Section » Food
Strengthening the “weakest link” in the local meat infrastructure
Friend of the Ethicurean Sam Fromartz looks at a new wave of small slaughterhouses that are appearing in Virginia. He focuses on True & Essential Meats of Harrisonburg, a new partnership of former landscape architect Joe Cloud, his mother, and Joel Salatin (of Polyface Inc., who was profiled in Omnivore's Dilemma). True & Essential, which is
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The water wars: California’s salmon vs. agribiz interests
By Paul Johnson Chinook salmon fishing has been scaled way back in California. Photo: Zureks/Wikimedia I've been selling fish for 30 years, and I'm pleased that my store, the Monterey Fish Market, has a reputation for
‘Top Chef’ should take up the ultimate challenge: school lunch
Season 7 of Bravo’s Top Chef will be based in Washington, D.C., reported the Metrocurean (no relation) a few days ago, with filming to begin in early April.
The pie’s the limit! Get baking for Pi Day, March 14
Back in my (much) younger days, I used to enjoy math class. I especially got a kick out of geometry and the formulas used to calculate area, perimeter or circumference, and volume. My mother and I used to have fun with one formula in particular: "What's the formula for the area of a circle?" she would
Tracking the co-evolution of grass and humanity
High on grass: "We live in the age of grass," writes Olivia Judson, a research fellow in biology at Imperial College London, on the New York Times' Opinionator blog. Indeed, some of the crops that helped make humans an agricultural creature and create our complex civilization are grasses: wheat, rice,
Here’s the catch: More sustainable seafood requires exerting pressure up the supply chain
This is part 2 of a series on improving market-based seafood sustainability initiatives, inspired by a recent article published by an international team of researchers in "Oryx: The International Journal of Conservation." (See Oryx volume 44, pp. 45-56 doi:10.1017/S0030605309990470.
The spirit is willing, and the fresh is weekly: Review of “A Year on the Garden Path”
For the past few weeks, I've been watching the snow drift down with deceptive lightness, only to accumulate in deep piles (18" and counting here in northeastern Ohio) that have well and truly buried any remotely green thing on the ground. While it's lovely to sit inside and watch winter's show, I also
Why seafood wallet cards can be the wrong bait for consumers
Seafood guides and other consumer-based campaigns are an important part of the quest for sustainable seafood and healthy oceans, but so far they have not shown enough positive results: bigger efforts are needed. That’s the main conclusion of a new article, "Conserving wild fish in a sea of market-based
Souped-up meals to warm up snow days
Every time I've looked out the window this week, I've felt a childlike glee at the sight of all the snow piled up. A whopping 18" dropped in 24 hours last weekend, a few more inches covered that earlier this week, and more is in the forecast. I really sympathize with the folks further south (south!)
Food & Wine magazine sins against the monkfish
A monkfish (Wikimedia Commons) In the January 2010 issue of Food & Wine magazine,
Grow-hio: Midwestern farmers rely on Eliot Coleman’s advice for cold-weather farming
As winter approaches, even the most knowledgeable of local-foods-loving shoppers have wondered what fresh produce they will find over the winter months, and the opening of a year-round market here in Wooster has only increased the frequency of that musing.
Tuna or not-tuna: more questions for sushi eaters
When you think about eating endangered species, you might imagine going to Chinatown to some secret restaurant — or to the ones operated by shadowy mobsters like in the 1990 comedy "
The little fish that we can: California’s sardine industry, now and then
When the subject of Monterey, California, comes up, most people think of two things: the magnificent scenery and the peerless aquarium. I think of a third: sardines. Two days after Thanksgiving, I took a day trip to
Sustainable food movement has a class problem
The flavor of fairness: When a recent UC Santa Cruz study asked grocery shoppers on California's Central Coast to rank their concerns about the food system, respondents prioritized animal welfare above the treatment of human workers on the farms. This is but one example, says Bay Guardian reporter Caitlin
There Be Dragons: Examining the alternatives to unsustainable aquaculture fish feed
February 23, 2010 update: I discovered that the credit for the grasshopper photo was incorrect. The photo is actually from tazintosh's Flickr collection and the photo's Flickr page is
