Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 34

 weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

 

• Some of our favorite images from Pinterest this week, above. Come on by.

• Like so many coastal areas, fisherman are struggling in Southern California's Orange Country, highlighting the need to preserve culture as well as the natural world. Thanks to regulation in the name of conservation, these hard-working men face extinction: "The last people on earth who want an empty, fishless ocean are the people who make their living off fishing in the ocean."

• "Smart aquaponics" in Oakland, California at Kijani Grows is using tech in new ways: "Gardens that can communicate for themselves using the internet can lead to exchanging of ideas in ways that were not possible before. I can test, for instance, whether the same tomato grows better in Oakland or the Sahara Desert given the same conditions. Then I can share the same information with farmers in Iceland and China.”

• The New York Times OpEd Dirtying Up Our Diets argues that getting natural with microorganisms and unsanitized food might be just what the doctor ordered: "As we move deeper into a “postmodern” era of squeaky-clean food and hand sanitizers at every turn, we should probably hug our local farmers’ markets a little tighter. They may represent our only connection with some “old friends” we cannot afford to ignore."

• The title might be inflammatory, but soem interesting points are raised in the recent Salon article Eating Local Hurts the Planet. How your food is produced really, really matters. Shipping is just the part of the food system that we can see. "Not surprisingly, it turns out that food miles can only be taken at face value in the case of identical items produced simultaneously in the exact same physical conditions but in different locations — in other words, if everything else is equal, which is obviously never the case in the real world."

• The Practical Philosophy of Fish-Killing and The Ike-Jime Man explained for you by International Culinary Center instructor Dave Arnold. It's everything you ever wanted to know, and probably a bit more. (warning — an article for chefs or the otherwise sturdy)

• Chef Marcus Samuelsson talks about his memoir Yes, Chef and his life in the kitchen on the radio show Fresh Air (audio link).

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 33

 weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

 

• We thought the bacon sundae was weird, but in the Netherlands, there's hamburger eye shadow.

• Urban cleanup that earns farmer's market vouchers with a new "trash for food" exchange in Mexico City sounds like a win-win.

• A vertical urban farm in an old meatpacking plant that's also a food business incubator, The Plant in Chicago has lots of space and big plans.

• Another idea that we're excited about: Local Food Lab, a California based incubator and collaborative workspace for early stage sustainable food and farm startups.

• Farming indoors starts to sound like a pretty good idea with crazy weather events like the hailstorm that wiped out Champagne's southern Côte des Bar region. "The damage is estimated at 130% because at least 30% of the 2013 crop will also be affected."

• There's a lovely series from the site Wine Searcher called When We First Met with personal stories of wine and how people have interacted with it. The profile with English writer Matt Walls caught our eye: "Sometimes, particularly with pinot noir, the wine just goes into a bit of a sulk. Nobody knows why. If you open it when it’s in a mood, there’s nothing you can do. It won’t play. You just have to give up. That’s what we had to do with that bottle, and it’s the most expensive bottle of wine I ever bought."

• By helping to spread the message that farming can make for a fulfilling and meaningful life in the 21st century, the Greenhorns and NYFC are hoping to attract a few more new recruits: "It's one of those jobs that provides endless opportunity to create positive change while making a living. As farmers, we're tasked every day with environmental stewardship, sustainable business development, preserving culture, and providing nutrient rich food for our families, friends, and neighbors. Although it can be fraught with stress and exhaustion just like any job, it's an incredibly rewarding way of life," says 32-year-old Brad Halm of the Seattle Urban Farm Company in Washington State. 

• Hands Off our Special Regions, says the European Commission to an American initiative calling for the unfettered use of what are currently protected food and drink monikers, such as Parmesan and port. How 'bout we put some creativity into creating new names. One of our favorites: Quady Winery's Starboard, a port-style wine made in California.

• Some feel that an old name is what's holding back a good fish. In the U.K., Sainsbury is trying to boost pollack's popularity through a new name artsy packaging.

• The best packaging innovation might be edible. "WikiCells is rooted in the way nature has always delivered nutrients: in a digestible skin."

• And from the wild world of innovation, Air Canada Flew Plane Using 50% Cooking Oil Biofuel for First Time

No Brand is an Island – Building American Regional Food Identities

this piece was originally published January 5 in Seedstock, the blog for sustainable agriculture focusing on startups, entrepreneurship, technology, urban agriculture, news and research.

Previously, we’ve looked at beneficial partnerships between artisans and farmers, and how cross-promotion and cultivating relationships with chefs and the community can boost the impact of a farmer’s market stand. With this theme of forging connections, we want to look one step further — to building new regional food identities in America.

The locavore movement has allowed us to think differently and more attentively about the foods of our regions. Like in times past, we are journeying again out onto available land and available cultural space (whether it’s an abandoned city lot or a dozen acres a hundred miles away from our friends and family) to forge new food systems and identities.

The phrase “agricultural renaissance” is gaining steam to describe the energy, excitement and activity in the good food movement. But just like the cultural renaissance in Europe took inspiration from classical sources to move the culture forward into something new, we need to find guiding inspiration in the past that will help us build food systems and cultures that are truly new and truly American.

We understand the complex web of interdependence in nature, but we don’t always appreciate it at a human and economic scale. Creating a web of interdependent regional brands is an ecosystem approach that can have an uplift effect on an entire region. The proliferation of new farms and farmers markets is just the beginning. We need a revolution that is not just broad, but deep. We need to knit brands together — in produce, meat, dairy, wine, beer and more — in ways that build up entire local economies. Economies built around food do more than just support food production. They support restaurants, markets, artisans, bed and breakfasts and agro-tourism. When a region is recognized as the source of many beloved products, it becomes a foodie destination and point of pride, linking the urban, suburban and rural communities that share in the experience.

What makes a regional food identity anyway? Agricultural regions across Europe have cultivated the idea of regional branding successfully for centuries. Take Normandy, a prolific region in northwest France boasting many stand-alone products that come together as a complete package of vibrant agro-tourism and celebrity chefs.

Normandy is a high profile producer of fruit, meats and dairy products that have come to symbolize the region. Normandy produces cheeses like Camembert, Livarot and Pont l’Eveque, not to mention fresh butter and cream from the Isigny region. Normandy apples and pears are known around the world for the ciders, juices and Calvados they produce. Lambs graze on the local salt marshes. Hogs are fed from the fruit orchards, ending up in famous charcuterie such as andouille. A regional cuisine has grown up that highlights these products and the ways they have developed to complement each other.

While there is a healthy dose of competition, the farmers depend on each other to anchor potential customers to the region. A collection of recognized products means chefs and world-renowned hoteliers, such as Relais & Chateau, have been able to open their doors, welcoming both leisure and agro-tourists. International cooking tours come to the Normandy region. Each player in this system produces something unique that they can be proud of, and by celebrating their shared Normandy identity, the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts.

Crafting new American regional food identities is partly about getting in touch with tradition, and partly about making new ones. No one thinks of Kentucky and then immediately thinks of Asian ingredients, but Louisville is now home to an artisan soy sauce producer. Bourbon Barrel Foods is riffing off the Kentucky distilling tradition to create “microbrewed” soy sauce from Kentucky grown soybeans, sweetened with Kentucky sorghum, and aged in re-purposed bourbon barrels. It’s an unusual product (as least for what we think of as being traditional to Kentucky) with undeniable Kentucky terroir that ties together long-standing regional traditions, like bourbon and sorghum as a sweetener, into something entirely new.

The appetite is there. Chefs continue to build menus around regional offerings, diving deeper all the time to get in touch with the best traditional and new products of a given region. Beyond farmers markets, specialty food shops and farmer’s co-ops around the country are providing a strong backdrop for American appellations.

You can build a branded identity for your county, or even your town. You don’t need permission. American appellations are the Wild West. Napa is, after all, just the name of a county. If this sounds far-fetched, look to real estate. When agencies want to brand a neighborhood that never existed before, they make up a name and start using it constantly. A few banners get hung up, a reporter is coaxed into repeating the name, and in a flash — a new branded region is born!

Get a few farms together, reach out to your wholesale customers in the city, and go for it. What are the ingredients your area does best? What are the connections you see that are still to be explored? The more the individual components are called out, the better the picture that is created. For example, pigs that are fed leftover fruit from an orchard can be made into bacon smoked with apple wood from the same orchard, and then served at a restaurant with an apple compote. Cowgirl Creamery in Marin County, California, just north of San Francisco, is using this idea to create new seasonal cheeses. Their St. Pat cheese is made using milk from nearby Chileno Valley Jersey Dairy and is wrapped in the local stinging nettle leaves that grow wild in spring — and all this is all called out in the marketing of the cheese.

This is the time to build deep and lasting identities. We can decide who we want to be, and there’s no impulse more American than that.

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About Alisha & Polly’s company: Polish Partnerships

www.polishpartnerships.com

Polish is a branding and communications company for the new gastroconomy. By creating strong partnerships with food and beverage producers, hospitality groups and industry innovators, we go the extra distance, transforming hopes, dreams and expectations into tangible, sustainable and polished realities.

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 11

a weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

 

• The perfect slice: Ohio artist, Dennis Wojtkiewicz explores the sensitive nature of time in his oversized oil paintings of fruit (above).

• Authenticity is the flavor of the new year, says NPR (and the rest of us): "What might be called urban neo-ruralism has apartment dwellers canning tomatoes, keeping bees and churning butter. The small farmer is the new gastronomic superhero, sourced on restaurant menus." Expect more craft butchers, more unusual meat (at least for Americans) like goat and rabbit, and more small batch distilling.

• All this artisan stuff is actually real business. Hyper-local markets provide big economic boost in San Francisco and across the country. "This is about jobs, the economy and community vitality....It's created a renaissance in agriculture and that's very exciting." Local Roots Market in Ohio got press as a smart new version of a farmers market. Said one participating farmer: “We won’t be slaves. We will be able to make a business.”

• Southern farmers profiled in the New York Times describe "a thriving movement of idealistic Southern food producers who have a grander plan than just farm-to-table cuisine. They want to reclaim the agrarian roots of Southern cooking, restore its lost traditions and dignity, and if all goes according to plan, completely redefine American cuisine for a global audience."

• Farmers forging partnerships is key to building regional food systems. "Food has really been the bridge that has healed the urban-rural divide."

• Looking across to Italy, we see farmers carving out new economic niches to flourish, with women-run farms ahead of the curve. Some farms are even offering day care centers as part of the mix. "The involvement of women in multifunctional agriculture has helped society in important ways 'like food security, rural development and the safeguarding of the natural landscape.'”

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 10

a weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

• Bake your way to fabulous real estate, like a gingerbread brownstone (above).

• When it comes to carbon footprint, are we worrying too much about food miles and not enought about supporting the best producers wherever they are? Some argue that what matters most is getting a handle on cars and building use.

• Local (or regional) when possible is still important to good and sustainable food systems. Massachusetts is stepping up to boost local producers by building an with an all-Massachusetts public market in Boston.

• Starbucks pushes forward recycled shipping container architecture with a new cafe design.

• In hospitality, Bill Marriott, who helped create his family's hotel empire, announced his retirement next year at age 80. He got his start in the kitchen and working as a soda jerk. In an NPR interivew, he talks about the business of the kitchen: "presentation is very important and the details are extremely important."

• If you want to play restaurateur without losing all your money, try Marriott's game on Facebook where you get to make supply and staff choices and then found out how you're doing.