Food! Sovereignty?

In a few hours we’ll pick up our final community supported agriculture [CSA] share of the year. That fits with our progression into the dark half of the year. In just more than two weeks, it starts getting dark really early when Daylight Savings Time ends. But, for now, here’s what sunshine and rain and soil and seeds and farmers have produced:

• BUTTERNUT SQUASH
• BABY PIE PUMPKIN
• APPLES
• DAIKON RADISH
• BROCCOLI
• BRIGHT LIGHTS CHARD
• LETTUCE
• GREEN ONIONS, and
• CILANTRO

It’ll be a fun drive over mostly rural roads enhanced by autumn’s peak leaf colors. Even the oaks, usually conservative in their autumn dress, are looking exuberant this year. [Note to self: remember to bring good camera.]

typical oak leaf colors

Photo by J. Harrington

After some poking around on line, the Better Half [BH] and I have found, and concurred on, a source of new and different (to us) soup recipes to get us through another North Country winter. If you're interested. take a look here. The search was triggered by a mention on one of the social media platforms of a newly published UK book of Seasonal Soups. I couldn’t find anything really comparable for our North Country, so the on line search began.

Beth Dooley has several seasonal cook books based in Minnesota, but they’re focused on more than soups. It may, however, be worthwhile to take a look at some of her works in preparation for next year’s CSA seasons. Or, as usual, I could mind my own business and rely on BH’s creative solutions about what to do with the fresh vegetables I insist we buy and then complain about eating. She came up with a potato / cheese / cabbage combination the other day that I actually enjoyed eating. Perhaps the age of miracles hasn’t passed.

We are fortunate, so far, that for many of US winter is still a time for enjoying food and getting the proverbial “fat, dumb, and happy.” However, Congress has yet to pass a farm bill, nor has it authorized funding for the federal government for the current fiscal year. If folks keep electing too many Republicans, we may find ourselves wishing we were all farmers, with greenhouses, and rebuilding (re-digging?) root cellars. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Bread Soup: An Old Icelandic Recipe

By Bill Holm

Start with the square heavy loaf 

steamed a whole day in a hot spring 

until the coarse rye, sugar, yeast 

grow dense as a black hole of bread. 

Let it age and dry a little, 

then soak the old loaf for a day 

in warm water flavored 

with raisins and lemon slices. 

Boil it until it is thick as molasses. 

Pour it in a flat white bowl. 

Ladle a good dollop of whipped cream 

to melt in its brown belly. 

This soup is alive as any animal, 

and the yeast and cream and rye 

will sing inside you after eating 

for a long time.

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