As a federally funded school food program evolved from its inception in the first half of the 20th century to become a permanent fixture in the educational landscape across the country, the NYC school food program became a leading influence in the country’s experiments, failures, and successes in school food service. School and city officials sorted through the wrong ingredients for school lunches and exposed the detrimental effects of decreased funding for school lunch programs. Eventually, engaging students in understanding the nutritious value of the food they consumed righted the relationship between children and their food and connected students to the source of their meals through school gardens and food education programming.

The National School Lunch Act was enacted in 1946 with the “basic purpose…to safeguard the health and well-being of the nation’s children by encourage them to eat more nutritious foods.” Yet by 1972, the New York Times deemed Americans “nutritional illiterates” and the cost of malnutrition had an estimated $30 billion annual price tag. Lack of nutritional awareness paired with the problems caused by the country’s dire economic situation. At this time doctors in NYC suggested nutrition education in schools as a method for improving health and nutritional awareness. However, more fundamental concerns for school security, the basic lack of food for residents across the City, and a lack of funding for such nutritional education programs meant that these suggestions were not made manifest.

In 1977, just two months after the report from the federal General Accounting Office revealed poor nutritional quality in large urban school districts across the country, NYC’s schools adopted the Energy Factor program. Rather than integrate nutritional education programs or involve students in the processes of bringing the food from the field to the lunch table, schools responded to the flash and glamour of the fast food industry that captured the attention of the whole country. Since hamburgers, hot dogs, and fried chicken were attractive to student consumers, they were served as options in the Energy Factor and considered healthy alternatives to “junk food, Twinkies, cupcakes, and the like.” Yet at the same time the NYC School Board implemented fast-food lunches in the three pilot schools, it also contemplated introducing salad bars into school food options. Two seemingly opposite food futures faced NYC students. They could choose hamburgers, which had risen to the status of a nutritionally superior lunch item – at least in comparison to what had been served on lunch trays or brought in brown paper bags from students’ homes previously. Or, on the other hand, there was a glimmer of an idea to provide them with fresh greens on a salad bar. Given heavy marketing efforts for the Energy Factor and continued lack of infrastructure to support healthy food education and school gardening, the future of salads as the preferred lunch choice was bleak.

While the Energy Factor was adopted with the support of school officials and promoted by the head school food administrator, Elizabeth Cagan, by 1980 the “nutritional message” of the program had become questionable. Cagan realized that student retention and and increased participation in the lunch program was not a sufficient goal if it meant a compromise on the healthfulness of the food . Cagan fought hard for the removal of all frozen food pack lunches (the equivalent of a TV dinner) and reduced the number of schools serving such meals from 400 to 100. Nutritional experts like Ann Cook, who promoted school lunch as “where the good food is now,” tried to combat the poverty and junk food stigmas formerly associated with the school lunch program.

In the early years of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration, rearranging the priorities and tactics of serving school meals in New York City came to a head. By 2010 a collaboration of the Mayor’s Fund, GrowNYC and other government agencies established the Citywide School Gardens Initiative, promoting garden and food education through funding, garden maintenance assistance, and coordinated educational tools and programs like the Garden-to-Café harvest events. A grant from the Fund for Public Health in New York City propelled the healthy food options in schools to include a salad bar at each lunchtime period, finally bringing the efforts of school food reformers in the 1980s to fruition.

The purpose of the Garden-to-Café program, which is administrated the New York City Department of Education’s Office of SchoolFood, is to help children connect the origin of their food with its related nutritional quality and fresh taste. During the 2011 spring harvest season, the program facilitated events at 19 schools throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. Throughout the 2010-2011 school year, the program partnered with 55 NYC public, charter, elementary, middle and high schools, in effect exposing more than 35,000 students throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn to the efforts of the Garden-to-Café program.

The School Gardens Initiative and the Garden-to-Café program are the result of NYC’s commitment to bringing healthy food and nutritional education opportunities to its students. Wrestling with the disconnects between students and their food source; a lack of government funding and a need to feed schoolchildren; and fast food culture and a focus on health, the NYC school food program has ultimately provided substantial opportunities for healthy and local food education and continues to improve the quality of its meals for all students.

Recently, I attended an event at New York City’s famous James Beard House that took me back to Yellowstone National Park.

Around this time last summer, I was on a tour boat on Lake Yellowstone with my family, where we learned that lake trout, a non-native species introduced around 1995 (presumably by an angler), had grown extremely problematic for the ecosystem of the lake–in particular, for the prized cutthroat trout, which is easily preyed upon and out-competed by the larger lake trout.

Not only was there no fishing limit on lake trout but in fact,  the only rule about catching them was that if you weren’t going to eat them, you had to kill them before throwing them back. According to our tour guide, you could cart a fresh-caught lake trout to any of the park’s restaurants for professional cooking and earn a pat on the back from the chef and staff.

Why did my visit to the Manhattan-based James Beard House inspire me to recall that ecological factoid from my visit to the nation’s oldest national park? Recently, Kerry Heffernan, head chef for Central Park’s South Gate Restaurant, prepared a delectable feast based on four exotic invasive varieties of seafood: Green crab (known to most fisherfolk as bait for blackfish), Asian carp, lionfish, and blue tilapia.

The brainchild behind the event was Washington, D.C.- based Food & Water Watch, producers of the Smart Seafood Guide. In partnership with James Beard House, the watchdog organization had invited Chef Kerry to prepare the invasives Iron Chef-style–with a little more than a day’s notice. This isn’t much time to get acquainted with the four exotic new ingredients, but Heffernan managed the challenge admirably, at least, according to this amateur seafood lover.

I’ll be honest. I’d expected something that might challenge my sense of adventure a little more–something slimy, maybe–but all four dishes were delicious. Food porn isn’t my thing, so I’ll spare you the details and instead fill you in on what drew me to the event.

1. I like seafood, but. ..
2. even with productions like Food & Water Watch’s Smart Seafood Guide , Blue Ocean Institute’s Seafood Guide,  and Monterrey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Guide , I still find the “rules” around seafood difficult to navigate, mostly because:
3. Seafood is often not well-labeled in supermarkets or restaurants.
4. Harvesting seafood takes a toll on the environment, and/or…
5. Popular varieties of seafood are often overfished, and/or…
6. The seafood industry is largely unsustainable because corporate fishing enterprises out-compete local fishermen, which may keep costs down but takes a valuable source of protein away from local populations and hurts smaller markets, and this doesn’t jibe with my values.
7. There are a few fish that I like and feel good about eating, like U.S. farmed catfish and oysters, but I still worry about health hazards related to consumption of seafood.

As I made my way through the famously small James Beard kitchen, up the stairs, (past the shower where Beard supposedly enjoyed showering outdoors), rubbing elbows with food writers, chefs, and staff from Food & Water Watch, while sampling Chef Kerry’s tasty creations, I got to feeling hopeful.

Aside from the Yellowstone example, there are many cases of invasive species wreaking havoc, on water and on land, on ecosystems around the globe. Eating them would seem not only to mitigate harm, but to actively improve those “invaded” ecosystems. With so many proverbial genies let out of so many proverbial bottles–is it possible to fish and market and eat our way out of a situation that, at least in part, we’ve fished and marketed and eaten our way into?

New York Times reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal suggests a cautious optimism, noting:

Scientists emphasize that human consumption is only part of what is needed to control invasive species and restore native fish populations, and that a comprehensive plan must include restoring fish predators to depleted habitats and erecting physical barriers to prevent further dissemination of the invaders.

“We are not going to be able to just eat our way out of the invasive species problem,” Dr. Kramer said. “On the other hand, there are places where this can be a very useful part of the strategy.”

Having written about quite a few of the perils of our modern food system, it makes sense to me that there are no silver bullets for the many invasive species scenarios. Surely, working solutions must be as nuanced, or nearly so, as the complex problems we face, on land and at sea. At local levels, though,  harvesting these species as food sources could help beat back some of these invasives, and might help local economies, too.

Food & Water Watch director Wenonah Hauter is enthusiastic about the potential benefits of marketing invasives, noting that in order to do so effectively, supply chains need revamping and some of the species may need some added sex appeal, in some cases, through re-naming.

Chef Kerry Heffernan filets a lionfish

At the event, Chef Kerry spoke to a “learning curve,” for himself and other chefs, but also acknowledges the role chefs can play in promoting more sustainable seafood choices. In true James Beard fashion, foundation vice president Mitchell Davis called this a “cutting edge” culinary trend, one that the foundation was happy to get behind.

Count me in. Below, some information on the seafood we sampled last week. Here’s to guilt-free seafood smorgasboards!

Asian carp

Actually a catch-all term for eight different varieties of carp, including the common goldfish and silver carp, known for their tendency to jump–high–when spooked by boats. Cultivated for over 1,000 years in China, the varieties of Asian carp generally referred to as invasive in the U.S. are grass, black, silver, and bighead carp. Over the last decade or so, Asian carp have been the subject of controversy and legislation, as many worry that some of these varieties will make their way into the Great Lakes. Asian carp are believed to be low in mercury, though the FDA has yet to evaluate them for contaminants. Prolific breeders, they can out-compete other fish for feed like algae and phytoplankton.

But how does it taste?

Chef Kerry describes them as sweet and mild, like whitefish.  He also noted that the large fish was difficult to debone, a likely reason that this fish has not caught on in the U.S.

Lionfish

Native to the Indo-Pacific, the aptly-named lionfish (also known as the scorpion fish or firefish) is believed to have been introduced to East Coast waters, including the Caribbean, by pet owners releasing aquarium fish into coastal waters. The lionfish is prey to no known predators, is a voracious eater, grows fast and reproduces year round. It is quite impressive with its spines, which can cause death in other sealife and major discomfort for unlucky swimmers of the human variety.

But how does it taste?

Chef Kerry couldn’t think of a counterpart and described it as a cross between John Dory and monkfish.

European green cab

Introduced on the East Coast in the early 1800s, likely as a castaway on a European ship, the European green crab was discovered on the West Coast as well during the late 1980s. The FDA has not performed testing on the green crab specifically, but it is considered likely to not contain high levels of mercury or PCBs because it is sensitive to these contaminants itself.

But how does it taste?

Chef Kerry notes that the green crab boasts more flavor than its blue counterpart, but that its small size makes for time-intensive meat-picking. He used it in a delicious crab soup and says he’s waiting for molting season to try it out as a soft-shell crab.

Blue tilapia

Native to Northern and Western Africa and the Middle East, also known as Israeli tilapia, blue tilapia (PDF) were, in some cases, intentionally introduced as weed control in Gulf state lakes, and are currently wreaking havoc in lakes in Florida, Texas, and Nevada.

But how does it taste?

Compared to its farmed counterpart (which, so long as it’s grown right–we like recirculating systems–are quite sustainable) blue lake tilapia has a less “muddy” flavor, according to Chef Kerry.

Watch video on actual footage of lionfish hunt for the tasting:

Originally published on Ecocentric

Photos: Jon Simon

Video: Atlantic Charters

Is the Jewish deli in decline or the midst of a revival?

It depends on where you’re sitting. Recently I found myself sitting in front of a panel of deli owners who had gathered in Berkeley, California to talk about their efforts to redefine and save the beloved institution of the Jewish deli.

Moderated by cookbook author and Jewish food expert Joan Nathan, the panel consisted of Peter Levitt of Saul’s Restaurant & Delicatessen in Berkeley, Noah Bernamoff of Mile End Deli in Brooklyn, Ken Gordon of Kenny & Zuke’s in Portland, and Evan Bloom of Wise Sons Pop Up Deli in San Francisco.

Last year I’d sat in the same place listening to a somewhat different group of people—also called together by Levitt and his partner Karen Adelman—hold a referendum on the deli. That panel’s purpose was for Levitt and Adelman to ask their customers’ permission to serve more seasonal, sustainable food, offer a smaller menu, and bring in Jewish food traditions other than Ashkenazi. The rub? The deli was endangered (evidenced by the fact that there were once 1,550 Jewish delis in New York City and today only a couple of dozen remain). Their take was that the deli was no longer sustainable in either a business or an environmental sense, and its survival depended on customers adjusting their expectations of what deli is.

One year later, a lot has changed. The trail blazed by Levitt and Adelman is being trod by a new group of operators who are collectively pushing the boundaries of what deli is today. Breakfast sandwiches with bacon; homemade celery soda; hummus, harissa, and hamentashen all co-exist on today’s inventive menus.

These menus, though they may raise the ire of traditionalists, are keeping customers coming back and bringing new ones into the deli fold. They’re also proving that deli is what you make it. They’re innovating, redefining, and opening up the concept of deli to include new traditions, creative preparations, seasonality, and yes, even sometimes bacon.

As Joan Nathan pointed out, the “deli is an American invention and its always changed. It’s not even Jewish. It was started by German immigrants who opened on Sundays. Over time, Jews from Alsace Lorraine took over and then kosher delis came along.”

After World War II homemade sausages and hand-cured meats gave way to mass-produced factory meats. Now the deli is coming full circle and these new operators are making their own pastrami–an endeavor that comes with its own set of problems, namely consistency in production and lack of a dependable supply of quality meats. All of these pioneers are trying to source pasture based, humanely raised brisket for their pastrami, but are finding that 100 percent grass-fed beef doesn’t produce the product consumers expect, and also sometimes angering customers who are attached to kosher certifications.

But kosher slaughterhouses have their own problems. Noah Bernanmoff was blunt on the subject of kosher certifications: “Kosher food is laughable,” he said. “Especially meat. Kosher meat is a kind of scam. As a Jew I ascribe to tikkun olam, or taking care of one’s world. This means buying meat from places that take care of workers and slaughter humanely.”

It’s not just the kosher question. All the deli owners on the panel admitted to struggling with consumer expectations about what certain iconic dishes are. Take kugel, for example. To some diners kugel is a sweet noodle based dish with fruit. Others expect a savory potato-based dish. And then there are the non-Jewish customers being brought into the deli fold who wouldn’t know kugel from cacciatore.

Though most of these new deli operators try to accommodate the traditional tastes of older customers, they are anxious to forge ahead with their idea of what a deli is. According to Bernanmoff, “There is no tool to fight nostalgia. If you take the backlash personally, you forget the mission you’re on.”

Nostalgia for deli isn’t always about the food; sometimes it’s about the deli as a space. That includes the people who populate it, the hum of conversation, the feeling. Evan Bloom and his partner Leo Beckerman of Wise Sons Pop-up Deli in San Francisco have learned how to make a space for deli from scratch every Saturday in a Mission District coffee house, proving that deli is what you make it. “Every Saturday we create it,” he said. “That first Saturday, my partner Leo looked around and said, ‘it smells like a deli, it looks like a deli,’” adding, “We like to watch the tables change position throughout the day as people come in. They push them together, they pull them apart, and it’s a deli.”

I left the evening feeling hopeful about the future of the deli and excited by the passion of these new operators. It wasn’t until later that it struck me that the deli renaissance might be part of a cycle of death and rebirth in the food movement. It seems that just as we’re on the brink of losing something precious, forward thinking people start to work to save it. Think about the resurgence in gardening, canning, small-scale agriculture, locally raised meat, the Slow Food Ark of Taste, and the many new cheese artisans that have started up in recent years.

Indeed, after a period of decline, it looks to me like deli really is in a period of revival. Long live pastrami!

Photo: Neon sign at Saul’s, via CT Young on Flickr

In a move to help consumers make more informed choices when choosing to eat humanely sourced animal products, the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) developed and launched the very first restaurant database. The resource identifies 150 restaurants in 15 U.S. cities that offer products and menu items created by methods that benefit animal welfare, human health, and the environment. The free database includes 11 Bay Area restaurants and others in: Atlanta, Boston, Charleston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Diego, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

Sharyana Prasad who works as the Program Officer for the U.S. office of the WSPA, which is based in Boston, says the on-line tool started as a response to polls regarding the way American’s think about farm animals. “A large majority think it’s important [to be conscious and compassionate about what they eat] but don’t know how to find humane products. We want to fill the void and bring information to consumers to make it easy to switch to humane foods.”

The database took six-months to create and involved an “intensive look into 15 top cities which represent a geographical spread of metropolitan cities which may also be popular tourist destinations,” said Prasad. “Our staff and consultants looked at products on the menus and talked to the farms and ranches directly to verify. We also spoke with someone at the restaurant, either the chef or the owner, to get their perspective.”

The San Francisco restaurants included in the database are: A16, Acme Chop House, Aziza, Bar Tartine, Delfina, Magnolia Pub and Brewery and Perbacco Ristorante and Bar.

“I can’t source any other way,” says Dave McLean, owner of Magnolia Pub and Brewery. “No one wants to be responsible for being cruel or unjust. I don’t eat that way at home and when I go out I want the same. That’s just being a good person 101.”

“If you believe in putting the right things on your menu, it just requires a little research,” says Thom Fox, Acme Chophouse’s Executive Chef. “This is not only the wave of the future, it’s the wave of the now.”

In addition to the restaurant database, the Eat Humane website also features a Grocery Store Database for those who prefer to cook at home. It’s designed to help eaters find the best brands of humanely labeled foods available at the local grocery store. Some brands include Applegate Farms (available at Trader Joe’s) and Cyd’s Nest Fresh eggs (available at Safeway). The list includes products in the following categories: dairy, eggs, processed meat (includes products like burgers, hot dogs and sausage) and unprocessed meat (includes cuts of chicken, beef and pork) and is relatively comprehensive, listing choices in order of Best, Better and Good.

The website also features helpful tips and useful information to encourage people to eat less meat and supportive resources for those who choose to eat in line with their values. While some food labels indicate a meaningful animal care standard, there is no agency charged with verifying that participating farmers comply with the standards. And, in other cases though compliance is verified, the standards address only what is considered a limited definition of animal care and handling. According to the Eat Humane website “Animal welfare organizations in the U.S. have recently developed comprehensive humane standards that are verified, but products from these programs are not widely available yet.”

To make the process of finding humane food labels easier to understand, the WSPA has indicated the following as guidelines.

Their “A GOOD start” category is defined as “indicate a meaningful animal welfare standard but the standard covers only one aspect of animal care and compliance with the standard is not verified by a third party” includes foods labeled: “Cage free” (for eggs),
“Free range” (for eggs, chicken, goose, duck and turkey)
and “Grass fed” (for dairy, beef and lamb).

Their “Even BETTER” category is defined as “a higher level of animal welfare because the standards are more meaningful than those for the Good Start labels, but the standards are either not verified by a third party or cover only a limited aspect of animal care. Included here are labels such as
“Free range” (for beef, bison, pork and lamb),
“Pasture raised” (for dairy, eggs, chicken, goose, duck, turkey, beef, bison, lamb and pork) and
“USDA Organic” (for dairy, eggs, chicken, goose, duck, turkey, beef, bison, lamb and pork).

And, finally, their “The BEST options” include “Certified Humane” (for dairy, eggs, chicken, turkey, beef, lamb and pork), 
“American Humane Certified” (dairy, eggs, chicken, turkey, beef, lamb, pork) 
“Animal Welfare Approved” (dairy, eggs, chicken, turkey, duck, goose, beef, lamb, pork, rabbit) are defined as “covering multiple aspects of animal care and compliance with the standards is verified by an independent third party.”

“There are so many different labels that have some reference to humane, but people aren’t so sure which to choose,” says Prasad. “We want to encourage consumers to start with the ‘good.’ If people want to do a little more, go for the ‘best’ options.”

The WSPA has been in the U.S. for 25 years and was formed after the 1981 merger of the International Society for the Protection of Animals and the World Federation for the Protection of Animals. Based in London, the organization has offices in 18 regions around the world and works primarily in developing countries. They are the largest alliance of animal protection groups in the world with over 1,000 participating organizations in over 150 countries. Their main goal is to alleviate animal suffering and they tend to address issues that other organizations won’t touch – “like bear bating,” says Prasad. In the U.S., their primary issue is factory farming.

Of course, the WSPA is looking to add more restaurants to their database. If you are aware of any additional restaurants that serve humanely raised meat or dairy products, please send them their information at restaurants@wspausa.org.

A shorter version of this article was printed in the Winter 2010 edition of Edible San Francisco

Hospitals around the country have taken a crucial first step toward building a sustainable meat production system by joining the Balanced Menus Challenge. Launched in late September, the Balanced Menus Challenge is a voluntary commitment by healthcare institutions to reduce their meat and poultry offerings in patient meals and hospital cafeterias by 20 percent in 12 months. Balanced Menus is a climate change reduction strategy that also protects the effectiveness of antibiotics and promotes good nutrition. Fourteen hospitals are already participating in the national challenge, which was developed and piloted by the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility and nationally launched in partnership with Health Care Without Harm’s Healthy Food in Healthcare Initiative.

Americans eat an average of eight ounces of meat daily, roughly twice the global average. Hospital food service operations often mirror this trend, offering sizable servings of meat several meals per day. High consumption of conventionally produced meat and processed meat contributes to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, dementia, and some kinds of cancer. Overconsumption of meat contributes to the overwhelmingly high cost of the U.S. healthcare system (estimated to be $147B as a result of obesity management alone) as well as environmental damage such as climate change, water and air pollution.

Hospitals buy vast amounts of meat, typically through large distributors who source from the U.S. commodity beef, pork, and poultry markets. U.S. food production relies heavily on fossil fuels, and red meat production is particularly energy intensive as it requires significant inputs of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides to grow crops for feed. The food system accounts for over 10 percent of overall energy use in the United States. Globally, livestock for meat and dairy production accounts for 18 percent of greenhouse gases, more than all of Earth’s cars, trains, and planes combined.

While food choice is distinctly personal, the healthcare community should be at the forefront in modeling a healthy food agenda for the nation. Encouraging a reduced and sustainable meat diet is part of a primary prevention agenda to reduce the nation’s chronic diet-related illnesses, but also contributes substantially to climate mitigation, clean air and water, and protection antibiotic toolkit.

Most U.S. meat is produced under a system that relies on the routine feeding of antibiotics to make animals grow faster and consume less feed grain. Arsenic compounds and hormones are given to animals for similar reasons. These additives further contaminate animal manure, which then moves off the crowded facilities, polluting land, air and water. Sustainably-raised meat and poultry precludes the use of antibiotics for non-therapeutic purposes. Approximately 70 percent of all antibiotics used in the U.S. are given to healthy animals to promote growth and compensate for crowded conditions and poor husbandry practices in conventional animal production.

As institutions with considerable buying power, hospitals can demonstrate leadership to the marketplace by reducing the overall quantity of meat and poultry served and through purchasing of sustainably-produced meat. The healthcare sector is increasingly aware of its responsibility to model healthy behavior for the community. Reducing their meat purchasing will help reduce the overall cost of medical care in this country, with benefits ranging from savings in actual food service costs to reduction in pollution, but most importantly, to contribute to healthy lifestyles that will improve the health of Americans.

“It was amazingly simple to make an impact on our carbon footprint by starting with small changes in our cafeteria and working our way up to the more complex patient menu,” said Linda Hansen, CDM, CFPP, Director of Nutrition Services at St. Joseph Health System in Sonoma County, CA. “By implementing Balanced Menus for the last six months, we are able to remain cost neutral, or even achieve savings for the hospital, not to mention the savings to our healthcare system that result from providing patients, staff and visitors healthier foods.”

“As we debate healthcare reform in the U.S., it is important to recognize that eating less conventionally produced meat will reduce drivers of many of the major chronic diseases that threaten the sustainability of our health care system stated Ted Schettler, MD, MPH, of the Science and Environmental Health Network. It is good for people and good for the planet.”
Click here for more information about the Balanced Menus Challenge.

On the menu: : Ragout of Fresh Shell Beans, Cipollinis and Chanterelles with Grilled Flat Iron and Pimenton Butter.

Fresh shell beans, those wild Italian onions, cipollinis, and chanterelles are spontaneously everywhere. The grow together/go together axiom holds mighty tight here. This dish is a no-brainer as far as mutual affinities go.

Flat Iron (ours grass-fed from sublime Marin Sun Farms) is a rediscovered shoulder/muscle cut that is made more tender in the butchering. The steak is cut around a center fibrous tissue. It is, according to Saveur, the second tenderest cut after the tenderloin.

Still, to me this is no filet. Flat Iron has texture and nap, which I admire in a steak. Manic Kobe worship has always eluded me… why would you want your steak to be foie gras? What’s wrong with good old meatiness? And isn’t real texture back anyway with our Pollan-inspired grass-fed revolution? This fleshy Flat Iron is toothsome, and because its from muscle, also has serious steaky flavor. Cut across the grain it is racy-succulent.

My adored Spanish Pimenton (smoked paprika) gives breadth to the dainty new beans and sweet, squat onions, and boosts the smoke of the apricoty chanterelles and the charred meat. Think earthy mushroom squeak/honey-onioned goodness.

Ragout of Fresh Shell Beans, Cipollinis and Chanterelles with Grilled Flatiron and Pimenton Butter (serves 4)

Pimenton Butter

4 ounces of butter, 1 stick, softened
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 cup chopped chives
1/4 cup chopped tarragon or parsley
3 anchovies, mashed
1 shallot, minced
1 lemon, zest and juice
Sea salt and pepper to taste

Cream together butter, paprika, herbs, anchovies and shallot. Add the lemon zest and juice. Taste and season if necessary. The butter should be pungent. Shape into a log in a piece of plastic wrap or parchment paper. Twist the ends to tighten and refrigerate until firm.

Shell Bean, Cipollini and Chanterelle Ragout

1 pound cipollini onions
Olive oil
Sea salt and freshly gound black pepper
2 pounds shell beans, for about 2 cups shelled, Cranberry, Flageolet, Cannellini…
1 bunch of thyme
1 bay leaf
1 chilie de Arbol, snapped in half widthwise and seeded
1/2 pound chanterelle mushrooms, cut into 1 inch wedges
1 large garlic clove, minced
3/4 cup chicken stock, preferably home made
2 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 375. Fill a medium saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Add the cipollinis to blanch for about 1 minute. Drain, cool and peel. Toss with 2 tablespoons olive oil, a good pinch of salt and pepper and spread out on a sheetpan. Bake about 45 minutes or until golden and tender. Check and shake the pan every so often. Set aside.

Place the shelled beans In a medium sauce pan and cover with 2 inches of water. Add 6 sprigs of thyme, the bay leaf and the chilie. Bring to the boil then simmer until tender, about 30 minutes. Drain. Pull out herbs and chili. Toss the warm beans with 2 tablespoons olive oil, a pinch of salt and pepper. Set aside.

Clean the chanterelles with a soft cloth/napkin. Cut into even sized, 1-inch wedges. Leave them whole if they are small. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a medium sauté pan until very hot. Add the chanterelles and cook over medium heat for about 7 minutes, stirring every so often, until tender and golden. Add the garlic, a teaspoon of picked thyme, a pinch of salt and pepper and sauté for another minute. Add the cipollinis, the shell beans and the stock. Cook for about 5 more minutes until creamy and sauce consistency. Swirl in butter and taste. Season again if necessary. Set aside.

To Assemble

4 flatiron steaks, about 5 ounces each
Olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
The ragout
The pimenton butter
1 cup arugula, or other fresh, spicy green like watercress

Fire up the grill. When hot, brush the steaks with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill to desired doneness, about 4 minutes per side for medium-rare. Remove and set on a plate, lightly covered with foil. While the steaks are resting reheat the ragout if necessary. Place about a half-cup of ragout into the center of a warmed serving plate or bowl. Top with a steak and any accumulated steak jus, a round of pimenton butter, and a little handful of of fresh greens.

Eat Real will be a great party for the Bay Area, and Oakland in particular, to celebrate good food. We’re corralling the wagons with 30+ taco trucks, hot dog stands, and people on wheels selling every imaginable food – all made with at least a few locally-sourced sustainable ingredients. Our fabulous beer guy, Dave Maclean, is busy selecting around 40 local brews to have on tap; our partners at Buy Fresh, Buy Local have helped chose around 40 local craft food producers; and friends at People’s Grocery and La Cocina are helping build programming and more for the event.

This is the first annual edition of Eat Real, and we’re expecting 25,000+ attendees at the event. We are raising funds for a group of non-profits working locally in food in the Bay Area, and our model hopefully will be replicable by other groups around the country who are looking to raise funds for grassroots work and awareness of food issues via accessible and affordable events. Eat Real is free of charge (only the beer is ticketed), and we’re featuring street foods from over 15 countries – all made by artisans and chefs from around the Bay Area. Your taco secrets will help us spread the word about how to eat better every day. You can send your recipe in any format to info@eatrealfest.com. If you have any questions just send them along – we look forward to hearing from you!

Slated for distribution in early 2010, Edible City is a project of East Bay Pictures, a film company committed to making motion pictures that inspire reflection, compassion and imagination. The film, which uses character vignettes, showed Joy Moore, a longtime activist and teacher, discussing gardening and nutrition with the students at Berkeley Technology Academy. To help bring this inspiring film about growing local food systems to a larger audience, East Bay Pictures is seeking funds to finish the film.

One of the individuals featured in Edible City, Prentice, who coined the term “locavore,” New Oxford American Dictionary’s Word of the Year in 2007, spoke about how eating can an a revolutionary act. Prentice told the crowded room how her desire to support farmers led her to shop exclusively at her local farmers’ market, where she would always give her change back to the grower. She’s not wealthy, she explained, but it was important to her to pay for the true cost of food.

Prentice noticed that, though we live in the Bay Area where fresh produce is plentiful, people were always asking and wondering what is in season. As a society, we are used to shiny, perfect-looking produce being available year-round in our local grocery store. This led her to create the Local Foods Wheel with Sarah Klein and Maggie Gosselin. The purpose of the wheel is to identify which foods grow in your region and when it is available. Currently, it is only available to the San Francisco Bay and the New York Metropolitan areas.

More recently, Prentice joined four business partners in founding Three Stone Hearth, a community-supported kitchen in Berkeley that uses local, sustainable ingredients to prepare nutrient-dense traditional foods on a community scale. Customers can order meals and other food items directly from the web site for pick-up or delivery. It can be as simple as ordering homemade chicken stock to create your own soup or ordering an entire meal for the family.

At first, Prentice was concerned about offering prepared food because it would encourage people to cook less. However, she found that their customers have had the opposite reaction. Since they are purchasing more expensive items, customers are stretching their food and dollar by supplementing with simple ingredients to create a quick, healthy and homemade meal for the whole family. In addition, customers tell her that they are eating less because they are consuming nutrient dense foods which satisfy them more quickly. Prentice admits that the food is more expensive and wishes that it could be more accessible to low income families. (She said that she had been asked twice whether her business would accept food stamps—something she is now looking into.)

The premium cost to source local, sustainable ingredients, overhead of a commercial kitchen and labor increases the cost of their end product. However, she is quick to point out that factory-farmed meat and foods only appear to be inexpensive because the true cost is hidden in various other ways, including corporate control of the food system, exploitation of migrant farm workers, environmental degradation and the rise in healthcare-related costs.

Prentice noted that traditional, small-scale food processing has the ability to make our food more nutritious while manufactured food processing makes our food less nutritious by removing important nutrients and replacing them with additives/preservatives to extend shelf life. While we might spend more money initially on “real food,” it helps protect us from disease and prolongs our lifespan.

From the Local Foods Wheel to Three Stone Hearth, Prentice has revolutionized the local food system in the Bay Area; and by coining the term “locavore,” she brought national attention to the concept of eating locally within 100-miles of our foodshed.

Highlights from the evening included a spirited discussion that included the following ideas:

• We need to make the nutritional advantage of local, whole foods more important in our conversation. Despite the claims that they can feed the world, industrial food is simply less nutritious than whole foods. What good is it to feed the world if we are going to be unhealthy and have a shorter lifespan?
• Wholesome, nutritious foods can be our health insurance.
• We have an entire generation that does not know how to cook.
• Cook simple meals at home. In recent years, the focus of cooking at home has become complicated, fancy recipes which require uncommon or expensive food items. It doesn’t have to rival a meal at the French Laundry every time you make dinner. Just get in the kitchen.
• Use the whole animal if and when you cook meat. We live in a “chicken nugget” and “boneless skinless chicken breast” culture in which we only use the desired pieces of meat. This desire for white meat has encouraged the breeding of chickens and turkeys so top-heavy that they can barely walk. By using the whole animal, we decrease the production of these animals and stretch out our dollar.
• CSAs are not just for produce. Raw milk, meat, fish and foraging CSAs are popping up throughout the country. By supporting local, small-scale producers, we build a local infrastructure for our own foodshed and challenge corporate control of a select few companies.
• How do we create community supported kitchens in other areas? The challenge becomes finding a commercial kitchen which is required if you are selling food to the general public. However, what if we were to come together in our communities, in small groups and cook together out of our own kitchens? There are book clubs, how about a cooking club or a cook-in? Small groups would gather to prepare meals for the week or once/month to prepare stocks, jams, fermented items. No commercial kitchen is required because you are not selling the food.

The important point is that even small change can be a revolutionary act which we can do three times a day.