Category Archives: Food

The Amish in Pennsylvania

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As part of the joint AFHVS and ASFS conference at State College Pennsylvania, we had diner at an Amish farm on the Friday evening. Those who were early enough to subscribe had one of the 45 seats in the living room of the farm house. STA71567

We were being served by the family, traditional Amish food. It reminded me of grandma’s diners; with what I would call in Dutch ‘draadjesvlees met jus’. It was delicious and very special to get a glimpse of how the Amish live.

The history of the Amish church began with a schism in Switzerland within a group of Swiss and Southern German Mennonites, in 1693. The leader of the schismatic faction was a Mennonite Elder named Jakob Ammann. Those who followed Amman became known as Amish. They mainly immigrated to Pennsylvania.  Nowadays they spread to other states as well, buying up farms for their sons. The family we stayed with had four children with 15 years in between the two oldest and the two youngest. The two youngest were still living at home, while the two oldest children had each seven children. The great number of children per family left grandma with 100 grand children, our host told us after we sang the song Amazing Grace together. Not surprisingly, they are one of the most fast growing minority in this country.

The Amish have their own way of dealing with ‘modernity’. New technology is assessed for its potential negative impact on the community by religious/community leaders. Not all technology is rejected, however most of it is. This family did not have electricity in their house, nor did they have a car. They were allowed to accept a lift or hire a taxi at the other hand.

STA71529For their dairy farm of 80 cattle they did use some electricity for milking for example with an electric generator. They also had tractors, however, here too the use of it was restricted. This could be noticed by looking at their hey wagons, which had no rubber but metal wheels, to prevent the seduction of using them on the road behind the tractor. Much of the thinking behind this is centred around labour force available and sustaining communities by not out-competing each other. At the other hand, they do use ‘modern’ instruments such as chemical pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and artificial insemination of cows.

Conference State College, Pennsylvania

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At the joint AFHVS and ASFS conference at State College Pennsylvania, we started with a day of excursions. I joined the ‘local food and flavors’ tour where we visited Tim Browser’s Elk Creek Café and Aleworks and tasted his home-brewed beer and locally sourced food. The local food tasted very good and was as Tim explained, centered around Nouveau Dutchie Cuisine. With humous and black beans as part of the menu, I could not really make a Dutch connection there, but it certainly was delicious.

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The next stop was the Tait Farm Foods in the Happy Valley where the owner Kim Tait explained the manifold activities of the farm. They work as a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm and have around 120 families as members. Members come to the farm on a weekly (summer) or bi-weekly (winter) schedule to pick up their seasonal share. STA71544

There are different types of shares, but a full year share for a family costs 1100 dollars. It is also possible to have a workshare, where members can work on the farm for a share of the produce to reduce costs. They have to commit 5 hours a week.

After this we visited a local vineyard the Mount Nittany Vindeyard and Winery in the Brush Valley and tasted some great wines as well as cheeses from a neighboring dairy farm.

What was striking to me especially in the visit of the CSA farm is the strong emphasis you can find here on ‘the community’. As the leaflet of the Tait Farm explains:

“In its most simplified form, the farm grows food for the community and the community supports the farm”.

Yesterday, at the first day of presentations, a session on ‘terroir’ explained differences between the US and Europe regarding their sense of territoriality. Whereas the notion of ‘terroir’ has a strong connection with proximity and social ties in the US, in Europe it has more relation with the specificity of food, the cultural heritage and the cultural history this food expresses. So whereas a ‘local’ sausage from a French region can be found in extralocal market places in Europe, the US understanding of local food as direct marketing, locally embedded in social ties, confines the produce much more to a specific place. Hence, you won’t find many geographical indications protecting specific products here (also because of other reasons).

Rural development in Iowa

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The coming two months, I will join the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development in Ames, Iowa. This center, part of the Iowa State University, is working with rural communities, native American communities and small producer groups to increase the capacity and resilience of these communities in tackling their problems. In the United States, the development of modern agriculture had a large impact and often devastating effects on rural communities. And, nowadays changing lifestyles, declining knowledge of food and less connection with farming and land have resulted in an obesity epidemic and diet-related diseases. Native American communities also suffer from diet-related diseases. One of the communities the center works with is a Hopi community in Arizona. A recently finished project worked with Hopi women to search for how they define, access and use traditional Hopi food. Using a community capitals approach, the participants assessed together their natural, cultural, social, political, financial and built capital. Through this, they identified their strong and weak or lacking capitals in search for improving health and living circumstances. See this website for an example of a Hopi farm.

Food and the city

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Cover "How to feed Tilburg"In the past two months a group of 5 Master students of Wageningen University carried out an exploratory study on food consumption in the city of Tilburg. This study was commissioned by the Environmental Federation of the province of Brabant (BMF). Tilburg has the ambition to become a climate neutral city in 2045, yet the issue of food is lacking in the city’s climate programme. Given the fact that approximately 40% of the urban citizen’s ecological footprint is related to food and that food production and transport make up a significant portion of a city’s CO2 emission, it will be impossible to become a climate neutral city without including a food strategy in the city’s climate programme. For this reason the BMF asked this group of students to calculate/estimate Tilburg’s total food consumption and to give a first impression of the food miles and food transport related CO2 emission of several food products (e.g. apple, sugar, sweet pepper, asparagus, milk, cucumber) for different outlets (e.g. a supermarket, a greengrocer, an organic supermarket and a farm shop). The food miles and related CO2 emissions were calculated on the basis of the products that were sold at each outlet end of March/beginning of April this year, so they only represent the situation at that moment in time. On Wednesday April 22 the group presented their findings.

Some findings I found interesting and/or intriguing: Continue reading →

Excursions Understanding Rural Development

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As a part off the course Understanding Rural Development (RSO 31806) we went on a field trip to de Eemlandhoeve in Bunschoten and explored the inner-city of Utrecht. By this excursion we visited a number of interesting expressions of urban-rural relationships, from a rural and an urban perspective.

De Eemlandhoeve

De Eemlandhoeve, owned by farmer, rural entrepreneur and philosopher Jan Huijgen, can be considered as an extreme example of a multifunctional farm enterprise. The group of Blonde d’Aquitaine’s form the centre of a rural enterprise which includes a large number of activities like a farm shop, care facilities, meeting and office facilities, an education garden and even a farmer’s cinema under construction.Blonde d'Aquitaines at the Eemlandhoeve

Next of being a multifunctional entrepreneur Jan Huijgen is a well known personality in Dutch rural development, active on a local, national, international (and maybe in the near future on a global) level. The farm residents a rural innovation centre and last October de Eemlandhoeve hosted the EEconference or Europese Eemlandconference, veelzijdig platteland.

On the excursion owner Jan Huijgen told us about his inspiration, motives and future plans with his farm. After his presentation we had an interesting discussion and were showed around the place.

Local food in the city of Utrecht

The second trip brought us to a rather different surrounding; the historical inner-city of Utrecht. On de Eemlandhoeve our focus was on the rural side of urban-rural relationships, in Utrecht we looked upon it from an urban perspective.

Cheese stall at the Vredenburg MarketTogether with our guide Frank Verhoeven (see his website)  we first went to the Wednesday Vredenburg Market. On this market we visited a cheese seller linked to the organization called Dutch Cheese Centre (website under construction). The stallholder told us about some typical Dutch cheeses and the trade in locally produced ones. After some tasting we set out for the traditional bakery Bakkerij Blom were owner Theo Blom showed us around and told about his bakery, traditional products and production.  

Our last stop was a visit to the five star hotel and restaurant Karel V for a number of short presentations. In the hotel our guide Frank Verhoeven started by telling us about his ‘Boerenbox’ initiative and his vision on a more locally based production and consumption. Secondly, one of the Karel V chefs explained us about the way they work with seasonal products originating solely from regional grounds and local suppliers. Lastly, Arie Bosma, one of the initiators of the campaign ‘Lekker Utregs’, told us about the initiative to reconnect the city of Utrecht with its surrounding countryside by establishing a so called Green Participation Society.

By the fieldtrips we got acquainted with several interesting expressions of urban-rural relationships, from a rural and an urban perspective. It was a nice and inspiring way of linking theory from class to reality by ‘tasting’ real life examples in ‘the field’.