20 August 2009

Beet greens, Carrots, Eggplant, Garlic, Onion, Anaheim or Ancho hot pepper, Spinach, Squash, Tomatoes, Cherry tomatoes, Turnips or beets

The Washington County Fair, which starts this coming Monday, features a lot of cows. 10 barns full of cows. Stall after stall of Holsteins and Jerseys and Brown Swiss and Herefords and Ayershires and Dexters and Charolais. More cows than all the other animals—goats and sheep and chickens and rabbits and pigs and a horses and oxen and a few reindeer—put together. And way way more cows than pies. There’s not even one barn full of pies. In fact, all the baked and canned goods take up a small section of a small barn, about as much space as is given to the table setting competition.

I do understand that the cow business plays a significant role in the economy of this county. Dairy products, cattle and calves account for 85% of the county’s agricultural sales (vegetables account for 5%), and agriculture is far and away the biggest business in the county. So it is no surprise then that the County Fair, that annual showcase of our bounty, puts on such a bovicentric celebration.

Pies, on the other hand, constitute an immeasurably small sector of the economy. Well, not immeasurably small. I don’t doubt that a sufficiently motivated researcher, someone with a real passion for economic statistics and baked goods, could come up with a reasonably accurate assessment of pie’s role in the county’s economy. But certainly unmeasured. If you look through the county’s economic development plan or scan federal census data for our area you will see no mention of pie at all.

But just because it is not a major player in the economy hardly seems like a good reason to shortchange pie at the Fair. The fair is not about the economy. If it were it would be something of a bummer this time around—a weeklong carnival of gloom to mark the dire financial situation in the dairy business. We could hand out special awards to the farms with the biggest debt and greatest negative cash flow and put up an electronic sign in the milking parlor keeping a running total of the milk’s negative worth (farmers get about $6 a hundred weight less for their milk than they spend to produce it). Any cows shown in the judging ring that failed to impress could be sent off immediately for slaughter as part of a herd reduction program and the tractor dealers could offer displays of used equipment. Instead of the usual (and bizarre) cooking utensil demonstrations in the midway, bankruptcy attorneys could offer enthralling spiels touting their services to rapt audiences.

Of course, nothing of the sort will happen at the Fair. The mood and the tractor displays may be a little more subdued than usual, but the celebration will go on. Serious farm kids in clean white shirts will bring their cows and rabbits before soberly attentive judges. Teenagers will flock to nauseating rides. Countless slices of terrible pizza will be eaten. The toy farm dioramas will be put on display and the Argyle firemen will barbeque vast flocks of chickens.

It will go on because the Fair is about not the actual state of farming but the essence of it: the ideal udder (there’s a prize for best udder), the best duck, the most powerful tractor, the perfectly trimmed sheep, the well set table, the latest forage harvester technology, the tallest stalk of corn. It will go on because going on is precisely what farmers do, even if it makes no sense (they talk of people who have gone out of the business in a tone that’s equal parts pity and scorn).

In this context it seems to me that the well-crafted pie has as important a role to play as anything else. Its ingredients—wheat, egg, milk, fruit—are basic farm products. The recipe is so simple a kid can do it, but to do it properly requires effort and hands-on experience best passed down from one generation to the next. It’s modest but a source of quiet pride when done well. It’s always better homemade than store bought. It is made to share. And while pie baking won’t make you rich it will keep you well fed. In other words, it is a rather more appropriate symbol of farming than any cow, and it smells a lot better.

I doubt it would pass muster with your average Washington County farm wife, but you can make a tasty pie (well, a tart, but let’s not quibble) with tomatoes, squash and onion (you can find the recipe on the web site). You could use the spinach or beet greens in an egg and cheese pie (which you can call a quiche if you are determinedly effete) quiche), or put your pepper, roasted and peeled, in a cheddar pie if you want something more American. In fact, you can put just about anything in a pie. Pie is highly adaptable, a quality the dairy industry might want to consider learning from it in order to survive. A quality the industry would be a great deal more likely to grasp if only they let me run the Fair and give pie its proper place.

Since that’s not likely to happen any time soon (the folks on the Fair Board are good eggs, but perhaps a little lacking in whimsy), I just have to put on my own pie celebration. Hence the annual Alleged Farm pie contest (and farm open house), this year on Sunday, September 27^th. I realize this only gives you five weeks to hone your pie making skills and a really good crust takes about three generations to perfect. I feel confident, however, given your obvious commitment to sustainable local farming and ready supply of fresh produce, that you will create something inspired, something surprising, something that in its blend of simple ingredients, hard work and fresh thinking captures the spirit of American agriculture. Or at least tastes good.