MVG logo on fieldMontgomery Victory Gardens Weekly Update - September 2, 2010

In this update:

* FermFest 2010! - Sat., September 4
* Want Some Safe Eggs? [video]
* Continuing Coverage of the School Garden Controversy
Donate Now button* Red Wiggler's Annual Harvest Supper and Online Auction - Sat., September 11
* Heritage Harvest Festival at Jefferson's Monticello - Sat., September 11
* Another Ridiculous Attack on Locavores
* Corn Recipes!


FermFest 2010! - Saturday, September 4

We are proud to announce a fine new local food tradition here in southern Montgomery County: the 2nd Annual Takoma Park Backyard Fermentation Festival - FermFest 2010!

Come marvel at the wonders of fermentation!  Share & taste homemade live ferments made by local enthusiasts!  Witness time-tested fermentation techniques! fermented foodExchange cultures and recipes with your neighbors!

Fermentation is an ancient method for preserving and transforming food (not to mention adding some fun to it, as in the case of beer or wine!). This year's FermFest features a demonstration from Monica Corrado of Takoma Park's Simply Being Well, along with free samples from local fermented food companies.  Home brewers, children, cooks, and chemists are all welcome!

FermFest 2010 will take place on Saturday, September 4, from 2 pm to 5 pm (rain or shine), at 403 Elm Ave. in Takoma Park, MD, 20912.  RSVP only requested (at [email protected]) if you are planning to bring food to share.

So let's build some fermentum!  Join us this Saturday afternoon for FermFest 2010!



Want Some Safe Eggs? [video]

Over the past several weeks the largest egg recall in U.S. history has been taking place.  More than 500,000,000 eggs - that's HALF A BILLION eggs - have been called back due to salmonella poisoning that has already sickened at least 1400 people over the summer.

As the investigations continue and widen, there are two essential facts we can draw from what we know already:

eggsFirst, these threats to the public health are coming from the largest producers.  Like virtually all other businesses, the food business has consolidated dramatically over the past 20+ years.  (There were 2500 egg companies in 1987; now there are only 192 which control 95% of the market.)  Ever enlarging operations fall prey to exactly the types of problems you'd expect from companies driven purely by profit: "efficiencies" to save money mean inferior - if not outright dangerous - products, corners being cut, regulations skirted or violated, etc.

We learned the phrase "too big to fail" from the financial crisis, but the exact opposite is true - for that industry, the food industry and any other: too big is guaranteed to fail.  And when it does, it fails in a big way.  

Chicken in prisonSecond (and also as in other industries), the egg companies responsible for all those tainted eggs have a long history of violations.  Health violations, safety violations, and environmental violations - not to mention lawsuits for animal cruelty and for sexual harassment of undocumented workers. 

Sometimes, as when one of these producers operated in Maryland, government agencies let the violations slide by unpunished.  Other times fines have been levied, but the companies simply pay them and continue with their criminal behavior. You'd think that massive recalls would put them out of business, but their size and super-profits enable them to survive even that.  Food producers involved in other major recalls in the past few years, including peanuts and spinach, have gone back to business without a problem.  (No doubt being able to sell their product under other brand names - in the case of the egg producers, up to 24 different ones - helps them avoid the consequences of their actions in the marketplace.)

And you know what?  The major recalls we hear about just the tip of the iceberg.  If you subscribe to Food Safety News, you can read every week about a regular stream of food recalls from our industrial food system, often with sadly humorous headlines like "Gummy Candy Recalled for Lead" or "Fruiti Pops Recalled for Salmonella."

Do we need any more explanations as to why we need to switch to a much more local, much less industrial food system?

Fortunately there are usually local options, and the more we purchase them - and produce them ourselves - the more will become available.  (And chicken-laying eggs, as it happens, are relatively easy to raise.)

You want safe eggs - not to mention eggs that are hundred times more nutritious, better tasting, and healthy for both the environment and food workers?  Check out this news segment featuring egg producers from our own Agricultural Reserve and their response to the egg recall.  (And thanks to our friends at the Montgomery Countryside Alliance for posting it!)



Continuing Coverage of the School Garden Controversy

We are delighted to know that the Gazette finds the Montgomery County Public School's ban on vegetable gardens to be as important an issue as we do.

In an article appearing in this week's Gazette, the MCPS "compromise" of offering vegetable gardens on three different school properties is discussed.  While it's a step in the right direction, it's also a somewhat odd step, given that none of the sites actually have schools on them, and that none of them are anywhere near the schools that are actively asking for vegetable gardens.

There will be a public meeting this fall to discuss the proposal, and we plan to be there in force to present the case for school gardens at schools - not just MCPS property somewhere in the county, but at schools that actually want them.

And please get in touch with us if you would like to organize around this issue - we would love to have your help!



Red Wiggler's Annual Harvest Supper and Silent Auction - Saturday, September 11

Our good friends and partners at Red Wiggler Community Farm in Clarksburg are having their annual "Celebrating The Harvest" Supper and Silent Auction next Saturday, September 11 from 4pm 'til dusk.

Red WigglerAs many of you know, Red Wiggler is a fantastic farm program, one which grows organically, contributes food to local food pantries to feed those in need, and provides healthy and purposeful employment to dozens of developmentally disabled "growers."  You will not find a better steward of our land and our community in Montgomery County.

While the tickets for their Harvest Supper sold out just yesterday (sorry!), they are taking names for the waiting list.  And in addition, you can always support them by bidding on items in the online auction.  They have had a difficult growing season this year, between drought, disease in their famous garlic fields, and stink bugs ruining tomatoes, peppers, okra and chard. Their growers have kept their heads up and persevered to make this a successful growing year - but they still need our support.

Click here to get on Red Wiggler's waiting list for the September 11 Harvest Supper, or to bid in their online auction.  And thanks for supporting of this great agricultural institution in our county!



Heritage Harvest Festival at Jefferson's Monticello - Saturday, September 11


If you can't get in to the Red Wiggler Harvest Supper, here's another great event you might consider: the Heritage Harvest Festival at Monticello, held at the mountaintop home of our third president, Thomas Jefferson.

MonticelloWhile a little out on the edge of the locavore's region - Charlottesville, VA is about 130 miles away  - the Heritage Harvest Festival should be an amazing time, and a great way to experience the genius of Thomas Jefferson while celebrating one of his great passions - the garden. This celebration of gardening, sustainable agriculture and local food will include more than 40 educational programs, lectures, cooking demonstrations and food tastings, as well as music and great speakers such as Sharon Astyk, author of the superb Jefferson-inspired book, A Nation of Farmers.

The event will be held from 10am - 4pm on Saturday, September 11.  And before the long ride back, consider eating dinner at one of Charlottesville's many fine restaurants - they take their local food eating seriously down there!

Click here for more information on Monticello's Heritage Harvest Festival



Another Ridiculous Attack on Locavores

While organic, local and sustainable food still makes up only a tiny portion of our total U.S. food system, its popularity grows with each passing day.  One way you can tell is the increasing number of attacks from industry flaks. Or sometimes from clueless writers who just happen to ape food industry talking points.

This latest one, unfortunately, appeared recently in the Op-Ed page of the NY Times.  In it, self-proclaimed liberal curmudgeon Stephen Budiansky came up with a couple of examples of food grown far away that consumes less fossil fuel than food grown locally, and takes this ball and runs with it, portraying the locavore movement as a bunch of overzealous, spoil-sport, food mile nazis.  He concludes that eating local is "not a virtue in itself," and that "eating food from a long way off is often the single best thing you can do for the environment, as counterintuitive as that sounds."

Remarkable.

Of course, he never mentions that maybe we just shouldn't be eating certain foods during certain times of the year, or food produced in certain ways, regardless of whether a distant version consumes less energy than a local one.  And as Kerry Trueman points out in this wonderful response published in the Huffington Post, Budiansky leaves out just a few other trifling reasons to choose local food, including:

"flavor and nutrition; support for more ecological farming practices; reduction of excess packaging; avoidance of pesticides and other toxins; more humane treatment of livestock and workers; preservation of local farmland; spending one's dollars closer to home; the farmers' market as community center, and so on."

These articles are well worth reading, so you can see how the forces of agribusiness (and liberal curmudgeons) will try to discredit the locavore movement.  As Ms. Trueman dryly notes, however, at least Budiansky's "dubious and/or irrelevant statistics" appear to be truly locally sourced -- "i.e. pulled out of [his] own behind."



Corn Recipes!

If you love corn as much as I do this is your time of year, as delicious local sweet corn is bursting off the tables at farmers markets and local supermarkets.

corn recipesAnd I can eat it off the cob with butter, salt and pepper endlessly, but hey, why not try a few different recipes with this bounty of late summer?  Here courtesy of Epicurious, is a bounty of corn recipes, including soups and salads (how 'bout Cold Avocado Corn Soup with Cilantro or Potato, Corn, and Cherry Tomato Salad with Basil Dressing?), vegetable dishes (anyone for corn fritters or Southwestern Succotash?), and a few more creative ways to eat it on the cob (such as Grilled Corn with Maple-Chipotle Glaze).

Click here for a dozen new recipes for fresh corn - and enjoy!


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That's it for this week, folks.  Don't forget to send us your feedback and ideas for stories or local food events (or recipes!) we can promote, by emailing us at [email protected].

Yours in enjoying the harvest,


Gordon Clark,
Project Director
Montgomery Victory Gardens