29 July 2010

Basil, Merlin and Chioggia beets, Fordhook, Magenta Sunset and Rhubarb chard, Cucumber, Lettuce, Onion, Carmen, Islander and Flavorburst Peppers, Red Norland potatoes, Squash

Several towns in Washington County, including Easton, have recently taken on the pressing matter of defending the English language. Sadly, not from misuse by native speakers. There will be no fines levied against those who make egregious grammatical errors, repeatedly misuse words or generally demonstrate a poor sense of style. No, what our language needs to be saved from, it turns out, is other languages—evil, rapacious languages lurking out there just waiting to pounce on some defenseless, innocent one sweetly minding its own business. Given its modest standing in the world and its obvious desire to carry on quietly without bothering anyone else, English is a tempting prey.

The Easton Town Board, ever a leading light in civic matters, wishes to be clear that while it fears for the safety of English, it has no particular language in mind as the enemy. Who knows, Basque or Swahili or Turkish might force itself upon us. And by force itself upon us I mean, if I understand the concerns of our Town Board correctly, that some day a speaker of some unspecified foreign tongue might have the gall to request a copy of our Comprehensive Plan translated into their language. I know, it shocks one even to contemplate such an entirely hypothetical event. Actually, it would be surprising enough if anyone ever asked for a copy of the Comprehensive Plan in its current English version, let alone demanded a translation. But one must be vigilant again all possible attacks.

They do, of course, have a specific language in mind even though they lack the courage to own up to their pathetic little anti-immigrant sentiments. They, like so many of their fellow citizens, fear that Hispanic immigrants will come to our community to change our way of life. The fact that we already have a fair number of Mexican and Central American workers on our dairy farms—their labor and low wages helping our one major industry to survive—and that these people have shown no sign of trying to change anything hardly seems to matter. In fact, our immigrant population remains almost entirely invisible. You would have to go into the barns and milking parlors of Easton to find them.

Oddly, that probably makes things worse. Though they remain out of sight for the most part because they are here illegally—not that anyone has tried to make them feel welcome—it is taken as further evidence of their unwillingness to integrate. This is a key charge against them since just about everyone making it is an immigrant, many of them from some ethnic group at one time viewed as a threat to our way life. To finesse this seemingly sticky point, anti-immigrant folks have come up with (well, revived—but they don’t know that because they ignore history) the argument that Hispanics differ from previous immigrants because they refuse to assimilate and so will by sheer force of numbers overwhelm us and leave us strangers in our native (so to speak) land. If they really meant to fit in they would speak English like all the other immigrant do.

Take me, for instance. My great grandmother came to this country from Eastern Europe and yet I speak English more or less fluently, whereas the Mexicans who did the milking for the Allens can barely speak any English. Sure, when my grandmother arrived there were whole Yiddish-speaking neighborhoods in New York with Yiddish newspapers and Yiddish theaters and restaurants serving weird bread rolls with holes in them, just as there were—and in some cases still are—Italian and German and Chinese and Norwegian and Polish and Czech and West Indian neighborhoods where newly arrived immigrants spoke their own language and followed their own customs—and there were real Americans warning about the terrible threat this all posed to our superior WASP culture. But let’s not get hung up on the past.

Imagine what will happen if we let this new wave of immigrants settle here and infect our culture. Not only will our language suffer, but we might end up eating their food. We have to protect our American culinary heritage from unwanted outside influences too. We cannot let these folks from south of the border mess with the potato. All right, maybe that is not the best example. Okay, but what about bagels, pizza, egg rolls, wieners, sauerkraut, spaghetti, Budweiser? Everyone else who came to this country adapted to eating just like we do. But these Hispanics, I just know they are going to try to slip some of their dishes into our diet. No thanks, I say. Get your hands off my American food, Mexicans (except, of course, when you are picking it). I am sticking with Taco Bell and Chipotle.

I suggest anyone who believes there is some sort of coherent, untainted, fundamentally Anglo-saxon American culture to defend take a walk around a farm field. If they walked through ours they would find crops that have traveled from all over the world—not just obvious immigrants like bok choi and cilantro, but peppers and eggplants and beets and onions and tomatoes and turnips and melons and cucumbers and beans and peas. In fact they would find few crops native to this or any other Anglo-saxon country. Thomas Jefferson may have grown many of these crops at Monticello, but they were available to him because people have always moved around the world for all sorts of reasons, and they have carried with them not just their language and beliefs and history, but also their food. Newcomers and natives (people and plants) have mingled in their own frequently hostile fashion. Picking out one moment in this ebb and flow and setting it apart as an inviolable institution worthy of defense is silly and pointless. 75 years from now during hard times the grandchildren of Mexican migrant pickers will join their fellow Americans to decry the influx of Estonians and warn everyone of the danger these strange newcomers pose to our Spanish-inflected language, our beloved barbecued goat tacos and the all American Quinceanera.

Speaking of the unwashed coming to our shores, you may be wondering why the potatoes did not take a bath before settling in your neighborhood. Since these are new potatoes—dug while the plants are still alive—they are surprisingly fragile. We have found in past years that washing them on the farm not only strips off their skins, but also causes them to go bad quickly. We though you would rather wash a few potatoes than get some mushy ones.

One you have scrubbed the potatoes you might want to mix them with some olive oil, salt, a few dried herbs (rosemary or thyme, for instance) and a dash of smoked paprika if you happen to have it (and you should have it), and pop them in a 425 degree oven until they are crunchy on the outside and creamy within, which takes somewhere around an hour. You could cut an onion into eights and roast it with the potatoes. They go very well with sautéed chard. Or you could boil them and the beets and make a cold salad with sliced onion and basil. You can also eat the beets raw. Peel them, slice them as thinly as possible (a mandoline makes that much easier as long as you don’t jam your finger into the lethally sharp blade (and yes, that is the voice of experience)) and dress them with some olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

I strongly recommend roasting and peeling the peppers. They taste fine as they are, but better roasted and peeled. I put them on a burner to char the skin all over (the pepper’s skin that is), put them in a brown paper bag or piece of paper towel for at least ten minutes (where they steam themselves, which loosens the skin) and then wash the skin off. You could add some slices to your roasted potatoes or a grilled squash and mozzarella sandwich or puree them with oil, vinegar (sherry vinegar would be good), mustard, salt and pepper to make a red pepper vinaigrette. Or if you happen to be in an ornery mood you could reprimand them for coming to our country without proper papers and have them deported back to their native Mexico.

I do hope that you will send your boxes back to where they came from. You can return the empty, flattened box (please try to preserve the tabs on the bottom when you flatten the box) to your site. It is fine to bring it back when you pick up the next share. We have enough boxes to deal with the time lag. We do not, however, have enough boxes to deal with getting them back many weeks later or not getting them back at all, so we ask that you try to remember to return them reasonably promptly. Thanks.