8 October 2009

Bok choi, Daikon, Eggplant, Garlic, Lettuce, Onions, Peppers, Hot peppers, Potatoes, Rutabaga, Sage, Shallots

This weekend the Agricultural Stewardship Association holds its eighth annual art show, Landscapes for Landsake, which features the works of a number of local artists (including one of you). The opening reception will be held this Saturday, October 10^th, from 3 to 6 p.m. at the historic barn at Maple Ridge, 172 State Route 372, in Coila. The $5 admission (students and kids get in free) gets you wine and local cheese as well as a chance to see (and buy) some excellent art, and helps support ASA’s efforts to preserve good soils in Washington and northern Rensselaer Counties for agriculture and help sustain our farming community. For more information about ASA and the show visit agstewardship.org.

I would hope that the chance to drive out to our beautiful landscape on a fine autumn day to see a good art exhibition is enough to entice you in this direction. I would also hope that you consider the chance to support the work of ASA a compelling reason to make this small trip. I know most of you neither live nor farm in Washington or northern Rensselaer County, and I understand that you might therefore conclude that you have no particular reason to support ASA, no matter how admirable you deem its mission. Even if you have your heart set on protecting open space, there’s plenty closer to home.

But ASA’s specific mission to protect farmland (including 120 acres of our farm) in an area with both prime agricultural soils and a longstanding and active farming community makes it worthy of support from people throughout the capital district. A local supply of food—which we ceased to value highly only fairly recently and to our own detriment—will become increasingly important. And for this region that supply will to a significant extent come from the very places ASA works to protect because we have the space, the soil, the infrastructure and the knowledge. Even the farms in the region outside ASA’s area of focus will (and in many cases already do) rely on our farming community because we have a strong enough agricultural base to maintain the necessary support services, such as feed, fertilizer, seed and tractor dealers, mechanics, veterinarians, and livestock auction houses.

Ensuring that the best pieces of ground remain available for agriculture won’t by itself ensure that agriculture survives here. There are numerous other economic, cultural and political issues involved. We need to work on what to grow, how to grow it, who will grow it and how to sell it. While ASA has something to contribute to discussion on all these topics, these are not its area of expertise or effort. That said, it is undeniably true that in the absence of good farmland all the other issues are irrelevant. Without land on which to farm, the perfect farm crew carrying out the perfect growing system for the perfect crop isn’t worth a damn.

Not that I am saying you should sally forth this Saturday on some sort of agricultural crusade, rallying to ASA’s side to beat back the dark forces of development. You should come because you can take a scenic drive to look at attractive pictures in a nice setting while nibbling on tasty cheese. That doing so happens to aid the work of ASA is simply a nice bonus, a reason to feel good about having fun.

I cannot guarantee that if you do go to the show you will find a lot of vegetable paintings. One of the artists did paint some of our produce (painted a picture of it, not applied paint to it), but I don’t know if that made it in. I might just have to start commissioning vegetable portraits. I think kohlrabi, with its dark purple skin and jaunty poof of green leaves, can be quite dashing, and a family grouping of eggplants—stout Italians seated in front of their elegantly slender Asian relatives—would be nice. But if I had to choose right now I think I would have the daikon (the large white root in your bag) pose first. There’s something truly impressive about a plant that can grow a root that size that fast. I only seeded them at the end of August. Consider for comparison’s sake your shallots. They are perfectly nice shallots, but they spent a couple of months in the greenhouse and another 4 or so in the field. If they grew at the same rate as daikon we would never be able to get one in the bag. Of course, some of you may wonder what inspired us to put a daikon in the bag. Well, for a start they are just so much fun to grow. I think we enjoyed harvesting them more than we have enjoyed harvesting any other crop so far this season. And they taste good. You can just slice them up and eat them. Or shred them and mix them with salt and vinegar. Or make a spicy Korean pickle. But what I like best is to julienne a daikon, mix it with a good amount of salt, let it sit in a colander for at least a couple of hours, squeeze out the liquid and mix the daikon with soy sauce (regular and a little dark if you have it), vinegar (Chinese black vinegar works well but red wine vinegar is fine), sesame oil, chili oil, a little sugar and pepper. You could also add some ground Szechuan peppercorn (there’s a decent Asian grocery store on Colvin just off Central Ave. that has all these ingredients). You could also use this mixture, perhaps with some crushed garlic, on steamed bok choi and grilled eggplant. In fact, it would go well on just about everything in this weeks share, maybe even the rutabaga (the big round root).