November 2007 Archives

In Let Them Eat Leaves on her Talking Plants blog, NPR's Ketzel Levine discusses the importance of gardening with native plants so that insects, birds, and other animals have the food they need. Levine and commenters provide plenty of useful resources.

We have added a lot of plants to our yard in the past year, and are making an effort to build wildlife habitat with both forage and nectar plants. Native plants in our yard include: flowering dogwood, southern magnolia, American beautyberry, oakleaf hydrangea, purple coneflower, false indigo, Joe-Pye weed, Louisiana iris, virginia creeper, and blackberry. (Some of these we have added; some were already growing here.)

What natives have you incorporated into your landscape?

In this week's Press-Register, Bill Finch writes about the last harvest, the first frost, and harvesting your bananas (if you're lucky) and satsumas.

When we moved here last year my husband was so impressed to learn that fruiting bananas and citrus would grow in our climate that he insisted on adding them to our garden. We put in a Gran Nain banana this past spring, and will be adding a satsuma next spring.

Have you had success growing bananas?

Links remain active for two weeks, and become part of the paid archive afterwards.

The Last Harvest
Bananas
Next Year's Bananas
Best Banana Varieties
Satsumas
Satsumas and Citrus Mites

Food writer Michael Pollan weighs in on the Farm Bill in Weed It and Reap, published in the November 4th New York Times.

If you're unfamiliar with Pollan, whose most recent book The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006) was a multiple-award winner, his many excellent essays are archived on his web site.

Living on the Gulf Coast, we're fortunate to have access to fresh seafood. But sustainable seafood is another matter. For example, grouper, which is ubiquitous in area restaurants as the "catch of the day" is listed in the "Avoid" category by the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch guide. According to their criteria, it is overfished and is also recommended for limited consumption, as there are concerns about mercury or other contaminants.

From the Bloomingfoods coop newsletter:

The Daily Green and San Francisco Chronicle recommend asking these six questions when selecting your seafood. And for great information regarding seafood and the industry that produces it, explore these sites: Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch, the Environmental Defense Council's Oceans Alive, and Seafood Choices Alliance.

Frankly, aside from farmed oysters there aren't a lot of Gulf species listed as "Best Choices" in the Seafood Watch guide, reflecting the poor management of Gulf Coast fisheries. But some "Good Alternatives" include shrimp; Gray, Lane, Mutton, and Yellowtail Snapper; longline-caught Swordfish; some varieties of tuna; and Wahoo (though some of these species also have contaminant concerns).

November 15th and 17th mark the close of the fall season for the Market at the Park and Market on the Square, respectively.

The number of vendors has dwindled, but you can still find people selling pecans, sweet potatoes, squash, and a few other vegetables, fish, honey, baked goods, and a selection of other items. Satsumas are ripening late this year so as yet they have not been plentiful.

Expect the markets to reopen for the spring in late April.

Local pecans are available, and I've been working on shelling the bag of Grand Bay nuts I bought last weekend at the downtown farmers' market. According to this AP news story, this year's dry weather in the southeast has helped the pecan crop considerably.

Slow Food USA lists the American Native Pecan as "not explicitly endangered, [but...] at risk and in need of revitalization."

The nuts are delicious, with a rich, buttery flavor, and you can sometimes see the oil in the meat while you're shelling them. The high oil content is why you need to quickly refrigerate or freeze them to prevent spoiling. The University of Georgia's National Center for Home Food Preservation has a nice page describing how to shell and store pecans. A useful tip for shelling them: soak in boiling or hot water for 10 minutes or so. It helps release the meat from the shell and they tend to come out whole (or closer to it).

I usually prefer walnuts as my go-to nut for salads, cooking, and baking, but it's nice to use pecans for a change, especially since they're local. They worked great in my mom's brownie recipe!

What's your favorite thing to do with pecans?

When we moved our family to Mobile in mid-2006, we had no friends or relatives in the city, and no contacts other than professional ones. Like anyone in this situation, we had to discover 'how to live' on our own, one of the basics being where to shop for food. We like to cook, and favor fresh ingredients.

We lived for over a decade in Bloomington, Indiana, which supports a thriving farmers' market that's been around for over 30 years; shoppers can buy anything from locally farmed fruits, vegetables, and herbs, to eggs, milk, artisan cheese, and meat. Bloomington, a middling-sized college town in central Indiana, also has a coop that features the products of local growers. After that we lived in Louisville, Kentucky, which is dotted with smaller but busy Saturday markets, and has several options for shares in community supported agriculture (CSA).

There was a well-developed market in both areas for local farm produce, so we didn't have to search for places to shop. In Mobile the venues are not developed on quite as large a scale. There are good local products to be had, and people who want to buy them, and I believe that interest is growing. This blog exists in part to document what is available in our area.

Farmers' markets have experienced a resurgence in recent years, for a variety of reasons. The growth of cooking as a media phenomenon has created an awareness of the importance of fresh ingredients. Increasing concerns about the health effects of chemicals and hormones used in agriculture have created a boom of organic products of all sorts. And most significantly, the realities of climate change, such as the increasing cost of fuel and the environmental impact of shipping food thousands of miles to market, necessitate reviving a love, and lifestyle, of eating locally and seasonally.

I believe one way to grow that love, and support the survival and growth of local small farmers, is by sharing information. Let's know and celebrate our local crops and producers. Let's create a resource so people who want to learn about local food can do so easily, be they new residents, long-time residents, or visitors.

Beyond that, let's support sustainable agriculture. Buying local goes a good way towards that, since it eliminates a significant amount of pollution during transportation, and it also puts money directly in the hands of the producers, not in the pockets of national chains. But sustainable agriculture also means using organic methods, responsible fishing methods, limiting water use, practicing responsible waste disposal, treating animals humanely, and providing fair wages.

Another way to eat locally and seasonally is by becoming producers ourselves. In the temperate, subtropical Gulf Coast, we are blessed with a climate that permits year-round gardening. Of course, as a transplanted Midwesterner I'm still learning the vagaries of the conditions here, but part of the fun is in learning. I'm a back yard gardener and supplement our grocery purchases with a variety of fresh herbs, salad greens, potatoes, tomatoes, and more. Herbs, with the flavor boost they give to meals, are often a gateway to gardening. They're easy to grow, do well in containers, and are beautiful plants. From there, it's not too big of a step to growing vegetables and fruits, as well. Then, in addition to eating locally, we have the pleasure and appreciation that comes from having grown the food with our own efforts.

I hope you will join me in creating a community of people who feel the joy of eating locally in Mobile and the surrounding areas, and who share that joy with others.

Angela Jordan