A Penny a Pound for the Immokalee Tomato Pickers

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group advocating for the rights of agricultural workers in southwest Florida, has stepped up its campaign to get Burger King to agree to pay an extra penny a pound for tomatoes, so the pickers can earn a better wage.

A penny a pound doesn't sound like much, but for these tomato pickers--whose wages haven't increased appreciably since the 1970's--it can make the difference between a living wage and a near-starvation wage.

It's hard to imagine that a penny a pound would add up to much for Burger King, which claims to be concerned about the issue, and has expressed a willingness to do something, as long as that something doesn't involve adding a penny to the price of a pound of tomatoes.

Burger King has donated $25,000 to another organization addressing the needs of migrant workers in South Florida, a sum that could have covered the price increase on two and a half million pounds of tomatoes.

I can't possibly get inside the heads of the Burger King executives, but they must be concerned about opening the door to this kind of activism. If they give in to the tomato pickers, then their own workers might organize as well.

It helps Burger King's cause that the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange has threatened a $100,000 fine against any of its members who meet the Immokalee Coalition's demands.

Maybe I'm naive, but it seems to me that a penny a pound has got to be cheaper than all this negative publicity. Unless, of course, you're afraid of paying fair wages to everyone.

Chard Stems

We tend to throw away all kinds of perfectly edible parts of the plants we use. Stems, peels, seeds: many of these plant parts have plenty of nutrients and flavor, but our cooking conventions have gotten us into the habit of tossing them in the trash (or the compost.)

I like to try to use these plant parts, within reason. There's a reviewer at the Seattle Post Intelligencer who's written about my restaurant and also about my farmers' market booth, both times using the expression "honest food" when describing the inclusion of stems that many other places throw away. At first I took it as a backhanded compliment, something like, "I like that dress so much more than what you were wearing last week!" I think she was probably just surprised and ambivalent about it, and didn't quite know what to say.

I think many of our conventions about which parts of the plant to use and which to throw away have their roots in a kind of culinary class chauvinism. Throughout history, rich folks could afford to throw away perfectly edible foods and pay hired help to meticulously trim stuff away. Still, the stems of some greens, like mature kale, are really too tough to be enjoyable. I recommend experimenting, and not being afraid to defy conventions.

It's Summer in Chile

I saw an ad on TV the other day about the wonders of produce from Chile, where it's summer now. The ad was placed by the Chilean Fresh Fruit Industry, a group like those trade organizations who put up billboards touting the wonders of avocadoes.

The ad struck me as a reaction by large growers against the burgeoning movement of shoppers demanding locally grown food.The QFC logo appeared at the end of the commercial, so I stopped by one of their stores to see what I could learn about Chilean produce. Strangely, none of their signs boasted of produce grown in Chile, although the small print on some of the package labels identified Chile as the country of origin.

Fascinated by the discrepancy between the boasting tone of the ad and the lack of information at the store, I visited another supermarket, Shoreline's Central Market. A number of the produce signs there, like the one in the above picture, mentioned Chile as the source.

According to the Chilean Fresh Fruit's website, the country's geography creates a "photosanitary region", or an area isolated enough to be free of pests that are common in neighboring regions. This lessens the need for pesticides (although it seems that there are all kinds of pesticides that are banned in the US but still used in Chile.)

Aside from the issues of food miles and pesticide sprays, agriculture geared towards mass production for the purpose of export endangers longstanding traditions in communities of indigenous, subsistence farmers all over the world. Chilean agriculture is no exception.

I'll take locally grown grapes, even if I have to wait for summer.

Stinging Nettles

I was packing up my booth after the market on Sunday when this guy walking by with two paper bags stopped and asked me if I wanted some nettles. He said he'd found a good patch of them and was on his way to sell them to Dandelion Herbs, down the street, but he had more than they'd be able to use.

I have friends who think it's wierd and frightening to accept food from a stranger this way, but for me it's an important part of market culture. There's so much surplus around, and it's fun to share and experiment.

My naturopath tells me to eat nettles when they're in season, and drink nettle tea. It's great for your immune system, especially for allergies.

You have to handle nettles with gloves, at least until you cook them, because they have potent stingers which make your skin itch and burn. Cooking neutralizes them. I'm going to steam mine, and eat them with some oil and vinegar.

The Sad Story of the School Lunch Program

The New York Times ran an article this weekend about San Francisco teenagers who are eligible for free school lunches but would rather go hungry than be seen eating the food the school district makes available to them.

It was only a few weeks ago that we heard about the tens of millions of pounds of recalled beef that had already been served as part of school lunches. Most of the kids I know won't go near the lunches served at their schools because they're nasty, not because they're free.

The school lunch program started in the 1930's as a way to use agricultural surpluses. In 1946 Congress passed the National School Lunch Act, making the program permanent and establishing minimal nutritional requirements.

Throughout its history, the program has struggled to balance its mission to provide low cost nutrition to low income children with the reality of having to use cheap, industrial ingredients.

There's been talk lately about upgrading the system. Here in Washington the Olympia school district has successfully implemented a a plan to use local and organic ingedients, and there's a bill currently working its way through the state legislature aimed at bringing local, organic produce into the school lunch program. But most local farms are too small to meet the school district's needs, and the system to date has been too streamlined to match individual farms with individual schools.

The school lunch program is broken because the whole mainstream food system in this country is broken. Fix the system of agricultural subsidies, and fix the practice of mass producing low quality staples and shipping them long distances, and the school lunch program will fix itself.

The Wonderful Ballard Farmers' Market

Today was the third sunny Sunday in a row and the Ballard Farmers' Market was hopping, as usual. I took this picture before the market even opened; there are often so many people around that it's hard to drive in to unload. On the one hand that can be frustrating, on the other hand it's exciting that folks are eager enough show up early.

The Ballard Farmers' Market started out as part of the Fremont Sunday Market in 1990. It moved to Ballard in the winter of 2001-2002, a move which gave both venues room to grow and establish their own identities.

The market in Ballard was originally held in the US Bank parking lot, a site that was eventually developed into the Ballard Library. After it's first summer there it moved to the brick-lined Ballard Avenue, with a permit to close the street to vehicle traffic on market days. Last summer it expanded half a block north to accomodate all the vendors who wanted to sell there.

It just keeps on getting better.

High Calorie Pesticides-Fact or Fiction?

Here's a snippet I overheard at the bank the other day:

First teller: "My brother is over in Afghanistan and he says the produce there is so much better than the produce here. They spray the stuff here so heavily that you could eat just lettuce and gain weight."

Second teller: "When I was in college the president of the university announced that they were putting extra spray on the produce because so many girls were anorexic or bulemic."

Now, I like to assume there's a kernel of truth embedded in every wild story. Were they spraying the produce with extra nutrients? Are pesticides high in calories? Does anybody know anything about this?