For the final installment of the Think Globally Eat Locally series, we’d like to share some of your favorite recipes using seasonal summer produce. If you have one you’d like to share, please send them to blog@constantchatter.com by Wednesday, August 15th and we’ll include as many as we can!
I have vague recollections of driving by the quaint family farms dotting the picturesque New England landscape of my childhood, of autumn hayrides and pumpkin patches and apple harvesting. The farms were as much a part of the community as the schools and churches. In more recent years, living in California, I drive up the grapevine through the agricultural heart of the state and see nothing but acres of feedlots and vast mechanized harvesting machines. Corporate farming dominates the farming business these days, often to our detriment.
In response to this, a new trend has emerged in communities all over the world: Community Sponsored Agriculture. According to a USDA publication on the topic, “In basic terms, CSA consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community’s farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production. Typically, members or “share-holders” of the farm or garden pledge in advance to cover the anticipated costs of the farm operation and farmer’s salary.”
The implementation varies widely from farm to farm in terms of structure, as well as the goods provided. Some farms offer choices of what to get, or different types of shares (fruit versus produce and the like); some are organic, some not. Some offer meat or dairy in addition to produce, some offer home delivery…there’s no one way it works. In the CSA I recently joined, you pay a quarterly fee up front, and every week you get a box of produce that is picked up at a local drop off point. My farm (see? Already calling it ‘mine’!) keeps it simple and everyone gets the same thing. What you get changes from week to week but is 90% produce, with some fruit tossed in here and there.
There is definitely less versatility than getting produce from the store or the farmer’s market; often I get things I’ve never had before (chard? Dandelion greens?), but the exposure to new things is really fun. On the weeks beets are on the docket, well, I give those away. Sharing the community bounty, I call it. I like having really fresh items, locally grown, minimally driven. I like keeping a local farmer in business. I like, though I never knew it, kale.
Like all things, CSA quality is only as good as the farm it comes from. Some places are going to be better than others. Many farms offer a shorter trial period before committing to a full quarter of food so you can try it out. It’s a win-win for the buyers, who get local product, and the farm, who has a large group of committed buyers sharing the risk for the crops. If there is a major crop failure, no refunds! (Though these days the science is down enough that this is a pretty rare occurence.) It doesn’t eliminate my trips to the grocery store, but I do get less while I am there. It’s my contribution to the Think Globally Eat Locally phenomenon. If you’re interested in finding one near you, check out Local Harvest.
-jesvet
