Seasonal Learning, The Importance of Becoming a Flexible Consumer
Rest, Recover, Recharge
As some of you might be aware our team was lucky enough to take a few months off in January and February. Like seasons, humans require hibernation and reset-Our ancestors understood this concept well.
Historically, generations before us were forced into these pauses by the dead of winter. Winter, to me is honest and brutal; there’s no hiding from the fierceness of the cold. The winter takes what she has created into her grasp and forces that creation to alter the current state of being. It reminds me of our current global position with this COVID-19 pandemic.
Who thought that life as we know it would be forced to change over night? Here in NY and on the north fork of Long Island life is vastly different than we have anticipated for Summer 2020.
Amidst grave turmoil, our community has rallied together in a way that has been incredible to witness. People are feeding others, they’re volunteering on the front lines; businesses rallying together to support the families of our villages and towns. Customers are supporting their cherished small local businesses, the individual is supporting the collective for the sake of health and well-being.
Growing
Something I’ve become fascinated with is revitalized concept of victory gardens. I’ve been hearing a lot about these victory gardens and I have to admit I’m OBSESSED.
I recently read a NY Times article that described the revolution that took place in a post-World War I landscape. This pamphlet from January 1919 is a call to action for the American people to help feed Europe. There’s no surprise that the victory garden movement has revitalized itself in life during this pandemic.
The summer of 2019 was the first summer I started investing in my home garden. I’m 3rd generation Irish and Italian immigrant, I grew up watching my parents cultivate gardens. I felt like I had to do it for myself, I was surprised to find out that it was WAY harder than I could’ve anticipated.
It’s like life right? Plant a seed, watch it grow, investing time and energy, harvest and reap the rewards, and do NOT forget to leave the ground better than when you started. Fast forward to this year, I’m antsy to get out into the garden again.
This year I decided to up my ante and start transplants on my own, I’ve also finally accepted that I have an heirloom seed purchasing addiction-That’s a different discussion for another day, I’d love to know who’s equally as obsessed so please comment below.
I find myself often thinking about how my grandfathers and my grandmothers came to this country from Europe searching for opportunity in a new world. My grandparents would work long hours then come home and prepare their gardens so their families could survive. There’s a huge deal of lessons to be learned, most of all I see grit and freedom disguised in hard work.
I think my generation and the generations after me have forgotten what it was like to bake your own bread and can your own vegetables; perhaps they never knew what it was like to properly bake a pie or the pride in preparing a roast of any kind? In the world of Insta-pots and microwaves we’ve forgotten how far we’ve come in the land of the free and home of the brave.
Harvesting
The feeling of putting hours into the preparation of a beautifully crafted meal is like no other. When you take that first tasty bite and mutter to yourself “That’s just like Grandma’s” or when someone turns to you and says (sometimes with tears in their eyes) “That’s just as good as Mom’s”, that’s how you KNOW you’ve hit the culinary jackpot. My grandma would always watch us, her grandkids, take the first bite and say “How is it”?
There were many summers I’d go to my grandparents house and we’d can things to make sauce or prepare beautiful veggies to be preserved. This would be the time to butcher the animals we’d consume during the winter or sell them to other families who would survive on the meat we’ve prepared. There’s a certain unsaid honor that is derived from the relationship between consumer and butcher or farmer.
Although nobody wants to talk about the ugly truth of butchering it’s something I have come to know quite well as the daughter of a butcher and as a butchering apprentice myself. Avid non-meat eating advocates would despise the explicit details but the fact of the matter is there is something beautiful that occurs between the farmer, the butcher, and the animal.
When a farmer entrusts a butcher with the life of their beloved animals it is sacred. It’s much like Mother Earth when the time comes for winter, it’s evolutionary. Multiple multifaceted systems are built upon this foundational process.
Creative Consumerism
There’s something to be said about this cycle of life process that most farmers are probably unwilling to state to their consumers, there’s responsibility in consuming animals in their entirety. If you kill an animal you use the animal and all of it’s resources to the absolute.
What I mean by this is that on a whole steer there’s only two flat irons; however, there are several other chuck steaks that might not be as comfy or as vogue as a flat iron.
When you’re purchasing meat in the new dawn of the at home cooking revolution we simply ask that you approach the purchasing and cooking of a piece of delicious meat with curiosity in order to enhance your creative culinary experience. Like a blank canvas to an artist.
I’m not asking that you break down and buy veal liver right out of the gate but maybe try a roast that you haven’t heard of or a top round cut with some root veggies.
As your butcher or farmer what they have plenty of and support in the sustainability of the ecosystem. If you don’t know how to prepare it, ask them! They would know better than anybody how to prepare all types of meat.
As yourself before you buy your next piece of meat what story are you going to convey to your family?
In the age of Netflix and chill take time to sit down and eat homemade food from the soul that you cooked on your own from the heart.
Maybe in our time of uncertainty where more people are home cooking and exploring possibilities of their nutritional journey, it’s time that we as consumers take responsibility for our flexibility to change and “grow”; or maybe revert back to simple principals that were taught to us so many generations ago?
Cheers to your family and health!
Isabella