Vermont's Local Banquet Summer 2015

vermont’s

local banquet summer 2015 | issue thirty-three

Companion Planting • Rabbit • An Abenaki Summer

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issue thirty-three

6 Publishers’ Note 8 Garden Pathways Polyphony in the Garden

10 Set the Table with…

Rabbit

12 Sun Dance Season: An Abenaki Summer

14 Forest to Flask Caledonia Spirits seeks to age whiskey in Vermont oak barrels

16 Fire Eaters 17 Campfire Cooking 18 Breeds Apart Why some Vermont farmers love the Cornish Cross—and others don’t.

22 Rural Vermont at 30 29 Farmers’ Kitchen 31 Calendar 34 Last Morsel Burlington Edible History Tour

Publishers’ Note

Publisher Schreiber & Lucas, LLC Editor Caroline Abels Art Director

When they harnessed fire, by some accounts more than 1.5 million years ago, our distant ancestors changed the course of their evolution and, ultimately, ours. Not only was light and warmth brought into their lives, but the act of cooking food is thought to have increased brain size and put us on the path to becoming Homo Sapiens. Social interactions also flourished as we huddled around the fire telling our stories and sharing our thoughts.

Fire has indeed been a powerful force in shaping us, and we continue to enjoy an intimate relationship with it—just witness how people are drawn to wood stoves in winter. The ritual of an open fire still has the power to draw us in. What magic to sit around a campfire or backyard fire pit with the focal point the flame, sharing good food and good talk. Fire has the ability to connect us to our past while grounding us in the here and now.

In this issue we offer two articles that feature the element of fire. In the first (page 16) students from the Oyase Community School in Dummerston learn the communal skills needed to make a fire in the woods and discover their relationship to the food they cook over it. Our second article (page 17), offering a more hands on approach, takes you through the steps necessary to prepare a fresh, locally sourced meal on your next camping trip or maybe in your backyard fire pit.

And in a third article detailing the Abenaki seasonal summer traditions (page 12), food cooking over a fire pit offers a backdrop for the annual indigenous planting ceremony during which children spread cornmeal over newly planted soil.

To quote Wendell Barry, “Eating with the fullest pleasure—pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance—is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend.”

There is great mystery in fire, and we cannot necessarily comprehend its power. With this in mind, we intend to make a point of experiencing and taking pleasure in the transformative power of fire this summer, both to cook our food and to remind us of place, and time, and our world.

Meg Lucas Barbi Schreiber

Meg Lucas

Ad Director

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Marisa Crumb Contributors Sarah Galbraith Pamela Hunt Andrew Knafel Abigail Mnookin Tatiana Schreiber Jen Rose Smith Katie Spring Katie Sullivan Fred Wiseman Printed with soy ink on FSC certified 50% recycled chlorine–free paper Subscriptions, $22 Subscribe online or send checks to: Vermont’s Local Banquet PO Box 69 Saxtons River, VT 05154 www.localbanquet.com 802-869-1236 we welcome letters to the editor info@localbanquet.com vermont’s LOCAL Banquet Mission Statement The purpose of our publication is to promote and support our local communities. By focusing on fresh, local, wholesome foods grown and made in Vermont, we preserve our environment, grow our economy, and enhance our nutrition.

Vermont’s Local Banquet (ISSN 1946–0295) is published quarterly. Subscriptions are $22 annually and are mailed in the spring, summer, fall, and winter. Please make checks payable to Vermont’s Local Banquet. Thank you.

On the cover : Echinacea flower; photo by Meg Lucas.

Contents page : Anise hyssop; photo by Tatiana Schreiber.

Copyright (c) 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without written consent. Opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers or editors.

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garden pathways

Polyphony in the Garden “Polyphony” usually refers to music—the combination of many different voices, each with its individual tone and timbre, yet harmonizing with the whole. When I work in the garden, surrounded by vegetables, flowering plants, and herbs, with several species of bees buzzing in the big, purple, flowering clusters of anise hyssop at the ends of all the beds, and a breeze fluttering the leaves of the maples and oaks in the woods nearby, I sense polyphony at work in the natural world, as well.

Plants do “sing” to one another and to the insects in their neighborhood, in a sense. It turns out, for example, that when a tomato leaf is being chewed (loudly) by a tomato hornworm, the plant sends out distress signals in the form of volatile chemicals that react with the caterpillars’ own saliva, and this newly synthesized chemical somehow calls forth the hornworm predator, a parasitoid wasp, which attacks the caterpillar and protects the plant. Okay, maybe that’s “screaming” rather than “singing,” but it’s clear that complex communication is going on, one way or another. (The clicking noises tobacco hornworms make, as well as the “nicotine-breath” they exhale, serve to scare off predators too, but that’s another story.)

In the natural world, plants almost always live in intricate assemblages that may facilitate this kind of communication. In our own gardens, we can take advantage of this natural desire of the plants to grow in association with other species and reap a number of benefits: preventing soil erosion; attracting pollinators; confusing pest species; providing habitat for predator species (i.e. those who eat garden “pests”); minimizing the spread of disease; and, one hopes, creating mysterious polyphonies whose harmonies we have yet to fully appreciate.

Although I haven’t found documented evidence that echinacea is particularly attractive to the Manduca quinquemaculata or five-spotted hawkmoth—the adult version of the tomato hornworm—I did find that the year my tomatoes were growing next to a long row of echinacea, I found a total of five hornworms on the tomatoes; each one was parasitized by the larvae of a braconid wasp (Cotesia congregatus). I checked each day and watched as each hormworm slowly died, consumed from the inside out by these hungry larvae—rather gruesome, but my tomatoes thrived and produced abundantly. It may be that other flowering plants nearby (such as Queen Anne’s Lace, the flowering tops of second-year carrots and parsnips, or caraway) were the real attractants for this particular species. But the general principle applies: If one integrates corridors of flowering plants throughout the garden, it’s more likely that these valuable insect predators will find a congenial home, stick around, find mates, reproduce, and help protect your crops.

When considering which plants best complement each other, I find it helpful to consult the wisdom of farmers and gardeners whose stories, handed down for generations, reflect

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long-term observations and experimentation. I then investigate what contemporary agroecologists, permaculturists, and farmers and gardeners of all stripes are learning in the lab and in the field. Last, of course, I plunge in, try new combinations, and discover for myself what is effective in my own gardens.

illustration by meg lucas

by Tatiana Schreiber

photo by tatiana schreiber

Hummingbird moth on bergamot When I first moved to Vermont I found at a library book sale the venerable Companion Plants and How to Use Them,

by Helen Philbrick and Richard Gregg, first published in 1966, updating a 1943 compilation by Gregg. In the introduction they wrote that in addition to fairly obvious ways that plants may interact, such as when deep-rooted plants loosen the soil for shallow-rooted companions, “there may also be the effects of excretions, odors, insect-repelling or -attracting substances, biotic compounds… These may directly influence the growth of other plants, or alter the population of microorganisms that live in the soil, or be effective in the crowded world of animals crawling and flying in and around the roots, leaves and blossoms.” It’s astonishing to learn the many ways this speculation has been confirmed in the intervening years through ongoing experiments and observation by both farmers and scientists.

After devouring the many observations recorded in this book, I adopted a system of alternate rows of eggplant, beans, and potatoes. I grow wide beds of each of these crops next to each other. According to Philbrick and Gregg, the potatoes repel Mexican bean beetles; the beans repel Colorado potato beetles (CPB); and, since the CPB prefers eggplant over potatoes, the insects migrate to the eggplant where they are easier to pick off by hand. I don’t know if any of this is true, but in all the years I have been gardening this way, I have had no Mexican bean beetles, nor any CPB, although these have been serious pests to gardeners nearby. I don’t know if my interplanting technique is the reason, but hey, if it ain’t broke…

Another combination I gleaned from Companion Plants is that of celery and leeks. These plants like similar soils, nutrients, and growing conditions. I plant a three-foot-wide bed with a row of celery on the outside of each bed, in a trench. I plant a row of leeks down the middle. As I cultivate the celery, filling in the trench, I also mound up soil around the leeks, blanching the lower parts. As they grow, the celery’s leaves shade out weeds, but they don’t grow tall enough to deprive the leeks of sunlight. Once the trenches are filled up, I mulch the beds well with hay, which keeps dirt out of the celery and leeks, and provides a haven for beneficial insects such as ground beetles.

A more recent book I love is Manage Insects on Your Farm: A Guide to Ecological Strategies, by Miguel Altieri and Clara Nicholls, with Marlene Fritz. The entomologist authors of this book provide myriad field-tested techniques for keeping “pest” pop-

ulations in check. Their most important message is to increase the biodiversity of farms and gardens by integrating flowering corridors throughout the farm or garden to provide congenial habitat for predator species (as my echinacea border does) and to confuse pests by using aromatic plants that make the target species more difficult to detect. Applying this concept, I now always plant aromatic herbs such as dill, cilantro, epazote, and papalo (a wonderful herb that seems to combine the flavors of cilantro and arugula) in among my brassicas. The idea was to deter the cabbage white butterfly, parent of those ubiquitous green cabbage worms. I have to admit this has not been all that successful with regard to the worms, but these flowering herbs do attract many beneficial species that I suspect are helping to keep other pest populations in check. Both the brassica and the herbs do well, and space is used efficiently.

Another important strategy stressed in the Altieri book is the use of green manures or living mulches to improve soil conditions and to provide nutrients for subsequent crops instead of using chemical fertilizers that can harm soil microorganisms. For years I have been growing my tomatoes in a living mulch of hairy vetch. As the vetch grows, I cut it down with a hand scythe and leave the dead vetch on top of the bed to decompose. (Don’t plant your vetch too thickly or it may end up overwhelming the tomatoes.) The authors report research suggesting that tomatoes grown in a hairy vetch mulch use carbon and nitrogen more efficiently. They are thus healthier and more resistant to disease. At the same time, the living mulch prevents disease-causing organisms in the soil from splashing up onto the plants, prevents soil erosion and loss of nutrients, and enhances water infiltration into the soil.

Other crops that can be used as “living mulches” are oats and annual crimson clover. I’ve had good success undersowing brassica with oats (cutting it down as it grows and leaving it to decompose, or harvesting the “milky oats” for tea) and with crimson clover undersown to squash. After transplanting winter squash seedlings into hills, I sow crimson clover in the beds, which germinates in a couple of days. Soon I have a luscious bed of clover on which the squash can spread its runners. Later in the summer the clover blooms with beautiful crimson spikes, providing nectar for bees and looking gorgeous. Crimson clover may also work well with brassica—and some research suggests it may deter the cabbage moth. Maybe I’ll try it this year!

As Philbrick and Gregg wrote in Companion Plants, when we garden this way “we may well discover a steadily flowing source of pleasure, and be stimulated to admiration for the wonders our everyday environment can offer.” We may also discover polyphonies we never sensed before. This year, I intend to garden with my ears as well as all my other senses. I’ll let you know what new harmonies I hear.

Tatiana Schreiber gardens at Sowing Peace Farm in Westminster West, where she experiments with heirloom and unusual varieties of eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes, as well as medicinal and culinary herbs and specialty crops for ethnic cuisines and adventurous eaters of all kinds. She also holds a doctorate in environmental anthropology, is an itinerant adjunct teacher, and writes about science, environment, agriculture, and health.

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Set the Table with…

Rabbit

by Katie Spring Sarah Ouellette of Silver Ridge Rabbitry I circulated the room with a tray of hors d’oeuvres, weaving through bridesmaids, groomsmen, and guests. The social hour was winding down, and by my fifth or sixth pass through the crowd, I knew who the vegetarians were—who to offer the stuffed mushrooms to, who to pass by with the pulled pork.

The pulled pork had gone fast, and as back up, the caterer I was working for that night provided pulled rabbit to take its place.

“What’s this?” guests asked.

When I answered, “Pulled rabbit with sweet potato,” hesitation came over their faces, and they voiced one of three reactions: a cautious I’ve never had rabbit before as they slowly reached for the appetizer; an excited Oh! I’ve never had rabbit before as they popped one into their mouths; or Poor bunny…I couldn’t!

This particular rabbit had come from Tangletown Farm in West Glover, and the fact that it was local meat probably swayed the skeptics into trying it. Once they did, many of those skeptics reached for more.

Intrigued by people’s responses to rabbit, I wanted to learn about who’s raising the meat in Vermont, and how it’s done. Although rabbit meat is gaining in popularity, it can seem hard to find. But once you start looking, you’ll find yourself going down the proverbial rabbit hole and sniffing out those small-scale

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breeders and farmers who are bringing this delicate meat to the plate. uuu

Lila Bennett and David Robb of Tangletown Farm in West Glover began raising rabbit in 2009. Dave told me how his interest in rabbit farming began: “I used to be a carpenter, and there was a plumber on a job who was an old Austrian man, and he said that during the war his family always ate well and they always had coffee and chocolate and other good things despite the hunger around because they raised rabbits and they could always trade for anything they needed.”

Enamored by this story of self‑sufficiency, Dave brought the idea to Lila, who was less than enthusiastic, noting the furry cuteness of rabbits. But after attending a NOFA-Vermont workshop on pasturing rabbits and researching the health benefits (according to the USDA, rabbit meat is higher in protein and lower in calories, fat, and cholesterol per serving than chicken, turkey, lamb, beef, and pork), Lila agreed to try it, and they’ve been raising rabbits ever since.

From the beginning, Lila and Dave have been committed to pasture raising their rabbits. (Rabbits are more typically raised in wire cages or hutches.) But pasturing rabbits is different than pasturing poultry, and Tangletown’s pasturing style has evolved as they’ve learned a

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few important things: rabbits can easily tunnel beneath a fence, and free-range rabbits are hard to catch, meaning that a lot of time on slaughter day is spent chasing them. Through years of trial and error, Lila and Dave now raise the kits (bunnies) in large moveable pens that sit directly on top of grass but have wire bottoms so the rabbits can eat the grass without the possibility of digging out.

The animals are moved to new grass twice a day.

Nowadays, when talking with customers who have a hard time looking past the sentimental value that rabbits hold, Lila shares what she’s learned since raising rabbits: “When you see an animal that actually eats grass and vegetables and turns it into meat and doesn’t need grain the way a chicken does, you realize that it’s better all the way around.”

At New Discovery Farm in Marshfield, Robin Schunk began raising rabbits five years ago as a way to diversify her small farm.

“We have limited amounts of land, and rabbits are easy to raise, require small amounts of space, and have a good feed-conversion ratio,” Robin says, adding that “it costs less to raise a pound of rabbit meat versus a pound of beef.” In fact, with 4 to 5 kindles (litters) per year and up to 14 kits per kindle, it’s possible for one doe to produce 300 pounds of meat per year.

With all that meat, it still only takes a few hutches or cages to raise rabbits, if that’s the preferred raising method. At New Discovery Farm, Robin keeps the does and kits together in hutches, bedded with hay, and is experimenting with moveable pens during the summer.

As for slaughter, New Discovery Farm and Tangletown Farm both practice on-farm slaughter, which means they can sell rabbit meat from the farm, through a CSA, and at farmers’ markets and stores, but not to restaurants. This differs from poultry slaughter regulations because, according to Randy Quenneville of the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, “Rabbit is regulated by the FDA and is exempt from meat inspection requirements.” However, in order to sell to restaurants, “the rabbits must be slaughtered and processed in an approved source,” such as a state-inspected facility.

“If I could sell home slaughtered rabbit to restaurants, it would certainly increase my sales and give me another, larger market for my rabbits,” Robin says. “One of the most challenging aspects of rabbits is balancing how many to raise versus how many you can sell for meat.” Currently, Robin sells her meat from the farm and at farmers’ markets, while Tangletown sells rabbit through their CSA and seasonally at Hunger Mountain Coop in Montpelier.

Simple Crock-Pot Rabbit 1 whole rabbit 2 Tbs. butter 2 cloves garlic 1 onion, chopped 2–3 celery stems, chopped 2 cups chicken stock salt Cut rabbit into 6–8 pieces (Instructions from saveur.com: With a sharp knife, remove the hind and forelegs by cutting along the joints close to the body. Next, using a cleaver, chop between the second and third ribs, then turn and cut in half down the spine).

Cook on low for approximately 6 hours, or until meat is falling off the bone.

From here, you can pull the meat apart to use in quesadillas or chili, or to cook with your favorite barbecue sauce recipe for pulled rabbit.

photo by katie spring

uuu

Sarah Ouellette of Silver Ridge Rabbitry in Wolcott has taken a different approach: She raises New Zealand rabbits for breed stock and show, as well as meat. Her rabbit story began seven years ago, when she and her husband were gifted a crock pot.

They searched high and low for rabbit, and when they finally found some, the delicious slow-cooked rabbit stew that followed was reason enough for Sarah to start raising her own meat.

The search for breed stock took her to Maine, where she purchased her first New Zealand does and buck. That search illuminated the lack of rabbit meat and breed stock in Vermont at that time, and with those first three rabbits, she began Silver Ridge Rabbitry, which now has 40 rabbits, including 25 breeding does.

“Most of my customers are homesteaders who want to raise a few rabbits for themselves,” Sarah says. Along with breed stock, she also sells a complete rabbitry start-up package with large wire cages, feeders, water bottles, and nest boxes. She adds that “it’s easy to scale up or down in a short amount of time,” and that, paired with the fact that rabbits require such little space and feed, makes rabbit an attractive animal for both beginners looking to raise meat for the first time, and for farmers interested in a small animal with a large potential return.

With 40 rabbits, Sarah still considers her farm very small, and she cautions that to really make a profit with rabbits requires a large number of animals—she’s hoping to have 100 breeding does eventually. Although it’s easy to increase the number of rabbits, “to run a commercial rabbitry you need to have a [temperature-controlled] barn to breed in year round, and that comes with a high overhead,” she says. For now, she raises her rabbits in a converted milking barn that also houses goats during the winter. Despite the fact that it won’t hold 100 does, the barn is a model for the small-scale rabbit farmer, and

was featured in Storey’s Guide to Raising Rabbits, by Bob Bennett, which Sarah highly recommends for those new to raising rabbits. This summer, she will be experimenting with moveable hutches on pasture.

Come slaughter time, Sarah takes her rabbits to Vermont Rabbitry, run by Phil Brown in Glover. As a custom slaughterer, he will process rabbits for folks who don’t practice on-farm slaughter. He’s been in business since 1989 and has seen rabbit demand go up and down throughout the years, and he’s noticing springtime orders picking up, in part due to increasing demand from chefs. He no longer raises rabbits himself, but instead does custom jobs for farms like Silver Ridge, and buys live rabbits from a number of small farms and processes the meat for resale to Black River Produce and Vermont Quality Meats, along with restaurants and gourmet food shops. uuu

In the end, the challenges of raising rabbit are balanced by the joys, and also by the delicious final product, which can be fried, stewed, braised, or roasted. The lean white meat is similar to chicken, and for newcomers to rabbit meat, slow-cookers offer an easy introductory cooking method.

“My favorite way of cooking rabbit is to simmer it slowly with onions, celery, and seasonings,” Robin Schunk of New Discovery Farm says. “Then I pick the meat off the bone and use it for chili and quesadillas.”

After searching out a rabbit recipe for myself, I put together the one above using Robin’s favorite seasonings.

Katie Spring is a farmer and writer in Worcester, where she and her husband run Good Heart Farmstead, a CSA farm with a mission to increase accessibility to local food for low-income Vermonters. She writes about farming, family, and growing a deep-rooted life at katiespring.com.

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Sun Dance Season: An Abenaki Summer

by Fred Wiseman

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Every culture has a different take on summer. The northern Europeans considered the summer solstice “Midsummer’s Day,” while in the United States we treat the solstice as the beginning of that season. For the Abenaki, summer officially begins during the hoeing and planting times, what we consider late spring, and lasts up to the Green Corn Festival, the official “kick-off” of the harvest.

I would like to share with you what I have recently learned about how the First Vermonters till the soil and plant and nurture their crops in ways that may be quite distinct from what we are used to.

Late May and June usher in the agricultural season. Ancient signs are sought by Abenaki farmers as a signal that it is time to begin tilling and planting. The disappearance of snow from a distant, beautiful mountain is the sign for the Upper Connecticut River Valley Abenaki Community of Koas to begin planting. The indigenous gardening technique of choice is what I call the “truncated conical mound,” a small flat-topped hill from three to five feet in diameter at the base. Koasek elder Peggy Fullerton puts it this way: “The mounds are weeded by the children, and we always make sure that their little hands can make it to the middle of the mound to pull out the weeds, without disturbing the soil.” So the weeders set the parameters of mound size.

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photos courtesy of Haven Project Archives, 2014 Season. Moon Dancer photo by fred wiseman.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Truncated mound with bean tipi, Sagakwa Farm, NH; Koasek Sun Dance practice, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Vergennes, VT; Demonstration mound, with beans in the center trailing up the bean tipi, corn surrounding the beans, with squash vines, Sagakwa Farm, NH; Moon dancer in full regalia, Swanton, VT.

Former Koasek Chief Nancy Millette says that when she was a child, she and her little friends went to the Connecticut River and its tributaries in the spring to catch the sucker fish that ran in huge schools so thick “that your could almost walk upon them.” She says the fish were not for eating, but for the gardens. This was a revelation to me, because I had known that the Abenaki word for sucker fish was “kikômkwa,” and the first syllable was hauntingly similar to “kikôn,” the Abenaki word for field. I had dismissed the connection, but after Chief Nancy’s information sunk in, I discovered from 18th-century Abenaki dictionaries that the word originally meant “the garden fish.” So linguistics from years ago explains an obscure cultural connection between spring fish runs and the gardens that were being prepared at the same time. Today, it is traditional to insert one or more fish or parts of fish “about the size of your open hand” 8 to 18 inches deep in the mound.

The arrangement of the Wabanaki mound plantings varies with the crops selected. Modern corn, bean, and squash variet-

The directional dancers honor the Sun Dancer. Sun Dance practice, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. ies are usually companion-planted with corn in the center, pole beans to the side, and squash on the edge of the mound— the standard “three sisters” system. However, the three sisters companion-planting schema does not work with the newly (re) discovered indigenous Wabanaki cultivars (Local Banquet, Spring 2015), because Wabanaki corn is too short, the bean vines are too long for the corn, and the squash plants are too tall, shading out all else and allowing mold and pest infestation.

An old system has been resurrected in the Upper Connecticut River Valley to allow the three local species to perform better together. In the center of each mound a “bean tipi” of saplings is erected and the vines trained up the framework. The corn is planted around the beans with the squash planted as usual on the periphery and allowed to trail down into the inter-mound areas. The seeds are laid on top of the mounds, then “punched in” with the index finger, its joints the measuring stick determining the appropriate planting depth. The beans are planted some time after the corn and squash. Jerusalem artichoke roots and sunflower seeds are planted to the side of the mound

areas because of the sunflowers’ height and the artichokes’ invasive character. Recently, one Indigenous farmer discovered that ground cherries discourage Japanese beetles and are companion planted with crops such as “Norridgewock” beans that are especially susceptible.

Field preparation and planting, like all parts of the agricultural cycle, is a social and religious event. Planting ceremony may be relatively simple, just a quiet moment of prayer in the Northeast Kingdom; there are more elaborate ceremonies in the Connecticut River Basin. The first part of the more complex planting ceremony involves a recognition of the four directions by one or more elders. I suspect that it may be a descendant of the various recorded historic Wabanaki “calling in” songs that are supposed to alert the ancestors and spirits that a ceremony is about to take place. I especially like the (unnamed) Koasek Ceremony where children take cornmeal from small wooden boxes and spread it on the fields. It’s a wonderful sight to see the kids marching solemnly around the field’s perimeter giving a blessing to the fields for a good summer and harvest.

There is always a fire pit lending its fragrance to the event, usually with last year’s beans or other goodies baking, and coolers of frosty beverages—ready for a meal following the ceremony and planting!

This is the time when Wabanaki ceremony also turns to asking the sky beings, especially the Sun and the Rain, to bless the growing crops. The first rite is the Sun Dance, a directional-based ceremony where the cardinal directions and the people living in those directions come together to honor the Sun. The dance consists of the sun dancer and eight dancers, arranged in pairs (usually a man and a woman) who execute a graceful choreography of circling the sun dancer and then approaching and retreating as a sign of respect. This is still performed during the planting season, often as an expression of identity and culture, as well as to seek nurture of the crops.

After planting, and checking for proper germination, the fields more or less fend for themselves during June through early August. When possible, gardeners fence in their plots from deer and other pests. Most gardeners just use inexpensive chicken-wire fencing from the local hardware store. However, the Abenaki Heritage Garden in the Burlington Intervale has built more traditional willow “living fences.” They are made by cutting live willow branches in the early spring and planting them in the cool, saturated soil. A significant number take root and flourish. Those that do not can be replaced with freshly cut stock. The flexible branches are woven together to keep the four-footed herbivores out, but do not seem to deter rabbits and raccoons. I worry that willows are horrific water users and may deplete the fields’ moisture, making them not a useful horticultural tool. Maybe if the fences are kept small, more distant from the mounds or root pruned, they could be used, so I am unsure about their efficiency—pest management vs. water loss.

After the summer solstice, the Rain Dance is added to the Sun Dance, to make a combined ceremony of asking for nurture of the crops by the sky beings. It is interesting that the Rain Dance is the only agricultural ceremony that we have a written Continued on page 21

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FOREST TO FLASK Caledonia Spirits seeks to age whiskey in barrels made of Vermont oak

by Jen Rose Smith

In the future barrels like this one will be made from local oak

photo by jen rose smith

Do you know a cooper? It’s a query likely to produce confusion, as Caledonia Spirits’ founder Todd Hardie learned by putting the question to just about everyone. “For most of a year, each time I met someone, I’d say ‘Hello, do you know a cooper?’ And they would say, ‘What’s a cooper?’”

One hundred years ago most towns had a cooperage that shaped whiskey casks, milk buckets, and butter churns, but between Prohibition and plastics, that exacting craft dwindled.

Now, Caledonia Spirits, a Hardwick distillery, has plans to turn fields of local grain into the kind of oaked whiskey that early Americans sipped and to try something that hasn’t been done for many years: age Vermont-made spirits in Vermont wood.

Todd—along with Caledonia’s head distiller Ryan Christiansen—consider aging in Vermont wood to be a natural extension of their distilling process. It’s an undertaking that starts with drums of unpasteurized honey or hoppers full of local grain, and a process that they perceive to be as much about agriculture as it is about alcohol. As they work to develop local rye and corn into whiskeys, they want to infuse the aged spirits with as much of Vermont’s terroir as possible.

“Most of what you taste while drinking bourbon are wood oils,” Ryan says, “so where and how that wood grows is going to influence the flavor.”

Their plan was conceived in the heat of the “Great Barrel Shortage of 2014,” an anachronistic-sounding crisis that developed as the craft distilling revival outpaced the production of oak barrels used for aging spirits.

Todd and Ryan worked with a local forester to find a promising stand of white oak, and a family-owned sawmill to process it. Then one day at a farmers’ market, a customer said:,“I know a cooper!” The tip led them two hours outside of Vermont, to Bob Hockert’s small cooperage in the Adirondacks, which is the last in the Northeast. Bob learned his craft through books and lots of practice, and when Todd contacted him with an idea to make whiskey that was entirely regionally sourced, Bob was intrigued. “It’s a very unusual project,” he says. “I don’t know of anyone who’s doing something similar, because most cooperages don’t wander out into the woods, cut trees down, and saw them up to make barrels.”

Bob quickly found himself in a Champlain Valley forest with Todd, Ryan, and forester Joe Nelson, selecting trees by hand, looking for wood unmarred by insect bores, knots, and other irregularities. “The oak used in manufacturing a barrel has to be handled, cut, and selected just so,” Bob explains, “and the modern lumber industry is not used to the parameters that a cooperage needs.”

The wood is hand selected, air dried for up to a year, and quarter sawn, a cut that orients the wood fibers to make the finished barrel as water tight as possible. Every oak barrel is then roasted and charred by the cooperage. Charring creates a layer of activated charcoal, which clarifies and filters the spirit as it circulates through the barrel. And roasting, which takes place over many hours, breaks the chemical bonds in the wood’s lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose into molecules with familiar

aromas: think vanilla, caramel, smoke, and coffee, elements many whiskey aficionados seek out. uuu

There are deep similarities between the challenges that face small distillers and coopers, as each explore half-forgotten crafts that many early New Englanders would have taken for granted.

Todd and Ryan work to ferment their honey and grains using natural yeasts that cling to plants and infuse the air; they’ve learned a flexible approach that anticipates unpredictability.

Similarly, Bob’s craft requires transforming highly variable materials into a precisely wrought product, and it is a learning process that he believes will last throughout his lifetime. Even so, he worries that books and practice may never recover all of the craft of coopering.

“What may be lost to time is the knowledge of wood,” he says. “At the turn of the century, every town had a cooper, and that person knew wood, its physiology, and how to manipulate it. They understood it at a very intrinsic, very deep level, and it’s hard to find people like that.”

But some of what is lost can be recovered, with a bit of patience. Early Vermonters could know the taste of their own oak trees, and eventually we’ll be able to as well, although Ryan is too experienced with the vagaries of the natural world to say just when. As of early May, he had 8,000 board feet of air-dried white oak, and because it takes roughly 18 feet to make a 30-gallon barrel, perfect trees would produce 440 barrels or so. Ryan expects to be filling those barrels with unaged spirits by midsummer. He can’t say how long it will take to turn those spirits into unaged whiskey, but notes that the tight pores of Vermont’s slow growing trees will likely mean a longer aging time than is required by imported barrels.

Todd and Ryan also don’t know how the local wood will affect the final taste, but they’re confident that each step matters. As a beekeeper, Todd says, “I learned that how you take care of bees, how you take care of employees, makes it into every jar of honey. By consciously logging, we’re able to be a distillery that manages every step of the process. The only thing we know is that it will be different.”

In a loft that overlooks the distilling room at Caledonia Spirits, barrels are carefully stacked and labeled with batch numbers, grain content, and dates. A lingering smell of beeswax mingles with the yeasty tang of fermentation, and shelves are crowded with dozens of experimental bottles drawn off and labeled with tape. It’s a testament to the complexity of transforming harvests into spirits, with flavors that mingle the essence of Vermont’s forests and fields.

With a glance towards the shiny vats, Ryan Christiansen offers another telling distillation: “It’s a challenge,” he acknowledges, “but simplicity is not what we’re about.”

Jen Rose Smith is a travel and food writer based in Winooski.

When not exploring every corner of the Green Mountain State, she can usually be found in the kitchen, wielding a whisk and a cocktail shaker. Read more of Jen’s writing at jenrosesmith.com.

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Fire Eaters

Kids in Dummerston learn how to cook food over a flame.

by Abigail Mnookin Although cooking over a fire generally brings fond memories of roasting marshmallows for s’mores, it also offers a tremendous opportunity to become more connected with the places we live and the food we eat. From preparing the raw ingredients to building a fire to keeping a close eye on the food as it cooks, this hands-on process engages all.

Every Thursday, I experience this sense of connection as an instructor for the Oyase Community School, a weekly program in the Dummerston woods where 6- to 12-year-olds learn earth living, nature awareness, and community skills. We meet outdoors, in all kinds of weather, and allow each day to unfold based upon plant and animal sightings, seasonal “survival” needs, and student passions. Primitive cooking is one of my favorite parts of the day. Each season provides unique opportunities to prepare local and wild-harvested food, which we then cook over a fire.

Last fall, we picked tart autumn olive berries from an invasive deciduous shrub and simmered them in a tasty sauce sweetened with maple syrup. Throughout the winter, we roasted root crops from local farms and skewered venison that had been hunted by our school’s field director nearby. In the spring, we picked fiddlehead ferns and dandelion flowers, which we then fried into mouth-watering fritters.

Building a fire represents a significant part of the cooking process, and it encourages teamwork. Although we occasionally use matches, we also start many fires by friction, sometimes using a bow drill. While one to three people work together to achieve a smoking ember, others build tinder bundles from resinous cedar bark or the downy material from dried cattails. Still others rip dry birch bark for kindling, as another group gathers and separates twigs into piles of varying size. When there’s a coal and it’s blown into flames—which takes practice and patience—a few people tend the fire to produce a solid bed of coals for cooking. Throughout the winter, the added perk of staying warm offers incentive to tend the fire.

When it’s cooking time, we use a variety of “primitive” methods at Oyase. Perhaps because it’s reminiscent of roasting marshmallows, kids almost universally love to roast food on a stick, whether it’s apples, hot dogs, or even bread dough.

They learn how to carve sticks for roasting, and toil with great concentration. We heat flat rocks to create griddles for grilled cheese sandwiches, latkes (potato pancakes), and fried eggs.

Continued on page 25

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Campfire Cooking Using a Wood Fire to Prepare Locally Sourced Summer Dishes

photo by sarah galbraith

by Sarah Galbraith Camping is one of the most sensory pleasures of summer.

There are the natural sights, such as towering trees, wildlife, sunsets, and stars, and the sounds, such as those of birds that start their trilling morning songs and lakes that lap at shores in the distance.

One sense where camping often falls short, though, is taste. My partner, Tristan, and I have backpacked several long-distance trails, including Vermont’s Long Trail, and have eaten our share or flavorless—or worse, oddly-flavored— dehydrated camp meals sold in outdoor gear shops. When we traded our backpacks for car camping 10 years ago, our distaste for bland pasta and the same old rice and beans continued.

But while we were camping on Mount Desert Island in Maine four years ago, we stumbled upon freshly caught seafood at a local lobster pound. We stocked up on flaky fish and succulent shellfishes and headed back to our campsite with plenty of lemon and butter.

We decided to cook our catch over a campfire, and thus began our adventures in campfire cooking. It was a memorable night: We settled in by the fire while our dinner cooked, drank wine, played card games, and enjoyed the sights, smells, sounds, and tastes of the ocean. The food was fabulous and we slept well that night, with our bellies full of local fare.

In the years since then, we have delighted over fresh chicken and vegetables, roasted potatoes, and ratatouille all cooked over a campfire. While dehydrated camp food or meals prepared with unfamiliar stoves and utensils can leave your palette wanting, meals prepared over an open campfire bring incredible flavors to the camping experience, all while providing “the campers’ TV”—an entertaining fire to watch while dinner cooks.

On your next camping trip this summer, give one of these recipes a try. Build a warm campfire (see special instructions for cooking campfires, below), grab a glass of local beer, wine, or spirits, and settle in by the fire. Watch day become night, and listen as your locally sourced dinner sizzles and cooks over a crackling fire.

Setting the Fire The trick to cooking on an open campfire is to build a fire that is intensely hot and wide enough to provide ample cooking space. This requires barbeque coals, lighter fluid, and well-seasoned (read: dry) firewood. Most campgrounds include

a fire ring with a fold-down cooking grate, and many provide firewood for sale as well. (Please use local firewood. Buy your firewood at or near the campground because transporting firewood from afar can bring invasive insects.)

Start by piling the coals into a pyramid at the center of your fire ring and douse the coals with lighter fluid, just like you would in a charcoal grill. At first, the flames will be light and bright orange and will originate from the outside of the pile of burning coals. Once these flames die down, the key is to monitor the pile of coals to be sure that heat is building at the pile’s center (several more rounds of lighting may be required to get that heat going).

Within about 15 to 20 minutes, the heat will build to the point that a second round of flaming occurs, but this time the flames come from the center of the coals and are deep red and blue. Once these flames appear, it’s time to add dry wood.

Start with kindling to get the flames going. Once the kindling is burning well, add larger pieces of wood. When all of the wood is burning well, it’s time to start cooking.

Preparing Food for the Fire Fresh Vermont ingredients, which are widely available in the summer, make great food for campfire recipes because they are at their peak flavor. This means they require very little fuss or seasoning. Exploring farms and food stands near your camping destination can be a fun part of your adventure. Alternatively, pack food from home in insulated coolers with ample ice or freezer packs to keep meat and butter chilled.

The easiest way to cook on a campfire is to use foil packets (recycled tin foil is available). The tin foil transfers heat from the campfire to your food. This method also makes for very easy clean up—that means there is no cleanings pots and pans in a rustic camp kitchen!

In every recipe, there are ingredients included that prevent the food from sticking to the foil. This can be butter, as in the recipe for roasted potatoes, or the juices from vegetables, as in the garlic and tomato chicken or campfire ratatouille. Substitutions can be made in these recipes, but be sure to include something (butter, oil, or juicy vegetables) to prevent your food from sticking to the foil packets.

Recipes can be found on page 21.

Sarah Galbraith is a freelance writer living in Marshfield.

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Breeds Apart Why some Vermont farmers love the Cornish Cross— and others don’t.

Many people greet the arrival of spring by poring over seed catalogs and scanning for new varieties of vegetables, but I have a slightly different tradition. When March rolls around, I plan my broiler chickens for the year. Few things are easier and more rewarding (provided you have the right infrastructure) than raising a dozen backyard chickens for 8 to 12 weeks, then getting a freezer full of tasty, healthy meat.

The only pressing question is: Which breed to raise?

The first year I raised meat chickens, I chose the Cornish Cross broiler. Anyone who’s been to the grocery store knows the Cornish Cross, by taste if not by name. A hybrid animal developed by industrial agriculture from two highly specialized parent strains, the Cornish Cross has no peer in its ability to convert grain into meat rapidly, thereby maximizing profits for the farmers who raise them.

But the metabolism that allows this astronomical growth in such a short period of time can have a dark side. Sudden heart attacks and leg weakness among Cornish Cross birds are common; birds collapse, or simply spend their time sitting on the ground because they can’t get up. Thin feathering, which enables rapid plucking, leaves the birds more vulnerable in harsh weather. And their impractically large breasts—which consumers value—can sustain injury due to ground contact.

When I raised this breed, I noticed that instead of foraging a portion of their diet on the large field they occupied, my Cornish Crosses plopped themselves down near the grain dispenser waiting for food to arrive. I raised and ate these birds, but I didn’t respect or enjoy them.

I was not alone in my feelings. Will Harris of White Oak Pastures in Georgia—one of the nation’s leading large-scale, pasture-based farms—has called the Cornish Cross “the most despicable creatures I’ve ever seen.” Animal welfare advocate Temple Grandin has called the Cornish Cross “genetically lame.” And several leading animal welfare organizations, including the ASPCA, are examining whether Cornish Cross broilers should even have a place in welfare-certification programs, as their compromised immune systems and altered metabolisms may make suffering and discomfort inevitable no matter what management system is used.

Disaffected with the Cornish Cross, I sought an alternative. I knew that hatcheries routinely dispose of unwanted male chicks born to egg-laying hens—and eventually I had little male Barred Rocks, pure Cornish, Delawares, and Jersey Black Giants scooting around the brooder. But I soon learned why more people don’t raise layer-breed males for meat: The birds ranged far and wide,

Freedom Ranger chickens 18 local banquet

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photo by rose wall

by Katie Sullivan

farther and wider than I could deal with. Containing them and preventing predator losses with high fencing were big challenges and became a significant expense. They ate less grain, but it took an extra month and more grain overall to get them to a good weight, and even at their slaughter weight of 5 lbs. they were tall, bony, and rangey. The meat was boldly flavorful, but there was definitely less meat in proportion to the bone, and much more leg and thigh meat than breast meat. To add insult to injury, the Jersey Black Giants were mean!

I still was not satisfied. I was aware that over the past few years independent hatcheries had developed several meat breed hybrids, known by trademarks such as the Red Ranger, the Freedom Ranger, the Kosher King, and several others. These new meat birds are bred to outperform Cornish Crosses in health, vigor, and foraging ability, while growing more meat at a faster rate than layer-breed cockerels. I was intrigued—could these birds offer the sustainable, happy medium of health and strong growth in a pasture-based system?

I called on some Vermont farmers to share with me which breeds they raise, and why. I contacted about a dozen of them, and most replied with valuable information about their pastured broiler breeds and systems.

the few extra weeks that alternative breeds require for growth incur extra grain costs, but more significantly, four weeks’ additional labor expense. John concluded, “My personal opinion is that the alternative breeds make a lot of sense at the homestead or very small commercial scale (they’re easier to raise) but if you’re wholesaling a lot or cutting birds up then I think Cornish are the way to go.”

Misty Knoll in New Haven, Vermont’s largest chicken producer, raises a breed of broilers that is very similar to the Cornish Cross; however, they do not pasture their chickens.

Other farmers have moved away from the Cornish Cross.

Jennifer Megyesi of Fat Rooster Farm in South Royalton has entirely abandoned the Cornish Cross broiler due to a number of issues she found with the breed: “I am displeased with the taste of the meat, their lack of interest in foraging (and consequent lower concentration of omega-3 fatty acids because they

Stock photo

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David Zuckerman and Rachel Nesbitt of Full Moon Farm in Hinesburg raise Cornish Cross broilers organically. Dave feels the strain they raise grows well on pasture, maintaining good health. Full Moon uses open-bottomed pens moved twice daily, and they provide grain. Dave says they would like to give alternative broiler breeds a try but feel the Cornish has proven profitable and manageable so far: “Our customers are looking for moist birds that are not complicated to cut. They are looking for easy cooking, and they are looking for organically fed birds so that they feel they are eating healthier for both themselves and the planet.”

At Maple Wind Farm in Huntington, the tremendous size of the flock and the need of farmers Bruce Hennessey and Beth Whiting to support their on-site slaughter facility with a high volume of birds makes feed efficiency a major consideration.

John Smith, Maple Wind’s poultry manager, managed 8,000 Cornish Cross and Red Rangers in 2014 and plans for 15,000 birds in 2015. Like Full Moon Farm, Maple Wind pastures their birds in chicken tractors, which John feels allow Cornish birds to forage effectively. Comparing Cornish Crosses and alternative breeds, he notes, “The Cornish grow faster, are less hardy, are more efficient converters of grain to meat, and have more breast meat.”

In contrast to smaller farms, Maple Wind sells their birds primarily through wholesale outlets, with one-third of their birds being sold in parts, not as whole roasters. John notes that in the wholesale market, the larger breasts of the Cornish are necessary, and he does not believe that his customers are prepared to pay more to eat an alternative breed. Consumers demand breast meat, in his experience, and their demand increases the value of the breast relative to the thighs and legs.

John has raised alternative breeds at home, and believes that their stronger chicken flavor derives from the birds being a few weeks older and much more active. He further notes that

The Cornish Cross only eat grain and not forage and insects), and their health concerns such as broiler ascites, breast blisters, leg problems, and chilling problems due to lack of feathering.”

Jennifer raises Barred Rock males from other historically dual-purpose layer breeds. She finds that the breasts are smaller, the legs and thighs are larger, and the meat is redder. Similar to my experience, Jennifer feels that the Barred Rocks pasture more effectively than her prior Cornish Crosses due to better health and mobility. She notes that the birds have more flavorful meat, but she finds herself educating customers about the visible black pinfeathers on the carcass and the leaner appearance of the bird. Jennifer acknowledges charging more to cover her higher feed and labor costs, as her birds take approximately four extra weeks to reach 4 to 5 lbs. dressed weight.

Continued on page 20

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BREEDS APART Continued from page 19

Applecheek Farm in Hyde Park, another farm that switched from the Cornish Cross to an alternative broiler breed, corroborates that alternative broiler breeds take approximately four extra weeks to achieve slaughter weight. While this extra time incurs additional grain costs, farmers John and Rocio Clark estimate that their birds forage up to 50 percent of their diets, compared to perhaps 15 percent for Cornish Cross broilers.

Green Mountain Girls Farm in Northfield is another farm that has raised Cornish Crosses and now raises alternative broilers. Laura Olsen sums up many of the issues mentioned by others: “Almost every time we have them I vow to never raise them again. They do okay on pasture, but require a lot more management. We can’t fully trust them to get out of the sun, to drink water, or to get out of the rain, so we have to spend time encouraging them to do what other chickens do on their own.

Some will always park at the feeder and get too big, too fast.

We’ve almost never had leg problems with Freedom Rangers, but always have some Cornish with that issue.”

Noting the tenacity of their Freedom Rangers, Laura mentioned observing one of the broilers catching a small snake and eating it! Although economics often govern farm activities, Laura values one important, intangible asset of the alternative broiler: “For me, I like raising animals that seem hardy and viable, and I don’t think the Cornish [fit that description].” uuu

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Several themes emerged as I reviewed farmers’ experiences.

Generally, larger operations favor the Cornish Cross, whose predictable timing and ample breast meat fit well into wholesale systems. The reduced activity of the Cornish also permits the more compact, pen-based pasture management approaches that larger farms tend to favor. And pasturing the Cornish appears to reduce the likelihood of health problems.

For their part, smaller farms may find that the extra time required to pasture range-oriented birds is a better option than paying a larger grain bill for the Cornish. They also uniformly agree that their chickens necessarily cost more due to this increased length of time to maturity.

And farmers who have raised both kinds of broilers agree that alternative breeds forage more effectively and consume proportionally less purchased feed. They also agree that alternative breeds taste different—stronger, darker, and more richly flavorful than Cornish. Many farmers raising alternative breeds also claim that the meat is more nutritious.

As for me, I ordered 15 Red Rangers this year from my favorite hatcheries. I’m happy to care for them for a few extra weeks and to spend a little extra on food because I value an animal that hunts, pecks, and scratches over a wide-ranging area, as its instincts tell it to. I will have a backyard with chickens I can be proud of, instead of ones that I often find myself apologizing for.

Katie Sullivan is a farm educator and owner of Sheep and Pickle Farm, recently relocated to Williston. Her passions include homesteading, dairy goat genetics and management, and honing her sheep flock into sustainable providers of fine fiber, plenty of lambs, and good meat.

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SUN DANCE SEASON Continued from page 13

record of, in a Highgate, Vermont oral history that recalled an early 20th-century man who performed the dance. The Rain Dance also has the Sun Dancer, but adds the Moon Dancer and a group of at least four women who portray a passing thunderstorm, with their carved and befeathered staffs representing lightning and thunder. Between representations of storms, the Sun and Moon Dancers dance together to symbolize their influence over the growing crops and other life on earth. And so with hand tending, song, and dance, the gardens grow strong.

By August, the waiting is over, the corn and beans are rapidly approaching ripeness, and the squash and pumpkins are obviously going to succeed, so it is time to take a breath. Ripe

summer squash can be harvested and made into delicious summer stews, and the skunk beans can be cooked, as are lima beans—a mere harbinger of the harvest that awaits, offering new opportunities for ceremony and new cuisine to the mix.

But that is another story!

Fred Wiseman, a retired professor and former department chair of Humanities at Johnson State College, is a paleo-ethnobotanist who has studied the Maya people of Mexico and Central America and the modern ethnobiology of the Sonoran Desert. His interest in the Abenakis began in 1985, after he learned that he had Abenaki ancestry. To learn more about Seeds of Renewal, contact Fred at wisem@vtlink.net.

CAMPFIRE Continued from page 17

Campfire Garlic and Tomato Chicken 2 chicken breasts, 4 chicken thighs or 8 drumsticks, from Misty Knoll, Tangletown Farm, Maple Wind Farm, or a whole local chicken you’ve cut in parts 1 pint cherry tomatoes 4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed 12 sprigs fresh thyme, rosemary, and oregano tin foil Place each chicken breast (or thigh or two drumsticks) in the center of a square of tin foil. Top with cherry tomatoes, smashed garlic, and fresh herbs. Fold the sides of the tin foil in over the top of the chicken. Bring the top and bottom ends of the foil together and fold one over the other, continuing to fold down until a tight packet envelops the chicken and toppings. Place each packet over medium-high heat toward the outer edge of the fire. Cook until the chicken is cooked through, 30 minutes or so, rotating every 5 minutes.

This recipe feeds four people.

Roasted Campfire Potatoes 4 Yukon gold or red potatoes, cubed in one-inch chunks 6 Tbs. butter salt and pepper to taste

Place cubed potatoes in the center of a square of tin foil. Chop the butter into smaller pieces and distribute around the top of the pile of potatoes.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap the potatoes tightly into a foil packet and place over medium-high heat at the outer edge of the fire. Cook until the potatoes are fork-tender, approximatley 30 minutes, rotating every 5 minutes. Feeds four people.

Campfire Ratatouille with Farmers’ Market Veggies 1 pint cherry tomatoes 2 summer squashes, sliced thick

Campfire Corn on the Cob 4 ears of corn butter salt Place ears of corn, still in husks, directly on the cooking grate over the fire over medium to high heat at the edge of the fire. Cook until the kernels are crisp and bright yellow, 20 minutes or so, rotating every 5 minutes. The husks will blacken.

Prevent them from catching on fire by avoiding direct flames. The husks can blacken significantly while the corn steams inside. Serve with butter and salt.

1 eggplant, cut into one-inch cubes 2 bell peppers, cut into strips 2 ears of corn, kernels shaved from ears 2 cloves garlic 1 onion, diced 4 sprigs fresh oregano 4 sprigs fresh thyme Divide all vegetables evenly into two piles, one on each of two squares of tin foil. Top with fresh herbs, divided evenly between the piles of vegetables. Wrap the foil tightly into packets around the vegetables and cook over low to medium heat at the outer edge of the fire, roughly 30 minutes. Rotate once or twice. Vegetables should be very tender. Feeds four people.

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Campfire-Warmed Bread 1 loaf soft bread butter Wrap a whole loaf of soft, locally baked bread (such as from Red Hen Bakery) in tin foil (crusty bread can be used, but the crust may harden with too much direct heat), or wrap slices for quicker warming. Slices of bread can also be warmed directly on the cooking grate without tin foil, but will be crispier, like toast. Whichever method you use, warm the bread over low heat at the outermost edge of the fire for approximatley 20 minutes, rotating several times. Slice and serve with butter.

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seeds for change

Rural Vermont at 30: Supporting Farmers to Sustain Farming

In early April, on an evening that concluded with yet another “surprise” late-season snowstorm, more than 100 people gathered at the historic Capital City Grange Hall on the edge of Montpelier to celebrate the official beginning of Rural Vermont’s 30th anniversary (photos below). In addition to a sumptuous potluck supper, the evening included the debut presentation of “Farmers Tell Their Stories,” the first in a year-long series of storytelling events that will celebrate—in story, poetry, and music—the history and the future of Vermont’s oldest and only direct advocacy organization for family farms.

It all began in the 1980s, when American farmers found themselves caught between rising costs and plunging prices.

For farmers it was a period of crisis, in many ways comparable to the Great Depression of the 1930s. In 1985, 1,173 farms went out of business every week across the United States. In Vermont, while the rate of farm loss was not quite as swift, the landscape was noticeably changing. New golf courses, shopping malls, and subdivisions were appearing where once there were pasturelands and green hills. Vermont farmers were seeing their property taxes soar in the early 1980s.

It was during this period of crisis that Rural Vermont was

Andrea Stander 22 local banquet

born. Founded by Anthony Pollina with Chris Wood, Deb Wolf, and a group of rural community organizers, Rural Vermont was initially set up as a telephone hotline to assist struggling farmers with their legal and financial problems. However, it soon became something more powerful: a means for farmers to speak out and participate in public policy decisions that were affecting their daily lives.

When Anthony and the other early organizers started working to help farmers, they kept hearing farmers say that no one in Montpelier was listening to them. So they organized a group to go to the statehouse to meet with some senators and representatives. The farmers asked for public hearings to be held, so that legislators could hear directly about the problems they were facing. At first the legislators put them off, saying they didn’t have time. So the farmers declared that they would organize their own public hearings, and then suddenly the legislators found the time to attend those hearings.

Because Rural Vermont’s goal has always been to amplify the voices of Vermont farmers, it has also always been led by its farmer members. To this day, Rural Vermont’s board of directors is made up entirely of working farmers.

Anthony Pollina S u m m e r 2 0 1 5

Frey Ellis

photos by caroline abels

by Andrea Stander Executive Director, Rural Vermont

Here’s a short list of Rural Vermont’s accomplishments and campaigns on behalf of family farms: ❚❚ Reformed Vermont’s “Current Use” Program, so that taxa-

❚❚ Advocated single-handedly for more than a decade for fair

❚❚ Helped develop the Northeast Dairy Compact, which cre-

❚❚ Passed commonsense laws allowing the return of agri-

tion of land is based on its productive value rather than being assessed based on the land’s value for potential development ated regional control of dairy pricing and helped stem the tide of failing farms

❚❚ Passed the Farmer Protection Act, which would have pro-

tected farmers from the economic devastation of cross contamination from GMO crops. (This law was vetoed by then Gov. Jim Douglas.)

❚❚ Advocated for more commonsense regulations for

small-scale poultry producers by passing the “Chicken Bill,” which made wholesome, local, farm-slaughtered poultry available at farmers’ markets and in restaurants

And the struggles go on, as Rural Vermont continues to work on the current iterations of its historic issues. We’re still advocating for our right to know what is in our food and how it has been produced. We’re still educating Vermonters about the need to support family farms and rational public policy.

Today, Rural Vermont is being led by the next generation of farmers. Many of them have chosen farming as a profession rather than inheriting it from their families. Their reasons for choosing one of the hardest ways to earn a living are as varied as the farms they run. But in many cases, they’re motivated by a desire to build a life for themselves and their families that is based on the same vision that has guided Rural Vermont for 30 years: to create a local food system that is self-reliant and based

Carl Russell

Amy Shollenberger

treatment of small-scale dairy farmers producing raw milk, enabling this safe and much-sought-after product to be an economically viable part of diversified farms cultural hemp to Vermont. (Our federal government is still tied up in knots about legalizing this versatile and valuable product.)

❚❚ Advocated for and legitimized Vermont’s longstanding tra-

dition of on-farm slaughter, enabling farmers to humanely manage the entire lives of their animals on their farms while allowing their customers legal access to farm-fresh meat

❚❚ Won required labeling of genetically engineered seeds in

Vermont and, in partnership with the Vermont Right to Know Coalition, passed the first “no strings attached” GMO Food Labeling law in the United States

on reverence for the earth; builds living soils; nurtures plants, animals, and people; helps create thriving communities; supports future farmers; and continues our rich Vermont heritage, which celebrates our diversity and interdependence.

Andrea Stander has served as the director of Rural Vermont since 2012. She brings 25 years of experience in community organizing, communications, and political advocacy to her work.

A Vermont resident since 1997, she is a committed local food consumer and, like author E.B. White, wrestles daily with the conundrum of saving the world or savoring it.

For more information about Rural Vermont, go to ruralvermont.org or call 802-223-7222.

Zach Brandau and Julie Matranga S u m m e r

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FIRE EATERS Continued from page 16

Each year, around Thanksgiving, we fill a pit with fire-heated rocks and food to share with feasting families. This earth oven employs an ancient technique used by cultures around the world.

Special occasions also entice us to spit-roast small animals such as chickens. Once, we skinned a recently road-killed gray squirrel before roasting it on the spit. For some kids, this was the closest they had ever been to a dead animal. Their faces toggled between disgust, caution, and admiration.

Once in a while, we’ve hunted the animals ourselves. Last fall, the kids used small nets to catch crayfish from the West River. At first, they just wanted to observe them up close, but then one child suggested that we eat them. After some discussion, our small, curious group of 7-year-olds agreed. We thanked the crayfish for their gift of meat, killed them with one quick jab of a knife, and placed them in hollow knotweed stalks, which we then filled with water and boiled over the fire. The kids marveled at the dramatic color change from reddish brown to bright orange.

When it came time to eat, most were surprised by how little there actually was. Each child took a small bite, and compared it to more-familiar foods. Visceral experiences such as these stand in sharp contrast to buying prepared foods from a supermarket. As Bob Etzweiler, Oyase’s field director, puts it: “When you’re building a fire primitively from wood that you harvested on the land, and you’re cooking meat from an animal that lived on that land, you’re connecting with that place in an intimate and powerful way.”

Before we eat at Oyase, storytelling always plays a part.

We share the historical and current uses of plants, the story of whatever is known about an animal’s life and death, and gratitude and blessings on the meal. I don’t know what these kids eat at home, but they surprise me with their willingness to try something new—persuaded, perhaps, by their own role in preparing it.

“Who wants rock-roasted potatoes?” I recently heard a 9-year-old girl shout with glee.

Cooking over a fire is probably not the primary means by which we in the West prepare food today, but by choosing to cook the fruits of our labor over an outdoor fire, we nourish meaningful connections to the food we eat, the places we live, and all those who relied on these practices before us.

Abigail Mnookin lives in Brattleboro with her wife and their daughter. In addition to outdoor teaching, she is the membership coordinator for Brattleboro Time Trade and a commentator for Vermont Public Radio. Read more of her work at digital.vpr.net/people/abigail-mnookin.

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OKRA!

by Andrew Knafel Clear Brook Farm

photo courtesy of Clear brook farm

Although we farm in Vermont, one of our favorite vegetables to grow, and especially to eat, is a staple from the South: okra. On our farm in Shaftsbury, where we grow between 25 and 30 acres of veggies and small fruits—everything from asparagus to… well, yes… zucchini—it’s the letter O in which one of our true vegetable passions rests.

Okra!

We only plant 300 to 400 okra plants each year. Not only is the yield per plant low for the amount of space we need for it (a plant will yield one okra pod every couple of days), okra is also very labor intensive to pick for the amount of pods we get. On the rare occasion when we offer the harvest for sale in our farm stand, it flies off the shelf, but we also save a portion of the crop for ourselves and we covet every last pod! The flower is also very beautiful, okra being in the hibiscus family.

There are so many different ways to eat okra. It can be chopped into ¼-inch rounds and then dipped in egg, rolled in cornmeal, and fried in olive oil. Or you can steam it or stew it with tomatoes. One of our “go-to” okra recipes to prepare in September (when we have a little more time) is a vegetable “gumbo.” We sauté onions and garlic, then add okra, zucchini, tomatoes, hot pepper, and sometimes eggplant. We season this with fresh basil, parsley, and oregano.

Make a big batch and, after eating your fill, freeze the rest up for some mid-winter veggie therapy!

There are other ways to preserve okra for the winter.

Perhaps our favorite way is to pickle it. For those who are wary of the “slime factor” in eating okra, pickling eliminates this and makes a super crunchy, high-protein pickle snack.

You can use any cucumber pickle recipe and just substitute okra for cucumbers. They are sublime.

Watch out kale, okra is the next big thing in the vegetable world!

This is the 21st season that Andrew Knafel and Anne Hunter have been farming. They run Clear Brook Farm in Shaftsbury and sell vegetables at the Londonderry and Manchester farmers’ markets, as well as at their farm stand.

They also offer a winter CSA and a summer CSA. For more info: clearbrookfarm.com or 802-442-4273.

Vegetable Stew 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 2 small zucchini, sliced 1⁄2 inch thick 1 eggplant (about 1 pound), cut into 1-inch cubes 1 medium onion, chopped 1 small poblano pepper, chopped ⁄2 red bell pepper, chopped

1

1 pound okra, stem ends trimmed 3 large tomatoes chopped ⁄4 cup water

3

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme or 1⁄2 teaspoon dried 1 teaspoon salt ⁄2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped ⁄2 cup chopped fresh basil

1

Heat oil in a large pot over high heat. Add zucchini, eggplant, onion, poblano and bell pepper. Cook, stirring often, until the vegetables are seared and starting to soften, about 5 minutes. Stir in okra, tomatoes, water, thyme, salt and pepper; bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to maintain a low simmer; partially cover and simmer, stirring often, until the vegetables are tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in garlic and basil. Serve warm, at room temperature, or even cold.

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C A L E N D A R Friday, June 5 to Sunday, June 7

Strolling of the Heifers 9am The world-famous agriculturally-themed Strolling of the Heifers Parade—10 a.m. sharp on Brattleboro’s historic Main Street; pre-parade entertainment from 9 a.m. When it’s over, follow the crowd to the all-day 11-acre Slow Living Expo for food, music, dance, demonstrations, exhibitions, and fun, all related to our mission of sustaining family farms by connecting people with healthy local food. Downtown Brattleboro. strollingoftheheifers.com 802-380-0226

Saturday, June 13 and Sunday, June 14

Sweet Potato Slip Sale and Fundraiser 8am–6pm Red Wagon Plants in Hinesburg invites the public to the 7th Annual Sweet Potato Slip Sale, to benefit the Vermont Community Garden Network.

VCGN pots thousands of sweet potato slips and Red Wagon cares for them until the sale, when they have sturdy roots and are ready to go into warm garden soil. 2408 Shelburne Falls Road, Hinesburg. redwagonplants.com 802-482-4060

Sunday, June 14

Sense of Place: Vermont’s Farm Legacy 3pm The Vermont Folklife Center’s Greg Sharrow will help us open our 2015 exhibition, The Farm. He’ll explore the fabric of Vermont’s farm culture and distinctive traditions from the early 20th century as he probes its relationship to today’s farms and farmers. Sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council Speakers’ Bureau. Free. Rokeby Museum, 4334 Route 7, Ferrisburgh. rokeby.org 802-877-3406

Tuesday, June 16 to Wednesday, June 17

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UVM Food Systems Summit 12–7pm The Right to Food: Power, Policy, and Politics in the 21St Century. The UVM Food Systems Summit is an annual event drawing scholars, practitioners, and food systems leaders to engage in dialogue on the pressing food systems issues facing our world. UVM, Burlington. uvm.edu/foodsystems 802-656-3831

Sunday, July 19

Seeds of Renewal 3pm Discover Abenaki rose corn, skunk beans, and Algonquin squash as Fred Wiseman recounts his effort to track down and reintroduce ancient crops that are now locally extinct. He will share the project’s challenges and successes, including a developing “new indigenous” cuisine. $2 program only or free with museum admission. Rokeby Museum, 4334 Route 7, Ferrisburgh. rokeby.org 802-877-3406

Sunday, July 19

The Vermont Cheesemakers Festival 10am–4pm With more than 40 Vermont cheesemakers offering samples of more than 150 varieties of artisan and farmstead cheeses, and 80 local food and beverage artisans sampling their hand crafted products, this festival is a celebration of food, community and the working landscape of Vermont.

Shelburne Farms, 1611 Harbor Road , Shelburne. shelburnefarms.org 802-985-8686

Friday, July 31 through Saturday, August 15

Vermont’s Deerfield Valley Blueberry Festival Ten days of fun for all ages: block parties, blue-eyed contests, blue cocktails, a Blueberry Parade, blueberry culinary experiences, blueberry bingo, pajama parties in the blueberry field, a Blueberry Ball, blue dot specials, blue inspired craft options, the Deja Blue Car Show, blueberry pie eating contest, and a Blueberry Quest! Visit website for individual events. vermontblueberry.com 802-464-8092

Saturday, August 1

Inventive Vermonters: A Sampling of Farm Tools and Implements 1:30pm Vermonters have always been inventive, especially when it comes to agricultural innovations. Time- and labor-saving inventions that ease the hard work of farming have always been important in our rural, agricultural state. In this illustrated lecture, retired engineer Paul Wood presents a sampling of farm tools, implements, and artifacts invented or produced in Vermont, examining their use, uniqueness of design, and the often fascinating stories of the inventors themselves. Hosted by the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation. Union Christian Church at the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site, 3780 Route 100A, Plymouth. vermonthumanities.org 802-672-3773

Monday, August 3

Open Farm Week 2015 8am–8pm This event is structured to strengthen consumers’ connections to Vermont land and farms, while teaching them how to access Vermont-grown food, fiber, and forestry products. It is hoped that this will become an annual event that engages both Vermonters and vacationers in building relationships with our food producers and interest in Vermont’s amazing working landscape. Various Farms around Vermont, check website for localtions. nofavt.org 802- 434-4122

Saturday, August 15

Weeds as Medicine Talk and Walk 1–3pm Julie Mitchell, gardener, educator, and clinical herbalist, leads a guided walk to look at “weeds” on Mount Independence and what they offer as medicine. Learn plant identification and enjoy a conversation on the historical and practical uses of these plants. Rain or shine. Mount Independence, Orwell historicsites.vermont.gov 802-948-2000

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Reliving History through Food in Burlington I swirled the creamy beans, sweet chunks of zucchini, and crunchy corn niblets in the last of the lemon-herb vinaigrette at the bottom of my dish. This salad had a story to tell, and I was hungry to hear it. Lucky for me, I was in the right place: Sugarsnap restaurant at the Echo Center, the first stop on the Burlington Edible History Tour.

The tour’s creators and co-leaders, Gail Rosenberg and Elise Guyette, “asked us to prepare something that represented the early local residents and their staple crops,” says Deanna Hunt of Sugarsnap. So the restaurant decided to feature the “three sisters” of Native American agriculture: squash, beans, and corn.

Many of the vegetables were grown just a few miles away at Sugarsnap’s garden at the Intervale, a 700-acre tract of land along the Winooski River that was hunted and farmed for millennia, first by the Native Americans and then by European settlers and American colonists. Today, vegetable farms, chicken coops, and beehives line the dirt road leading into the fields.

Gail and Elise have enthusiastically set out to share their knowledge gained through copious research into the foodways and traditions of the various ethnic groups who have made Burlington their home. On the September afternoon when I went on the tour, the pair led our group on a leisurely two-mile stroll through the city’s downtown, stopping frequently to point out a historic building or to share a tale of an immigrant’s contribution to Vermont’s culture.

Daniel Caudle, manager of Church & Main, literally threw open his door to Gail and Elise on a blustery day in the early months of 2014. His intent had been just to provide shelter from the inclement weather, but after learning about their plans for interpreting the Queen City’s history through food, he was in.

“Almost every restaurant on Church Street was owned by immigrants from Greece, and [this location] did not buck the trend,” he told me.

Although usually preparing American bistro fare, chef Trevor Smith borrowed from the eatery’s Hellenic background to develop his tasting menu for the tour. As I sliced into the juicy Mediterranean-herb-crusted pork loin on a savory bed of orzo studded with kalamata olives and feta cheese, my eye caught the red-and-white stained-glass panel on the wall.

“Candy Shop,” it read, a reminder to patrons of the restaurant’s history as a Greek-run confectioner’s shop.

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We found our sweet break at Burlington’s bicycle café, Maglianero. The tart, lime-flavored frozen yogurt—a nod to the coffeehouse’s location in what was once a Lebanese neighborhood—paired perfectly with its bookends of not-supersweet chocolate graham-flour cookies. These grown-up treats emerged from the hands of Andrew Lestourgeon, pastry chef at renowned Hen Of The Wood, a Vermont restaurant synonymous with local and foraged ingredients.

Menus from the city’s past inspired the day’s final food tasting. Chef Doug Paine of the Hotel Vermont’s Juniper was thrilled to host a stop on the tour. “I told Gail about some old Hotel Vermont menus from the 1920s and 1930 I had seen, and one thing that stuck out to me was that they all had some sort of local fish on them.” At one time, residents of all nationalities feasted on salmon, trout, and other species from the lake. However, by the 1900s, the stocks had been depleted, due to development and the building of dams and canals. Further industrial growth polluted the water, leading to the perception that local catch was unfit to eat.

Doug, who is also chef at Bleu Northeast Seafood, is active in trying to rehabilitate the image of Lake Champlain’s fish: “The idea is, you have to eat it to save it,” he said. The tender perch fingers he offered us certainly enticed me to follow his advice.

And keeping to the locavore theme, it was stone-ground flint cornmeal from Butterworks Farms in Westfield that formed the perch’s nutty, crisp coating.

Gastronomic writer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin once wrote, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.”

From what I sampled on that afternoon, I could see that Burlington’s cuisine and culture has resulted from the serendipitous mixing and melding of cultures, with no single influence standing above the others. The addition of food traditions from more recent arrivals can only add more spice to the mix.

To find out the dates of this year’s Burlington Edible History Tour, go to burlingtonediblehistory.com. Gail and Elise have committed to donating 10 percent of their profits from the tour to New Farms for New Americans, a project of the Association of Africans Living in Vermont.

Pamela Hunt lives in South Burlington and writes about travel, food, and general Vermont goings-on.

Follow her at pamelahunt.com.

photo by pamela hunt

LAST MORSEL

by Pamela Hunt

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