Kunsthal kookt

Last weekend, Rotterdam turned a part of its art museum into a food cornucopia. Although mainly for restaurant people, caterers or people with a thick pocket, it was still obvious that good food these days more and more focuses on marketing itself in the same breath as environmentally concerned, socially good, culturally rooted. That's why you could see (and smell and TASTE) fantastic cheeses, produce from the Ark of Taste of Slow Food NL, endless variations of raspberries or the prettiest cupcakes of Lisette Kreischer, while passing by the longest moestuin (uhm: allotment garden), prepared by Rotterdam school children and displayed proudly: I was enjoying the sun outside behind the stand of the Youth Food Movement, or in front in a nun dress, trying to convince people to confess their foodsins on camera. Maarten made people amazed and happy with 1-day young apple juice, while Sam and Jiri filled hungry stomachs with self-made sausages from very happy pigs.

In between happened all the small and not so small talks to people about, guess what, food, and what and why the YFM does around it. Towards the end of the day an old lady walked by and was probably the happiest person on earth discovering that kunsthal kookt happened that weekend, telling she had forgotten until half an hour ago and quickly passed by before it closed for that day. The apple juice reminded her of her twenties when she fled post-war Germany and worked for a Dutch apple farmer and was still able to wear high-heels she informed everyone, then laughed and passed on into the kunsthal.






Beautiful berries from the delivery service Bio aan huis

Public fruit tree map, finally for Europe!

Once upon a time five friends (one of them above) have gone on a rowing trip, and saw many fruit trees on the shore that bore even more fruit. They realized that the fruit they took for their trip came from Argentina and how the fruit on the riverbench wasn't taken by anyone and how that made for a bit of a sad situation. The idea of a public fruit tree map for Europe (and beyond?) was born. Now it is alive: mundraub.org (mundraub = a charming German word for hand-to-mouth theft of food) and also shows herbs, nuts, berries and even juice mills. If you're capable of reading or writing German, use it across the whole Europe map by finding and adding (even Morocco features some public lemon trees)! The idea behind is that so many public fruit trees, as well as private fruit trees, bear beautiful fruit that no one harvests and that rot away while we import apples from New Zealand or Walnuts from the US. Web 2.0 has found another way for those trees, and also private tree owners that do not have the time or interest to harvest their tree are called to make an entry allowing harvesting of their fruit. This project has gotten some good press coverage lately and even received the German sustainability award. Yay for public food!

I've known of such thing before from San Francisco, with the neighborhoodfruit site. There though you have to register (for free) but a nice little fruit ripe alarm is included, so you can get a notice of ripe cherry trees in the city on your phone, for example.

Not bad? Not bad! Now we only need to wait for the global map, accessible in everyone's language. Volunteers?

100 miles a week

Last summer, Jonas and I went wwoofing (great thing but to that, another time) on beautiful Channel island Guernsey. A great couple hosted us and among all of the inspiring things they have spent their life with was (if I remember correctly a week of) the 100 mile diet: eat only what's been grown, reared or caught 100 miles (yes, 160 kilometres) around you. While in process, taste what your region has to offer, be surprised at what it should have to offer but does not (anymore), find out how it is to minimize food miles, eat fresh, talk to people providing your food in order to track down the way it might have travelled. Have fun hunting it down!

This summer we thought why not give it a try and see how we might emerge in this 1 week-plea. So many things are in season right now, we are in Oldenburg (close to the Northern Sea = fish!), many milkproducts are produced in this region ... Should be easy?

Today was day 1, and we decided to start after lunch time shopping. Oh the lunch hunger. We had to wait and ran right into some rueful extension of our non-100 mile diet. Canteen meal: Pikeperch from Russia, potatoes from who knows where. Aww.

But then! Monday is the worst day in Oldenburg to start a 100 mile diet, because it is the only weekday without a farmers market. This fact made us bike and bike, only to find a store that prouds itself on "quality right from the producer", in it a lady that informed us only strawberries and the long-gone asparagus are from their farm. The rest comes from wholesalers. Off to the organic supermarket besides, maybe they know something about the origin of their produce?

Nope. Only country indications. Nearly hopeless we saw ourselves eating bread and butter for dinner and were about to leave when a little label in an onion box poked my eye. Turned out nearly every veggie box has one, specifying their place of origin (if you're ever interested)! Turned out only carrots, runner beans and the very disliked fennel were regional. We chose for the former, some milk, butter and cream (local creameries in abundance, thank you region), and took some red mullet from the Northern Sea on the way back. Looked for suitable potatoes and only got as regional as the Pfalz. Quite some more kilometres than expected. But we had to eat some carbs too ... With some herbs from the balcony, plus eggs and butter made into a Hollandaise, everything turned out to be a nice little dinner:

Strawberry Mob

On Saturday it happened! Youth Food Movement Netherlands (born out of Slow Food NL) took a tractor, put Jan Robben and 400 boxes of his smaakaardbeien (Dutch for: wonderfultastestrawberries) on the back and drove right onto the grass in front of the museumsplein in the centre of Amsterdam. Via facebook and related media plus lots of word to mouth, the strawberry mob had been organized, now ready to completely buy out the 400 boxes within a quarter of an hour.

Why the mob, why the fuss, why the fun? Jan Robben is a strawberry farmer who selects for the taste of his fruit, not their shelf life. This makes him different to what supermarkets expect of strawberry farmers and that is why he has a hard time getting into there. In order to raise awareness and to motivate consumers to ask for such tasteful little fruits at their retailers, YFM, Jan Robben and the smaakardbeien made this trip to the city, threw a jazzy party after and let those not filled up yet taste all the different kind of strawberries from local farmers. What a delight! Note: For tomorrow (9th of July) there is a connected YFM action thingi, so if you happen to be Dutch, grab your phone and call the PLUS supermarket in your neighbourhood to ask whether they have some Jan Robben strawberries!

When I travelled on with my two boxes, the smell alone of the strawberries made a store owner peek into my bag and ask what kind of strawberries I have there. I offered her but she refused to, because they are not organic- Jan Robben does use a minimal amount of pesticides and mineral fertilizers though, has a whole biodiversity plan laid out and implements water- and energy saving measures. But in times of anonymous farmers, people can only believe labels, often shunned by farmers because of the costs that come with it (Jan Robben is certified under the milieukeur label though, but which average consumer makes his way alive through the label jungle these days?). Buying from farmers you know can help. Glad that I got to know Jan Robben and thumbs up for his website! Imagine every farmer had a website explaining practices, philosophy and even camping possibilities close to his farm (alas, only in Dutch)!

Becoming a little bit of a farmer?

CASFS University Farm in Santa Cruz/California

Northamerica has its first school dedicated to teach you how to start becoming an urban farmer! It is newly opened this year, called Richmond Farm School (in Richmond/Canada) and part of Kwantlen Polytech University, who co-authored this project together with the municipality of Richmond. It is a half-year programme, consisting of various practicals and theory. The graduates have the option to lease 1-5 acres of municipal land (so-called incubator plots) to start off an urban farming enterprise, with ongoing support from the programme. All in the name of rebuilding local food systems, reducing food miles and adapting to growing urban demand of food. You can read a good portrait (including programme outline, prices, time frame) on City Farmer News.

The whole thing reminded me of the beautiful farm at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS) at the University of Santa Cruz/California which I visited two years ago. They have a similar programme in place where apprentices spend half a year (literally day and night, if they opt to stay in the on-farm apprentice housing) on the 22-acre farm, also having practical as well as theoretical lessons in sustainable farming and connected issues. Graduates not only become farmers but often disperse into the worlds of working within (local) food networks, academics, writing, politics, ... you name it. To me, mainly because of the immersion into it, this (more than 40 years old) programme seems to be a bit more in-depth, also because it offers about 1000 hours of teaching, as compared to 350 (formal) hours with the Richmond Farm School (both costs around 5000$). But to be fair: the latter just started up and might (and hopefully will) grow considerably in size.

Let's hope projects like these will keep sprouting, budding and spreading, yielding people and farms that are able to feed us better than our current food systems can!

Picnic series, #1! - Jadebusen

This is Jonas together with our picnic case, napping at the Jadebusen dike (erotic name for a rather romantic area in Northern Germany where the sea has eaten a "busen" (translate: bosom) into the land). Featured: salmon pasta salad, aubergine dip, pistacchio dip, baguette, those two apples you see there. Red wine of course.

This is the first of my picnic series, a little celebration of the combination of two very good things: food and the outsides! While wandering the web for the actual meaning of this word I classically stumbled across a vast array of definitions. Well, who cares. Much better is the fact that there used to be the Picnic Society (unacademic wikipedia quote):

Early in the 19th century, a fashionable group of Londoners formed the 'Picnic Society'. Members met in the Pantheon on Oxford Street. Each member was expected to provide a share of the entertainment and of the refreshments with no one particular host. Interest in the society waned in the 1850s as the founders died.

Sad ending? No! At least in New York some people have revived this idea, meeting in Central Park around food and this simple, beautiful idea. Feels like this could be a good addition to things like Eat Ins, Flashmobs, or Surprise Dinners. Sounds like a plan?