay for higher fuel and bait prices, but that could be temporary. Last year summer catches were low as well, but a huge harvest through the autumn more than made up for it, helping 2004 set a new record for lobster landings.
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For agriculture to survive, more young people will have to take up the challenge to grow the food we need to eat every day. Right now the average age of US farmers is almost 56 years old, something that has been increasing over the last few decades. However, in Maine the average farmer is two years younger (54), and almost a quarter of those farmers are under 35 compared to only 10 percent nationwide. The PPH explores why Maine may be succeeding in bringing a new generation of farmers to our table.
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Nice review in the Boston Globe of Rob Evans and Nancy Pugh's little Euro-style dive of lipsmacking delights in Portland which serves many Maine grown ingredients.
"Our goal is to give people something more for their money than just a full belly," says Pugh. "We're trying to make eating fun again."
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Not the dinner plate (although putting Maine food on your dinner plate is always encouraged!), but the license plate in this case. The state is considering the creation of a specialty license plate that would show your support for Maine farms, as well as provide direct support ($10 per license plate) to Maine Ag in the Classroom to help train our new farmers, as well as teach kids where their food comes from. The catch is that the state needs 2000 Mainers to order the new plate by September 1st before they'll commit to the program.
Anyone interested in supporting this project can call Maine Agriculture in the Classroom at (207) 287-5522 or visit www.maineagtag.com
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Tidewater Farm in Falmouth has been a farm since the mid-1700s and now is the latest and very visible victim of "development." But why do we define "development" as housing developments and strip malls -- probably because we've abandoned the notion that we can grow our own food as something as quaint as the old smithy shop on the village green. Why doesn't "development" require some perspective on the best use of our land?
Instead of development, this kind of growth could be called "greed" because it's based on the highest possible short-term profit possible from each parcel of land, profit for the seller, developer, and the town in the form of future tax receipts. If developments that put 50 houses on productive and beautiful farmland like Tidewater Farm are "unstoppable" as the article suggests, have we given up on Maine agriculture?
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Apparently, the leadership in the legislature are holding the "Surf and Turf" bond package hostage by trying to split agriculture and marine resources supporters and making them fight for scraps.
The bond originally earmarked money to save disappearing farmland and working waterfront properties, both critical to Maine's future as a food producer. Now the package has been all but gutted and it's future is very much in doubt.
If you care at all about future of Maine agriculture and/or our maritime-based industries, PLEASE contact your representative and senator, as well as Senate and House leaders to let them know that "Surf and Turf" must be a SIGNIFICANT part of any bond package they pass.
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During negotiations on the proposed bond package, Maine legislative leaders cut all of the proposed $3 million from an effort to protect working waterfronts in the state, as well as $4 million of the proposed $5 million meant to protect Maine farmland. That "Surf and Turf" bond packaged had originally been proposed at $30 million, which many agreed would still not have been enough to stop the continued and permanent loss of agricultural land, nor would it have kept all working wharves and docks from being converted to hotels and restaurants.
"The problem is that the next time this opportunity rolls around, it will be too late for many parts of the state," said Diane Tilton, executive director of the Sunrise County Economic Development Council, a private nonprofit group based in Washington County. "Prices are going up so high, we won't be able to [protect valuable resources] if we don't act now."
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Red Tide ReRun
Posted by: erector2 on Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - 01:48 PM |
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It sounds like announcing the sequel to any '50s horror flick, but the poisonous plankton are "baaaaaack" and blooming again in the Bay of Fundy (which was largely spared from the May - June monster of shellfish flat closings). These new Red Tide blooms threaten to close Down East clam flats again for an unknown length of time. Meanwhile, Cobscook clammers are upset that test results for the Red Tide plankton are not being disclosed, and they aren't being told when they can get back to work.
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Last week a higher court overturned a ban on Canadian cattle imports imposed in 2003 when the discovery of a cow with mad cow disease was traced to a Canadian herd. According to Julie Marie Bickford of the Maine Dairy Improvement Association, resuming of imports of Canadian cattle won't affect the recent windfall in higher than average milk prices as well as high demand for replacement heifers and embryos. "[The imported cattle] will head directly into the slaughter system," she said, pointing out that a ban on importing Canadian dairy animals remains in place.
Of course lifting the ban will probably reduce the price of beef sold in the US, which had climbed to a near-record $4.26 a pound during the ban, according to the USDA. But as soon as the dairy animal ban is lifted, Bickford and her membership fear that western states will once again flood the market with cheap milk, driving down prices for milk as well as for replacement animals, which could put a severe strain on some of Maine's remaining 400 dairy farms.
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Lately, the Department of Agriculture has made much of it's work to sell dairy heifers, potatoes, and even blueberries to Cuba, even sending the Commissioner to this Caribbean island that's still in political trade-limbo. What if the department sent a delegation to an area that offered $2.8 billion in potential sales of Maine-grown produce and whose population continues to express their preference for Maine food? The state need only capture 20% of THAT market to sell ALL its agricultural products!
That area is Maine, and it deserves much more attention from the Department of Agriculture and the State. Send the Maine Commissioner of Agriculture to Portland, to Lewiston, to Bangor, to Presque Isle, and to Ellsworth. Send him to Hanneford and Shaw's and Wal-Marts and Sam's Clubs across the state. Have the governor speak to the Lions and Rotary Clubs around the state convincing them to support their community farmers.
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Political economist John Buell makes the argument for local foods in a BDN op-ed piece.
From the article: Public policy should put local, organic agriculture on an even playing field with industrial, export oriented agriculture. Former state economist Charles Lawton reminds us that "Maine households spend more than $3 billion on food products every year, but less than 4 percent of that total comes from Maine farms. Maine is not likely to supply the local supermarket with coffee, kiwis, and mangoes any time soon, but $2.9 billion still leaves quite an untapped market."
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Millinocket welder Chris Jandreau couldn't stand the thought of all those damaged and/or surplus potatoes going to waste, so he picked up his welding torch and did something about it. Jandreau has built a 30 foot tall 300 gallon pilot ethanol plant in his yard where he as since been able to manufacture 32 gallons of ethanol from a ton of waste potatoes, as well as 82 gallons of ethanol from a ton of wheat. "I'm still fascinated by the idea of turning waste into fuel," he says.
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Blueberry barrens are often found in Maine's coastal counties, which are also the fastest growing areas of the state these days with soaring property prices. The barrens are wide open spaces often located in rugged and beautiful hills that offer views of the surrounding landscape, and their soils by nature are very porous. All of these characteristics are also ideal as home sites with septic systems. Currently there are an estimated 60,000 acres of working blueberry fields in Maine, and while no one believes that the largest barrens are at risk, smaller parcels are particularly at risk, and once built on will add to the erosion of Maine's agricultural land.
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Soon, hundreds of thousands of larval lobsters hatched in a unique facility in Stonington will be released in Penobscot Bay from Cape Rosier to Matinicus Island. Although the lobster population is currently stable, lobstermen have noticed stock depletions in the shallower waters of the region, areas traditionally thought of as "nursery grounds." The hatchery is attempting to counteract any possible loss of new lobsters for the future. The facility, put together by lobstermen in Zone C lobster region with the help of the Penobscot East Resource Center, should begin operating this summer.
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Our miserable May weather kept the maple sap from flowing at full-speed this season resulting in a "moderate" maple syrup harvest, down 16 percent in New England, and 9 percent in Maine. Maine actually did better than other states in our region: New Hampshire's syrup harvest was down 31 percent, Massachusetts doen 20 percent, Vermont down 18 percent, and New York down 13 percent. Although the sugar content of the sap was slightly higher this year, the USDA reports: The season produced good-quality syrup, but it was too short.
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Red Tide Rises
Posted by: erector2 on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - 08:23 AM |
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UPDATED 17 June 2005:
Our moisture-laden May has affected more than farmers: it was a "perfect storm" that pumped above normal amounts freshwater into the Gulf of Maine, while at the same time blowing ocean waters into the Gulf. Along with those ocean waters came cysts of plankton species that are toxic to humans, and these species thrive in cool waters with lower salinity just like those in the Gulf right now. The resulting "bloom" of plankton can tinge the waters red from their shell color (hence the name "Red Tide"), and they become the primary food source for all shellfish in the region. The plankton don't harm the shellfish, but the shellfish themselves toxic to humans (as well as birds and mammals) until this specific plankton bloom subsides and the shellfish return to their normal diet. As a result, shellfish harvest is banned in most areas of the Maine Coast, all the way down to Cape Cod, and east out into federally monitored off-shore waters.
Red tide toxins have now reached their highest levels ever found in shellfish. That, and the continued spate of cool weather has caused some to forecast that the shellfish flats could remain closed for much of the summer! Meanwhile, the Red Tide has is moving further up the Maine coast to some of the few tidal flats that remained open: Cobbscook Bay is now closed to shellfish harvest, leaving only the area south of Moose River to the Cutler-Whiting area remained open for raking, but the warden quoted in the BDN news story linked above warned diggers to "check with local wardens before heading out."
The length and severity of the red tide closures have made shellfish consumers nervous and suspicious about eating any shellfish offered by restaurants or seafood merchants, even though only shellfish harvested from areas that test negative for the toxins are allowed to be sold.
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Wonder Bread maker Interstate Bakeries has decided to cut 150 production jobs from its J.J. Nissen plant in Biddeford as part of a regional consolidation by the bankrupt company. These are a few of the 3,000 jobs cut by the bankrupt company all up and down the East Coast.
According to a MaineToday article, the $100 million Biddeford plant, opened in 1999, is one of the largest in existence and has the capacity to churn out 12,000 loaves of bread an hour. "That facility is acknowledged to be one of the most modern, and hence efficient, bakeries in the world," Robert Dodge, Biddeford's director of economic and community development said. "We felt reasonably confident . . . it would survive any downsizing."
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Despite efforts by out-of-state groups to prevent it, Maine will now assess a five cent per gallon fee from milk vendors (not consumers) whenever the wholesale price of milk drops below the federal minimum of $16 per hundredweight.
The legislature passed a bill enacting the milk fee on Tuesday with overwhelming support -- 115-15 in the House, and 33-0 in the Senate. The fee is meant to give state government the means to help dairy farmers through periods of low prices that are often trigged by factors outside of Maine, such as milk production in the western states, or the availability of Canadian replacement cows.
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Responding to a vastly improved "score" for progress on salmon aquaculture from the Atlantic Salmon Federation and World Wildlife Fund, the BDN wrote an editorial that is, dare we say it, optimistic about aquaculture in Maine after bruising battles with courts as well as with disease.
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The food at the Somerset County jail may get REAL local as commissioners consider creating a farm garden to grow some of the food served at the jail as well as to occupy the prisoner's time. "It gives them something to do. It makes them tired and it gives them a sense of self worth," says one commissioner.
This farm garden would mirror an inmate operated garden at the Kennebec County jail that "produced about $8,000 in food last year, including 30,000 pounds of potatoes, as well as tomatoes, peppers, corn and carrots."
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Oakton, Virgina based RetireSafe, which advocates "pro-growth solutions to America's retirement security challenges," has written every Maine legislator to oppose legislation that would re-establish a milk handling fee meant to help Maine dairy farms. The seniors group, which claims to have 1,600 Maine members, opposes the bill because its members are on fixed budgets, and they say the proposed 12 cent a gallon increase would hurt their members.
UPDATE: Maine Legislature passed 5 cent/gallon fee on June 7th.
A PPH story on the group's action quotes Rep. John Piotti (D-Unity), co-chairman of the Legislature's Agriculture Committee which unanimously supported the bill, as saying that the bill provides Maine farmers with a safety net against fluctuating milk prices and will help maintain the state's dairy industry. He said he had no indication from processors, wholesalers or retailers that the fee would cause prices to rise.
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May may be the wettest on record in Maine, and the ramifications will be felt through the rest of the year:
- Farmers Markets are open, but crops available will be behind schedule through most of June.
- Cold wet weather keeps pollenating insects away from the flowers, which will impact the fruit harvest this fall;
- Grain crops -- critical to many dairy farms -- will be late going into the ground, or may be rotting if they're already planted. Due to Maine's short growing season, it will be a challenge to get a mature crops of corn or soybeans in the silo before the first frost.
- Maine greenhouses are packed to the rafters with plants and seedlings that people aren't buying because it has been too wet to plant. A customer asked Cathy Hebert, co-owner Sunset Flowerland & Greenhouses in Fairfield, "What grows good in a garage?"
- Cold and wet means fungus, and lots of it -- fungus infestations are hard to prevent, hard to control -- often requiring VERY dangerous and persistent chemicals if treated conventionally, and spread like wild fire. In fact, an apple fungus is actually referred to as "fire blight."
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- Oysters were one of the very first species to be farmed in the ocean, beginning over a thousand years ago in France. Now oysters are a growing crop in Maine, according to this PPH profile of Flying Point Oysters in Yarmouth, with over 3 million produced every year.
- The Portland Fish Exchange, which was the first display auction of seafood in the United States, is still struggling.
- Holbrook's Wharf in Harpswell is on currently the auction block, but a group of locals are trying to preserve their working waterfront rather than have it turned into another oceanfront "trophy home."
- Any one who complains about the high cost of food, farmed or fished, should consider that agriculture and fishing are two of the most dangerous occupations in the United States, and the cost of worker safety should be factored into price of their product. After all, when was the last time you were at work when your office stalled in 25 foot seas at 1:00am with a broken stabilizer?
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"Twenty years ago, the salmon, king of fishes, swarmed in the Penobscot River, and a man could go up to the pools below Treat’s falls dam, within the city limits of Bangor, and hook a fine, big fish before breakfast. Hundreds of salmon were in those days taken with the fly from these pools, and thousands were taken in the weirs along the river below Bangor. Now the salmon is so rare in these waters that the taking of a single fish is an event of such interest as to call for mention in the newspapers,"lamented a Bangor Daily News writer.
In 1905.
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The Kellog Foundation has matched a grant from the Maine Potato Board to explore the feasibility of a canola processing facility located in Aroostook County. Canola has proven to be a good rotation crop with potatoes, and last year Aroostook farmers grew 5,400 acres of canola, all of which was shipped out of state to be processed. The feasibility study, to be performed by a Colorado firm, is expected to be completed by spring 2006.
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USA Today profiles the growing Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement at small farms around the country. CSA's typically involve customers who "invest" or purchase shares in a local farm. In return, those customers receive a set amount of produce on a regular schedule throughout the growing season.
In Maine there are over 69 farms that offer some variation of this method for accessing fresh local food on a regular basis.
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Among the other items on their agenda, the Maine House and Senate yesterday voted to approve a bill to make that not-quite cola Moxie "Maine's Official Beverage." Although founded in Lowell, Mass and currently manufactured by Atlanta based Monarch Beverage Company, Maine's legislators felt it was important to officially embrace this 1876 offspring of Union, Maine native Dr. Augustine Thompson that some have called the "original soft drink [of] the United States" in the face of the Coca-Pepsi marketing tsunami. "You don't hear people asking if someone has the 'Pepsi' to perform a difficult task," said state Sen. Margaret Rotundo, D-Lewiston.
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Fiddleheadline
Posted by: erector2 on Tuesday, May 10, 2005 - 09:28 AM |
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Fiddlehead ferns: that fuzzy, springy, curvy green Maine treat currently poking up from the muck, ready to be plucked and prepared into a true taste of spring will be celebrated by Slow Food Portland at FiddleFest 2005 on May 22nd, 5pm to 8pm in Falmouth.
They promise Fiddleheads! Fiddlers! Foraging Demonstrations! Raffle Prizes! -- not to mention fiddlehead treats prepared by Maine chefs such as- Rob Evans of Hugo's
- Tom Gutow of The Castine Inn
- Michael Gagne from Robin Hood Free Meeting House
- Josh Potocki at One Fifty Ate
- Eric Desjarlais from Bandol
Admission is $15 for adults, $7.50 for children under 12. Proceeds from the event will go towards Slow Food Portland’s future educational activities designed to celebrate and promote Portland area foods, farms, and flavors.
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Last week. Maine legislatures learned how sales of farm-raised poultry are caught in regulatory limbo at the moment while State agriculture bureaucrats try to untangle the nexus between state and federal rules surrounding the processing and sale of poultry, both on the farm and off the farm.
Meanwhile, customers are having a hard time finding the juicy and flavorful and humanely-raised alternative to industrial poultry that's often shipped in from out of state. Local farmers would love to help them out, but not if it means running "afowl" of the law -- laws which even the lawmakers can't make much sense of right now.
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Many of Maine's Farmers' Markets opened for the season last weekend, offering fresh local foods in a festive setting. These markets are the easiest way to find and enjoy local foods. According to Agriculture Commissioner Robert Spear, "Farmers markets are good for the farmers and the consumers. "They have become a big part of Maine's economy."
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The Whole Foods Market chain of grocery stores has announced that it will move into a new 46,000 square foot building in Portland's Bayside neighborhood, at the intersection of Franklin arterial and Marginal Way. The new store will be located just a few blocks from two very similar "natural foods" stores, one owned by the Colorado based Wild Oats chain, and the locally owned Whole Grocer.
Whole Foods Market is based in Austin, Texas, now has 168 stores across the US, and has made Fortune magazine's list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For every year since 1998. They have a reputation for purchasing local produce and supporting local communities, but the other "green" grocer chain to move into Portland, Wild Oats, has not done much of either.
Can Portland support three similar "natural foods" grocers competing with each other as well as with the Portland Public Market and conventional supermarkets' natural foods sections? If not, can the only independently owned market survive without the backing of a publically traded corporation behind it? What will it mean for the future of food in Portland? The PPH explores these questions in this article.
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Lobster Wars
Posted by: erector2 on Wednesday, May 04, 2005 - 08:45 AM |
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Just as we enter the best months for eating lobster, there's a war brewing down(east) to Cutler among resident and "non-resident" fishermen jockeying for access to the lobsters roaming Maine's Wild Coast between Machias and Lubec.
When the harbormaster resigns because of harrassment, moorings are mysteriously cut and then ignored by town officials, and hangman's nooses appear in bait buckets, it sounds like the latest episode of "Desperate Fishwives" in Maine's long and legendary history of wars among lobstermen, which may have actually contributed to the present health of Maine's lobster fishery*.
*Acheson, J.M. 1987. The lobster fiefs revisited: Economic and ecological effects of territoriality in the Maine lobster industry. In The Question of Commons: The Culture and Ecology of Communal Resources. B.J. McCay and J.M. Acheson [eds.]University of Arizona Press, Tuscon:37-65.
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Turkey season has opened in Maine, which gives 20,000 or so people a chance to bag a big tom -- I've been told you can hammer nails with their drumsticks.
As the flowers begin to open there's a buzzing in the air as bees start to do their thing, which is critical for the fruit industry. Unfortunately an asian mite (Veroa) is still devastating bee hives across the US, including in Maine.
Those who are lucky enough to have mint planted in a warm spot (or know a farmer who does) will be able to enjoy a
Julep this weekend to celebrate the 131st running of the Kentucky Derby.
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Wednesday, the state's Agriculture Committee discussed the ramifications of a sliding scale "vendors fee" on milk to support state dairy subsidies that would end up being around 12 cents a gallon. "[T]he entire country is watching what you do here" warned Barry Higgins, vice president of the Maine Dairy Industry Association, noting that other states and regions often look to Maine for ideas on supporting dairy, despite the relatively small industry in this state.
Conventional milk prices have been decent over the last two years, as high or higher than organic milk prices in some cases, but most farmers and shippers don't expect this to continue given ever-changing market forces, and they want to make sure there is support from the state when they need it.
The legislature did not take action on the proposal, but asked the Maine Milk Commission to continue to work on it.
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If you're lucky, you've got your garden dug over and your peas planted, but one look over the beige landscape of late April and it seems like it will be a long time before you can get excited about fresh Maine goodies -- and you would be WRONG.
This is spring parsnip season, which takes over from March's maple syrup runs as the sweetest treat around. Spades and forks around the state are digging up fat white roots from the just-thawed earth that the cold weather has converted into sugary flesh with just a hint of licorice. Spring parsnips can be eaten fresh like carrots, but are best cooked (I like roasting them best) to force out all that syrupy sweetness that makes wonderful soups and side dishes, especially with that perfect pork roast.
Click here to find out who offers them and where.
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Let's hope that soon some of Maine's Farmers' Markets will experience the same "trouble" plaguing San Francisco's new Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market: "...it's too crowded.."!
Says one dissenting San Franciscan: "I go at 8AM on Saturday morning and am outta there by ninish. I have my favorite merchants and don't go near the prepared food. I like it, and it is convenient for me.
In its other guise, I can take out-of-town friends there on a weekday afternoon and graze lunch. Delightful on a nice day."
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Lobster Larceny
Posted by: erector2 on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - 01:05 PM |
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Someone's been sneeking around Downeast lobster pounds at night with ski masks, stealing lobsters by the crate. Be careful the next time somebody offer's you a good deal on a "hot lobster"! BDN story; and story on the AP wire.
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Huge markets often seduce farmers in thinking that they could make more money by growing more food. Often the opposite is true because their neighbor is thinking the exact same way, and sooner or later the farmers are stuck with huge inventories of (often perishable) goods to be sold into a buyers market, so margins are reduced. "Run faster just to stand still," might be the relevant maxim.
Maine's commodity crops such as potatoes, milk, and timber have long struggled with this challenge. The Kennebec Journal offers this profile of Maine apple growers who have taken different approaches to the challenge.
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Environmental changes such as global warming and acid rain could threaten the health and productivity of Maine's sugar maple trees, according to a Kennebec Journal article.
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That's the title of an article in the Portland Press Herald that focuses on attracting arts and other design oriented businesses. The "Creative Economy" also encompass agriculture and food service sectors as well, especially in Maine where we are shifting from commodities based agriculture to a more local and niche based business model, and where restaurants regularly gain national recognition, as well as adapt to challenging markets with creative ideas?
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Although it is still a few months before the height of strawberry season in Maine (usually mid-June to mid-July, depending on the weather), California strawberries are arriving at supermarkets right now. But because strawberries do not ripen further once they're picked, farms that ship their berries must make many compromises, according to the NY Times, when it comes to varieties and whether to pick early for harder berries but sacrificing flavor.
In the article, long-time strawberry breeder Victor Voth laments that old varieties like Banner were much tastier. "We haven't touched it yet," he said... Could it be grown again today? "No! It had no shelf life."
This is easily the best argument for supporting local produce -- no compromise on quality is necessary.
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The Portland Public Herald published two very different reports on trends in Maine seafood harvest today:
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I once had to describe what "maple syrup" is to a friend from El Salvador. I told him it was tree sap collected in the spring and boiled until a small fraction, just the sugars, remained, and that this was a popular sweetener and topping, especially with pancakes. As I listened to myself proclaiming the delights of boiled tree sap, I promised myself that I would never again question strange sounding foods from other countries and cultures, because they might taste as good as maple syrup.
Spring starts when the sap flows: warm days and cool nights. In the best of years a blanket of snow spreads out at the base of massive rock maple trees sprouting taps collecting sap. Wood smoke and sap steam mix in the bright clean air, a smell on the wind as identified with New England as the autumn colors are a signature sight.
To celebrate this special time in this special place, the Maine Department of Agriculture sponsors Maine Maple Sunday, which you can read about in several local newspapers, or learn how to participate from this folksy broad sheet.
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Let's hope that it wasn't only the prospect of free food samples from some of Maine's food producers that got the legislature to think about Maine food. March 22nd was proclaimed Agriculture Day at the State House, and Ag Commissioner Robert Spear was optimistic amid the celebration and sampling of the best of Maine: "Our diversity allows us to supply food throughout New England in a variety of ways," Spear said. "Eggs, apples, beef, horticulture, milk, potatoes, berries - you could go on and on." And he does, in this Bangor Daily News recap.
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The Bangor Daily News reviews the very successful program "Farms For The Future" that offers Maine farms the resources needed to move their operations forward.
"I have become a huge fan of the FFF program after learning that participating farms have increased their annual farm income on average by $35,000 a year as a result of their participation," said Roger Doiron of the Eat Local Foods Coalition.
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Sharon Kiley Mack generously offers the Maine Dairy Industry Association and the Maine Farm Bureau a chance to broadcast their view on recent agricultural legislation to her Bangor Daily News readers in this story.
The Farm Bureau opposes legislation that would ask state institutions to try to purchase meat that has not been bloated with unnecessary antibiotics. "... we think this will considerably raise the cost of food for schools and institutions," warns Maine Farm Bureau director Jon Olsen.
The Maine Dairy Industry Association is understandably concerned about the prospect of losing state subsidies for their members, but is curiously silent on the proposed elimination of one of the three dairy inspectors who handle all 380 of the state's dairy farms, all goat and sheep dairy operations, on-farm production facilities and inspection of processors, in addition to checking on beef, deer and elk, llama and alpaca farms. Give us money, not regulation, eh?
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A report published in the journal Food Policy studies the hidden costs of food, including road miles and air miles. This report finds the environmental impact of locally produced food may be greater than the impact of converting farms to organic methods alone!
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Wild harvested crops in Maine (primarily represented by seafood, but includes the industry-defined "wild" blueberries) face many current challenges, primarily where they intersect with environmental concerns. Below are a few recent examples gleaned from Maine newspapers on Friday, March 4th:
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Roger Dorian has published another excellent essay in the Portland Press Herald that illuminates the important connection between Local Agriculture, and a growing economy in Maine.
From the essay: " By holding onto its farms and farmers, Maine places itself in a strategic position for serving the booming national markets for whole and natural foods. A recent report by the governor's Local Agriculture Task Force showed that of the $3 billion Mainers spend each year on food, a mere 4 percent goes to Maine farmers with the other 96 percent going into the pockets of out-of-state food and farm interests. If Maine's portion were increased to just 10 percent, it would represent an additional $150 million circulating within the Maine economy, which would translate into a 40 percent increase in the state's annual farm income and the creation of more than 6,000 new farm-related jobs."
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If you work on the water or on the farm, please consider supporting a bond that will preserve both activities that will be considered by the Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry, and Business, Research & Economic Development legislative committees on February 22 and 23rd.
Most important would be for anyone who makes a living on the water or on the farm to attend these hearings and simply stand up and be recognized as an interested constituent.
Subject: Logistics for Bond Hearings Feb. 22 & 23
Following are the details:
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The budget proposal from the Bush administration slashes funding for agriculture research in Maine by more than a third, according to stories in the Bangor Daily News and Associated Press.
In the article Bruce Wiersma, the University of Maine dean of natural sciences, forestry and agriculture, says: "We would close all five experimental farms, the university forest, animal diagnostic lab, soils analytical laboratory and the ornamentals garden and greenhouses. Without these support facilities, applied research would virtually come to a halt."
Most affected would be Maine's potato, forestry, blueberry, apple, and dairy sectors, but these cuts would also limit funding to the Cooperative Extension Service which helps all Maine farmers.
UPDATE: The Portland Press Herald reports on Maine's congressional response to the proposed cuts.
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- Did you know that approximately $12 million in food stamps are issued in Maine each month?
- Are you interested in expanding your customer base?
- Do you have a landline phone at your farm store or farm stand?
- If so…the New Electronic Food Stamp System may work for YOU!
- Call 1-877-823-4369 for an application.
Read more...
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New ideas for Maine businesses are rising at the Loring Commerce Center, just like bubbles in a buttermilk pancake on a hot griddle. Twenty four year old Paul Durepo, working with assistance from the Northern Maine Development Commission and the Maine Manufacturing Extension Partnership, has launched a new business called Maine Street Flour Co. to manufacture and sell grain products and mixes that are grown and milled in Aroostook County.
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