Commercial-grade compost from local food waste

I was involved in a fascinating conference call this week discussing the possibility of D.C. schools turning their food wastes into compost we gardeners can use rather than sending it to a landfill.

Composting food scraps from schools is foreseen in the “Healthy Schools” legislation pending before the D.C. Council. But apparently Chartwells, the contracted food service provider for D.C. Public Schools, wants to start something now. Also in on the call was Kelly Mellsted of the D.C. Department of Recreation as well as a representative from a company called Envirelation, which already collects food waste from a number of hotels, restaurants, universities and schools in Alexandria and trucks it to a facility in Maryland to be turned into compost.

According to J.P. Masten, the Enviralation rep, the company has already talked with people in schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s office as well as staff for Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), author of the “Healthy Schools” bill. What the company really needs, besides a green light to start collecting food wastes from city schools, is “brown” matter to balance the food scraps–such as the leaves the city collects in the fall–and a site not too far away to start a composting operation.

Someone needs to step forward and be a real hero, connecting those tons of leaves the city collects with the tons of food waste city schools generate every day. Let Envirelation turn it into compost, then make it available to the city’s gardeners who are so desperate to put all that organic matter back into the soil where it can do some real good.

Hello, D.C. Public Works! Are you reading this?

Later I got an e-mail from Masten saying he had a truck in my area delivering some of Envirelation’s compost and did I want some. I could hardly say no. So here you see the pile of rich compost that was left in my driveway yesterday, about twice as much as I really needed. I spent the rest of the day hauling it into my garden. I used some of it to make a long hill for potatoes. I’m thinking of a second hill for sweet potatoes. I’ll have enough to take care of all of my vegetable beds for the season and then some.

Sometimes you just don’t know where your compost is going to come from. But we could make organic gardening in the District more secure by jumping on this chance to put D.C. schools and Envirelation together.

These parsnips are a year old

We love parsnips for their ethereal, rooty sweetness. But they are not an easy vegetable. First, they can be tough to get out of the ground. The roots sometimes go very deep.  One of the parsnips I harvested this morning was 20 inches long.

Parsnips are also slow. In fact, they are best eaten a year after planting. Fortunately, they over-winter very well in the ground and only grow sweeter after being touched by frost. These parsnips you see here were planted March 9, 2009. So we are running a little behind schedule with our new planting. Harvesting parsnips is now part of our garden bed preparation.

Some guides advise sprouting the parsnip seeds in a dish before planting. But I don’t bother. I plant them directly in the ground and keep them well-watered until they germinate.

Can you guess what this is?

Something new for us is burdock. Burdock root is popular in Japan for its sweet, pungent flavor. The plant itself is a bienniel and perhaps best known for the nasty burrs it produces in its second year order in to spread its seed. The taproot can grow up to three feet long, and I’m afraid even with my spade shovel I left most of these roots in the ground. I was inspired to plant them by a book I consider one of the best in the food and gardening world, The Forager’s Harvest, by Samuel Thayer. His writing is to be savored as much as the food plants he writes about.

I’m not sure, exactly, what we’ll be doing with this burdock. But I’m looking forward to a new food adventure. Are we turning Japanese?

Bacon grease is highly recommended

In honor of St. Patrick’s day, our food appreciation classes made a quick detour to Ireland where we hoped to pick up a bit o’ luck with a pot of braised cabbage.

Understand, this is a dish some kids will turn up their noses at. Others love it. Personally, I think braised cabbage is pure ambrosia, especially the way I make it: with onion, a little cider vinegar, a tart apple and caraway seed. Oh, and bacon grease is also highly recommended. You just need a heavy pot or Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid and you’ll be on your way.

If you’re a meat eater, try browning a pork sausage rope, then letting it finish cooking on top of the cabbage. It would also love to share a plate with a rack of pork loin or just about any other swiney cut.

In a heavy pot or Dutch oven over low heat, melt 2 tablespoons bacon grease (or substitute extra-virgin olive oil). Sweat 1 medium onion, roughly chopped and seasoned with salt, until soft. Add 1 medium head cabbage, outer leaves removed and cut into 1-inch pieces. (Start by cutting the cabbage into quarters and removing the tough core near the stem end.) Add the cabbage to the pot, along with 1/4 cup cider vinegar, a seasoning of salt and 1 teaspoon caraway seeds. Cook for 30 minutes over low heat, or until the cabbage is soft and has lost its bright color. Stir in 1 Granny Smith or other tart apple, grated, and cook another 10 minutes.

Serve hot or warm. This can easily be made a day or two ahead and reheated.

For more great stories about how we are taking back our food system, read Fight Back Friday.

D.C. Schools can't serve vegetables kids will eat

In a move that could signal a serious fault line in the argument for more vegetables as a tonic for childhood obesity, drafters of “Healthy Schools” legislation pending before the D.C. Council have skuttled a push for additional produce in school meals after school officials said they cannot guarantee their kitchens can prepare vegetables that kids will actually eat and not throw in the trash.

“More vegetables” has become a mantra of advocates for healthier school food, including first Lady Michell Obama, whose White House vegetable garden created a sensation. The “Healthy Schools” bill, scheduled to come up for a hearing next week, had embraced standards proposed by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) that would require larger servings of fruits, vegetables–especially green and organge vegetables and legumes–and whole grains as part of an upgraded school nutrition package designed to bring school meals in line with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The IOM panel that made the recommendations, working at the behest of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, warned, however, that requiring more produce and whole grains would drive up the cost of school meals, and that there could be no guarantee that children would eat them. The requirement for heftier vegetable servings was dropped from the “Healthy Schools” bill after D.C. school officials asserted they did not want to spend precious resources on food that would only end up being thrown away.

“We heard from many that if schools are serving mushy, flavorless green beans that students are simply throwing away, that doubling the portion size would simply double the amount of mushy, flavorless green beans that are thrown away,” said an aide to Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), author of the bill. “Instead, many have said that we should focus our energy and money first on improving the quality of the foods being served before we consider mandating an increase in portion sizes.”

Advocates of farm to school programs here and across the country contend that schools can serve meals that are more healthful and appealing by using more locally grown produce. But vegetables traditionally are a hard sell in school cafeterias. The foods most favored by children are pizza, all forms of potatoes and corn, in that order. As I found while spending a week in the kitchen of my daughter’s elementary school here in the District, vegetables typically are cooked to death and rejected by kids. A 1996 nationwide survey of school food service managers by the U.S. General Accounting Office revealed that 42 percent of cooked vegetables — and 30 percent of raw vegetables and salad — ended up in the trash.

The move to eliminate additional vegetables from “Healthy Schools” legislation suggests that mandating better school meals may not work without funding improvements to school kitchens. In fact, the trend in school food service for years has been in just the opposite direction–to reduce labor costs, which represent half of food service costs, by hiring less skilled kitchen workers who do not work enough hours to qualify for benefits. Frequently, school kitchens are staffed by “warmer-uppers” whose sole skill is being able to re-heat foods that have been pre-cooked in distant factories and shipped frozen. Sensitive perishables such as vegetables suffer as a result.

“If we’re going to win Michele Obama’s war on obesity and if her ‘Let’s Move’ campaign is going to be successful, then we need to ensure healthy delicious food. We need funds to pay for cooking kitchens, to train staff, and to market to kids to eat the food,” said Ann Cooper, noted school food activist and director of nutrition for schools in Boulder, Colorado.

“That seems like nonsense about kids not eating the veggies…of course they won’t if it looks and tastes like cardboard,” said Debra Eschmeyer, director of the National Farm to School Network. “Kids will eat fresh tasty veggies if they have a chance to access them and learn about them. I didn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes hundreds of times. Kids will eat chard, broccoli, beets, etc. and love it when they have a chance to grow it and have a real learning experience.”

The IOM report suggested there might be funds for school kitchen upgrades in the “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” (PDF) program instituted last year by USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan. Merrigan has said that nearly $1 billion in federal grant funds used in the past for building rural fire stations, hospitals and community centers could be allocated to food-related projects, such as building storage facilities for locally grown produce, food markets and school kitchens. But schools would need to apply for the money.

In a separate development yesterday, legislation making its way through the U.S. Senate would provide an additional 6 cents per school meal–something less than $500 million more annually–but that money would be contingent on federally-subsidized meal programs adopting the IOM standards. The School Nutrition Association, representing food service directors across the country, has asked for a minimum increase of  35 cents per meal. But others, such as Cooper, say anything less than $1 a day for each child in the program falls short of what is actually needed.

Still, the retooled “Healthy Schools” legislation sets forth substantial increases in local financial support for school meals, some of which could be used to purchase more vegetables and other healthful ingredients. The bill would provide an additional 10 cents for each breakfast served in D.C. public schools and 10 cents for each lunch, plus a bonus of 5 cents for lunches that include local produce. In addition, the District would fund 50 cents for students who qualify for reduced-price breakfast and lunch, meaning those students would not have to pay for their meals at all.

The bill also provides for construction of a local “super kitchen” where city schools could store and process local produce. The kitchen could also house a greenhouse, bakery or other features and provide a culinary training center.

Significantly, the “Healthy Schools” bill still does not identify funding to pay for the improvements it outlines, but Cheh has vowed to find it.

Already the mizuna is in a mood to replicate

First thaw brings a minor miracle to the garden: the greens we planted last fall are bouncing back.

Mizuna, mustard, collards, tat soi. They are soaking up the sun and putting on new growth. But not for long. After their long winter nap, what these plants want to do is replicate. So they quickly elongate and make flowers. There’s only a brief period–a couple of weeks, maybe–that we can harvest and enjoy. The mizuna and mustard green leaves add a wonderful zing to salads.

Yesterday I foraged a big bowl full of  tat soi and stir-fried it in the cast-iron wok. Seasoned with a little rice vinegar, it was delicious. I was snacking on it before we could even get it to the table.

How do you like to cook your  tat soi?

Is school food implicated in childhood obesity?

A new study from the University of Michigan finds that kids who eat the food served in schools are more likely to be overweight or obese than peers who bring lunch from home, and also are more likely to suffer from high levels of “bad” cholesterol.

The study, which examined the eating habits of some 1,300 Michigan sixth-graders over a three-year period, found that children who get their food at school eat more fat, drink more sugary sodas, and consume far fewer fruits and vegetables. The findings, presented last week at the American College of Cardiology annual scientific session, are said to be the first to assess the impact of school food on children’s eating behaviors and overall health.

Specifically, 38.8 percent of students who routinely eat school lunch were found to be overweight or obese, compared to 24.4 percent of kids who brought their own food from home. The children consuming school food were twice as likely to drink sodas, and a measly 16.3 percent reported eating fruits and vegetables on a regular basis, compared to 91.2 percent of the kids who got homemade food.

“This study confirms the current and escalating national concern with children’s health, and underscores the need to educate children about how to make healthy eating and lifestyle choices early on,” said Elizabeth Jackson, M.D., MPH, assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Health System, in a release put out by the university. “Although this study doesn’t provide specific information on nutrient content of school lunches, it suggests there is a real opportunity to promote healthy behaviors and eating habits within the school environment. This is where kids spend a majority of their time.”

It would be dangerous to read too much into a study that is based solely on student questionnaires and suggests correlations, not cause and effect, between self-reported eating habits and specific health issues. For instance, it could be that children who tend to be overweight or obese must eat the food served at school because they get it free courtesy of the federally-subsidized school lunch program. The researchers acknowledge that there could be a correlation “between socioeconomic status and heart health in children of low-income families who take advantage of free school meal programs.”

The findings, based on what students reported about their eating habits during the entire day, not just at school, certainly suggest a strong link between what kids learn about food at home and the kinds of food they choose at school. But even parents who pack “healthful” lunches can never be sure what their children are actually eating, the researchers report, since most children in public schools are exposed to “competitive” foods — those sold outside the regular lunch line — that encompass all kinds of junk food, as well as the stuff sold in vending machines.

Amy Kalafa, producer of the food documentary Two Angry Moms, filmed herself having her eyes opened to her daughter’s true eating habits when she checked the computer records in the school cafeteria. “All our efforts at home were being undermined by the school,” Kalafa said yesterday. “When I casually asked for a readout, just to demonstrate how the system worked, I was genuinely shocked to learn that my daughter was regularly buying chips, fries, Rice Cispy treats and Pop Tarts.  And it’s not just about obesity.  Diabetes and sugar sensitivity runs in my family.”

My own 10-year-old daughter has noticeably put on some girth since switching last fall from home-made meals to the ones served in school here in the District of Columbia. Her pediatrician wasn’t at all surprised. Her kids gained 10 pounds, she said, when they started eating school meals. When my daughter heard that, she decided to switch back to taking her own food.

What’s more, only 7 percent of school food operations fully comply with the nutrtional standards laid down by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the federal meals program. During the week I spent recently in the kitchen at my daughter’s school, it was clear that schools trying to feed kids on a budget rely heavily on industrially-processed convenience foods laced with additives and sugar. Fresh vegetables are a rarity.

A study of how schools use government donations of surplus farm commodities, conducted by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation (PFD) two years ago, found that California schools ordered far more meat and dairy products and rarely touched the offerings of fresh vegetables and whole grains. The reason is simple enough: kids don’t like vegetables and whole grains. Unless, of course, they’ve already been trained to like them at home.

The University of Michigan researchers said they are encouraged by a recent movement toward exposing children to fresh, local produce and programs that encourage children to walk to school and exercise more — just the sort of things being pushed by Michelle Obama in her “Let’s Move” campaign, as well as ”Healthy Schools” legislation pending here in the District of Columbia. The USDA also is considering new school food standards developed by the Institute of Medicine that would put a cap on the number of calories served in school meals, reduce starchy foods, and increase servings of fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

The University of Michigan study comes as Congress considers re-authorization of the Child Nutrition Act, for which President Barack Obama has proposed splitting an additional $1 billion annually between school meals and other food programs. Some advocates say that amount is not even enough to put an apple on kids’ cafeteria trays. Ann Cooper, the “renegade lunch lady,” in a recent op-ed in The Washington Post, says what schools really need is another $1 per day for each child in the federal program, which would work out to something like $5.4 billion a year.

But this latest study points to something even more ominous that should occupy the attention of federal lawmakers: a growing bifurcation of the food system wherein poor kids are routinely subjected to cheap processed food that damages their health, while kids from wealthier families get access to the best our local farms have to offer. That is the underlying message of the growing Farm to School movement: that all kids deserve fresh, wholesome food, not just the ones whose parents shop at Whole Foods or the farmers market.

More studies like this one will undoubtedly show that school food quality is a social justice issue that demands immediate attention. And while some politicians might be loathe to pay for improving it — that is, if they think about it at all — it is also a health issue with potentially devastating consequences for the national budget.

Shredding leaves for compost

For 4,000 years prior to the advent of factory-made fertilizers, the Chinese used every bit of organic matter they could lay their hands on–including their own excrement–to return to the soil the nitrogen and other nutrients their vegetable crops removed. It was only through meticulous attention to the cycle of terrestrial rot upon which new life depends that Asian cultures managed to cultivate the same land intensively for centuries, and thereby sustain themselves.

Americans have never been quite so industrious. In colonial days, raising livestock and growing vegetables went hand-in-hand–but not always. Farmers who applied manure and cover crops to maintain fertility were called “improvers.” Other farmers, citing a shortage of labor for soil husbandry, simply tilled their land until the soil was exhausted of nutrients. They then moved to greener pastures, something the western frontier seemed to offer in infinite abundance.

Today the frontier is long gone and modern “improvers”–otherwise known as organic gardeners–are left to ponder where to get the materials they need to maintain soil fertility. I should know. I go to great lengths to make the compost I use to feed my hungry kitchen garden here in the District of Columbia: snatching leaves my neighbors put at the curb in the fall; begging grass clippings from landscaping crews; hauling bags of coffee grounds from Starbucks; shoveling buckets of horse manure from a riding stables; religiously collecting our own kitchen scraps. Yet, it never seems to be enough.

My guess is that most urban and suburban gardeners operate at a soil deficit, meaning they don’t generate enough compost or manure of their own to adequately fertilize their soil. Unlike the Chinese, our culture treats the organic matter we should be putting back into the soil as waste material, shipping it off to landfills or flushing it down the toilet. Thus, while we disdain industrially produced fertilizers and pesticides, organic gardeners remain largely dependent on fossil-fueled modern commerce to provide the soil amendments our crops require, be it compost, horse manure or fish emulsion. What’s more, there is no agreement on specific practices when it comes to deciding what amendments–or cover crops–to use and how much.

I recently asked readers of The Slow Cook, as well as garden blogger friends and subscribers to the D.C. Urban Gardeners listserv, how they approach the question of maintaining soil fertility. Specifically, what do you use to improve your soil, and how much? As you can see from their responses, there is a wide diversity of approaches. In fact, organic gardening remains a kind of home-grown alchemy for which there seem to be as many different formulae for success as there are practitioners.

Among the most precise responses was this one from Joshua Wenz, who operates a professional vegetable gardening service. He also is a partner in the Neighborhood Farm Initiative, which grows produce for sale on a plot near Ft. Totten NE and teaches neophytes how to garden.

“To replenish soil fertility in my gardens and my clients’ gardens,” Joshua wrote, “I use:

“Compost (an inch or so a year)

“Nitrogen (N): Alfalfa meal, sometimes (but rarely) chicken manure. Twelve pounds, or about 36 cups per 100 sq feet per year. Easy to find on-line, but I haven’t found it locally, which is where the chicken manure comes in handy

“Phosphorous (P): Colloidal Phosphate. FEDCO sells “Tennessee Brown” which is essentially gleaned from phosphate mining tailings. Purportedly has less heavy metals, and of course is recycled. Hard rock phosphate is all I’ve found locally. Colloidal phosphate seems to be preferred by organic growers to hard rock phosphate, but I can’t seem to find anything that outright shows one is more sustainable or environmentally friendly than the other.  Amount added depends on soil analysis and I only add every three years.

“Potassium (K): Greensand, or sometimes wood ash if pH is low enough. Available locally. Amount added depends on soil analysis, and also once every three years.

“For trace nutrients, kelp meal, azomite, other rock dust would probably work. I do that every three years as well.”

On the subject of cover-cropping, or planting sacrificial crops that act as fertilizer, Joshua had this to say:

“Cover cropping is a bear. It requires following a strict schedule on when to mow
and till. You won’t be able to work it in by hand. I have tried vetch/cowpea/oats
mixes, ryegrass, clover in raised garden beds with loose fluffy soil and it was
too tough to cut and work into the soil without a tiller. I now just pull it up
and use it as a mulch or toss into the compost.

“Buckwheat’s easier, but done in six to eight weeks, and make sure to mow or till when
you don’t want it to reseed anymore.”

D.C. gardener Patrick Polischuk, who maintains four garden beds, each six feet long and two to three feet wide, offered this:

“Compost. How much? As much as I can. Two to three inches at planting and if I have enough, another surface application part-way through a crop’s season…I make the compost in two big bins out of yard scraps, kitchen scraps, and most of my block’s fall leaves.”

Christa Carignan, who gardens behind her home in Rockville, Maryland, said this:

“I use homemade compost made from leaves and kitchen scraps, but unfortunately I never have quite enough to feed all five of my veggie beds sufficiently each spring/fall. I have two compost bins (one cubic yard each) and I am lucky if I get enough mature compost to put about one inch on all the beds once each year. Not enough.

“Last year I got a truckload of mushroom compost from Pennsylvania (only $25 for a pickup truck full + the kindness of family members to deliver it here). I added about three to four inches of mushroom compost last spring and it really gave my garden a good boost. I will do the same again this year.”

Sylvie Rowand, who gardens in Rappahannock County, Virginia, had this to say:

“Compost, compost and more compost.

“I compost everything I can get my hands on. You could say I grow grass so I can make compost. When I used to live in the city, I would get several truckloads of shredded leaves from the city every winter, the grass clippings of neighbors who did not spray their lawn, coffee grounds from the office, and we’d take regular trips to Rock Creek stables (for manure).

“Today, I have grass fields, lots of garden debris, horse manure, straw, leaves – and as I say, whatever I can get my hand on. My best beds have four to six inches of compost on top. Actually my best beds used to be my compost piles. I have huge compost piles, and they change locations every year. When one is done, I just spread it a little and plant straight in. Now that the garden is reaching its physical limits – at least for a few years – I can focus on making compost to retop all the beds.”

El, who gardens in Michigan, described her solution:

“Moving to the country AND getting animals.  At first, I was gathering our pine needles until I realized there was poison ivy growing nearby, then I gathered bagged leaves from curbsides in town, then I asked a neighbor who had horses (and they gladly dumped pickup truck loads for me) and THEN we got the bagger for the lawn tractor.  Then, we got enough animals to make a difference. 

“Sigh. It’s all a process, and I am still of the belief that one can never have enough compost or mulch…temporary surpluses, maybe, but not enough.

“I’m testing that theory though with the goats’ output.  Pee is much more highly activating than dried chicken poop.  But!  It takes me almost two hours to haul out the goat shed, and that’s about 30 to 40 wheelbarrowloads of (mostly) straw.  And:  I do this monthly.  Yikes!

“I have raised beds into which I regularly add about a foot or more of compost and mulch every year.  (Compost:  mostly used chicken/goat straw bedding, kitchen/garden scraps, and–it’s true–all unusable guts/feathers/feet/heads of the poultry.  Mulch:  grass/leaf clippings the garden tractor picks up.)

“Other (more minor) practices:  I plant potatoes, tomatoes/peppers, squash seeds and onion-y things directly into compost in their holes, hills or trenches.  Everything else doesn’t need it nearly as much; in fact, root crops (carrots, etc.) and the cole family tend to hate super-nitrogenated soils of the composted variety so they don’t get anything.  And the squash is the only plant I baby with compost tea.”

Reader Luci Wilson offered this:

“Well, I’m kind of spoiled because I also keep a small flock of chickens and a handful of dairy goats, so I sheet mulch the straw bedding mixed with poop and ammonia from the goat pen on top of my (vegetable) beds each fall.  That way in spring it’s already partially composted, the winter rains have worked the nutrients into the soil and everything is already mulched.  I just have to lay in the drip lines and drop my plants and seeds into the planting holes.

Welcome to the world

The miracle of seeds sprouting never gets old. Only the annual ritual of showing photographs of seeds sprouting gets old.

Did you know that seeds are actually little embryos, waiting to be born? All they need are the right conditions: moisture and warmth. Some, like these tomatoes, need more warmth than others. I sprouted these in seed trays on top of a special heat matt. Radishes, and other members of the brassica family, will happily germinate in much cooler temperatures. They can be planted directly in the ground as soon as the soil can be worked.

I’m a little behind some of my other gardening friends with tomato seedlings. Sylvie, over at Rappahannock Cook and Kitchen Gardener, planted her tomatoes (all 144 of them) on the 22nd of February. She likes to eat tomatoes out of the garden in June. And that, really, is the only reason for us here in Zone 7 to be planting things in seed trays this time of year: to extend the season. When I first started gardening, I planted all my tomato and cucumber seeds directly in the ground and we had wonderful results. Of course, by starting seeds in trays, you eliminate a lot of guess work as far as which seeds will actually turn into plants.

I’m planting five varieties of tomatoes this year, my favorites–Mortgage Lifter (resistant variety), Cherokee Purple, Dr. Carolyn and Roma–plus Green Zebra, at my wife’s request. (Note to all of you out there who think Brandywine is the best : I still don’t get it. We’ve grown Brandywine, and it was never better than an average tomato.) We tried Green Zebra before and it did horribly. But my wife promises to pamper this one. I’m also starting a greater variety of peppers–bell peppers, hot chili peppers, jalapeno peppers–and several dozen eggplants. Now that we have a method of preserving eggplant we really like, we can’t grow too much eggplant.

The only trouble is, I don’t have a grow light. That means chasing the sun from one window to the next, and eventually carrying the seed trays in and out of the house when it’s warm enough.

What we won’t do for our garden.

My idea of a well-balanced meal

Fried eggs over fresh salad greens with pork sausage.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Shopping: none

The eggs and salad both were from earlier trips to the farmers market. If I’d had my act together, I might be harvesting my own salad. Sadly, I neglected to build a plastic “tunnel” in the garden this winter for growing greens. Still, this is a great mix of greens that lasts me through the week for $7.50.  The sausage rope we get delivered from our local dairy.

I could eat this every day and never get tired of it.

Kids have a "bloody" good time with beets

Did we really have to go all the way to South Africa to make beet salad?

My food appreciation classes continue on their virtual world food tour and this extremely simple beet salad turned up in the African cookbook we are using as a reference. There’s nothing especially African about it, but it is seasonal and when I thought about it, I realized in the four years I’ve been teaching these classes we have never used beets. It was high time we did.

I wasn’t sure how much the kids would like beet salad. This is one of those vegetables people love or hate. But I knew the kids would love handling the beets because of the red juice that looks so much like blood. Sure enough, the kids squealed with delight as soon as they saw the “blood” on their hands. Pretty soon, some of them had it all over themselves–their hands, their arms, their faces. Cutting the beets turned out to be some of the best fun we’ve had in ages.

I do have a little bone to pick with the way beets are sold these days, however. At most of the grocery stores I visit, they charge $3.99 for a bunch of three little beets with the greens attached. Normally, I love beet greens. But only when they are fresh out of the garden, not when they are days old. So I am not impressed by three little beets with tired greens attached–especially at $3.99. Where were all the big, bulk beets we used to see in the store?

It wasn’t until I walked to my fourth store–a local organics shop–that I finally found what I was looking for: big, heavy, bulk beets with no greens. Never was I so glad to see a bin full of gnarly root vegetables.

To make this salad, cook 1 pound beets in a big pot of water. Beets take a rather long time to cook. Once the water has come to a boil, lower the heat so the water is just bubbling. Test the beets occasionally for doneness. I use a metal turkey trussing skewer. When the beets are done, the skewer will pass easily into the middle. Remove the beets from the water an allow to cool, preferably overnight.

My favorite part of using beets is peeling them after they’ve cooked. I just like the way the skins slip off. Then slice the beets into pieces and cut these into medium dice, or chop roughly, as you like, and place them in a mixing bowl. Add 1/2 red onion, cut into small dice, and stir in 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon sugar, freshly ground pepper to taste.

The original recipe did not call for olive oil, but I thought the salad looked drab. In my world, as I explained to the kids, olive oil makes everything smile. And you can see immediately how the salad livens up–or “smiles”–when you stir in a little olive oil.

And that’s all there is to making our beet salad. We served it in cups with spoons. I also like this salad with pieces of fresh tomato added and an herb such as mint, or perhaps anise hyssop.

For more great stories about how we are taking back our food system, read Fight Back Friday.