April 28, 2008

The buzz on seasonal, local eating

I remember hearing my grandma or grandpa tell me about how at Christmas time they would get an orange in their stocking and how big a deal this was given the lack of fruit (other than canned) during the Midwest winters. Oranges, like many other seasonal fruits and vegetables, used to be just that, seasonal. So what has happened? Why is it that nowadays it doesn’t matter if it is winter or summer, one can always find a ripe tomato or a melon at a grocery store? We are fortunate (or maybe unfortunate??) to live in a free market economy where an abundant food supply at low cost is consistently made available to us. We Americans love variety – especially when it comes to food – but maybe it is time for a shift back to the “oranges in the stocking” era.

(Side note – This blog was inspired by a book I just read by Michael Pollan, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A natural history of four meals”). In Pollan’s book, he tells a story about a farmer who sells his eggs (from chickens that are free range and eat grubs left behind from cow pies found in the grass from cows that are pastured) to local restaurants. Eggs will vary from season to season if a chicken is not fed solely on chicken feed and does not live in a cooped up container. Some seasons produce better yolks and others better whites. When the farmer first began selling eggs to chefs, he found himself apologizing to one of the restaurant owners for their pallid hue in the winter months. The chef told him not to worry because during cooking school in Switzerland he’d been taught recipes that specifically called for April eggs, August eggs, and December eggs. Until I read this book, I had no idea that eggs from a chicken could vary from season to season. (Or, better stated, that eggs from a chicken should vary from season to season).

Our global food market allows us to eat whatever we want year round. And I’m not just talking about fruits and vegetables. According to Pollan, pastured animals can be harvested only after they’ve had several months on rapidly growing grass. Feeding animals corn in CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) has accustomed us to a year-round supply of fresh meats. People used to eat most of their beef and pork in late fall or winter, when the animals were fat and eat chicken in the summer. Nowadays, we can eat corn fattened beef year round.

Ok, so what does it matter? What/who does it really hurt if I buy asparagus in the winter and can find ripe tomatoes year-round? First, buying locally and eating seasonally provides a sense of security that comes from knowing that your community, or country, can feed itself. Other reasons to eat locally include preserving the beauty of agricultural landscape (come on, how “pretty” are those giant CAFOs??); the satisfaction of buying food from a farmer you know rather than the supermarket; the fact that local food doesn’t have to travel miles and miles to arrive to your plate; and because by buying locally and eating seasonally, you decide not to participate in the industrial food chain powered by fossil fuel. (One fifth of America’s petroleum consumption goes to producing and transporting our food.) By eating locally, you also make a decision to not take part in America’s big food industry – the advertising, the lobbyists, the profits made from “supersizing” our meals, etc. Plus if you start eating locally, you will make a conscience change to eat better (you won’t find any processed food or frozen meals at your local farmer’s market)!

Eating locally, as Pollan points out, doesn’t necessarily mean it will be organic or even sustainable because there’s nothing to stop a local farmer from using chemicals or abusing animals except the good word (accountability) of his customers. I would think, however, that being accountable to your community members is a much better deterrent for being honest on your growing practices than not having a clue in whose mouth the food you grow and produce will end up.

Ok, so I may sound a little “preachy” and I apologize for that. I’ve got a long way to go until I can follow my own advice but this is the direction I am moving in. Living in Honduras has forced Luke and I to eat seasonally more so than we did when we were living in the States. Last year, I started making a list of what fruits and vegetables were in season when and this year it has been fun to anxiously wait each season. Having less available also makes our meal choices easier. Many volunteers have expressed fright at returning to the States after a two-year term with the PC and being utterly overwhelmed by the options that a US supermarket has to offer.

One of our goals upon returning to the States is to make a better effort at eating locally and seasonally. Among these goals is to grow and produce as much of our own food as possible. It doesn’t get any more “local” than that! Gardening in and of itself is so rewarding and it reduces your waste by turning your throw-away scraps into compost. I used to help my mom can and freeze vegetables and fruit during the summer months when fresh produce is plentiful and this is something I’m hoping to start when I get back. See below for pics of our garden in here in Honduras.

Our front yard garden as of Sunday, April 27
Our variety of lettuces and leafy greens that we planted during rainy season (October - January)

FOR MORE INFO:

Interesting websites I’ve found from magazine articles and books:
http://www.eatwild.com/
www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets
http://www.localharvest.org/

For an interesting article on our carbon footprint and what we can do see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magazine/20wwln-lede-t.html?ex=1209528000&en=62fa7bceddf15978&ei=5070&emc=eta1

April 19, 2008

Scenes from Honduras

Hello everyone! Not a whole lot of updates in the way of work or life but I wanted to get a blog up anyhow so I decided to post some good pics from Honduras that we’ve accumulated thus far. I tried not to repeat any others that we have already blogged!

Lake Yojoa in west/central part of Honduras, surrounded by two national parks

Pineapple field

waterfall near lake Yojoa

woman in Copan Ruinas balancing goods on her head


Macaw birds

Tegucigalpa, from the roof of the hotel PC puts us up in for medical reasons


A milkman in Santa Rosa de Copan


Street in Danli


Lots of different fruits!


Sunset in Danli


Sunset in Santa Lucia



Hydrangea in the Santa Lucia park


church in Comayagua


Drying a fresh harvest of coffee beans

Foot bridge to an aldea near Danli

Cows resting near a home




Countryside near Danli


The Honduran license plate that says ¨take care of the forests¨

orange tree (yes, they´re green but very orange inside!)

April 15, 2008

First a turtle, then some ducks, now a kitten

Some people have already heard that we had to give the ducks away. It was sort of sad to see them go but they wouldn´t stop eating my garden and escaping the PCS. We gave them to our friend who owns property in the mountains just outside Danli. He took Gladys and Melvin to his dad´s house up there and according to him, they´re happily wandering around up there.

So now we have a...kitten. On Sunday afternoon I was washing clothes at the pila when I heard very loud meowing. I went to the porton and opened it and sitting literally right outside our porton was a tiny little kitten who was extremely frightened. I yelled for Luke to come outside and we quickly made the decision to let it in our ¨compound¨ because it was over a 100 degrees outside and the poor thing was all by itself and can´t be more than 4-5 weeks old. Luke asked around on our street to see, just in case, if anyone had lost a kitten and no one had. The story Don Juan (the neighbor who sits outside his house all day and evening selling chips and candy) told us was that a ¨loca¨ (crazy woman) was walking down our street, throwing a kitten in the air. Not sure if I completely believe that or not but in any case, the kitten needed rescuing. Don Juan proceeded to tell Luke how lucky the kitten was to have been meowing outside our house!

After Luke gave me a quick lecture about how I couldn´t get too attached to the kitten because he didn´t want to bring a cat back to the States when we finish our PC service, he constructed a little house for it out of an old box from a package my mom had sent last year and put in off the ground a little bit and under a plastic chair so it can´t get wet when it rains.

The kitten is not allowed inside (we both agreed on that) and is doing well. I am taking it to the vet tomorrow to see what, if any, shots it needs and of course, de-wormer. I haven´t taken a picture yet but will be sure to do that soon and post it.

Any ideas for names for the kitten? We´ve toyed with: Shakina Francis (the name of a beauty salon near our house - what a name!), Francis, and Herbert. We´re not feeling very creative so any suggestions are welcome!

April 7, 2008

English classes

A few months ago, I started an English class two nights a week for an hour here in Danli. This is something that I was reluctant to do at the beginning of my service. Yes, it’s true, I do have a Masters in English but because teaching English was my job before I came to Honduras, I decided that I wanted to learn different skills while here. I also hesitated to teach English for other reasons. One of them has to do with the misconception of language learning that I find to be very common here. For whatever reason, many Hondurans believe that learning English is 1) much easier than learning Spanish and 2) only takes a few months to learn if you have a good teacher. Language learning as a life-time endeavor is not something commonly believed and I felt that starting an English class would only result in dashing dreams of becoming fluent after a few months (if only!!). Another hesitation has to do with the goal many people have behind learning English. Many people who want to learn English do so because they want to go to the US to work. So I decided that I would only teach English to Hondurans who appeared that they would use whatever they learned to improve their skill sets for their jobs or studies here in Honduras.

The lady who owns the internet café that Luke and I frequent asked me before Christmas if I would be willing to teach English to the two girls that work there. I told her I’d think about it then decided I would. I had remembered several nurses at the hospital where my counterpart works mentioning if I ever started an English class to let them know. So I called them up and then through word of mouth, we ended up with a class of about 14. A Cuban volunteer doctor is part of the class, as well as a friend of Luke and I’s, a young boy who is now in private school and feels behind in his English class since he went to public elementary school, two nieces of the internet café owner, a few friends of the nurses from the hospital that are in the class, and a few others.

All in all it’s been a good experience. I do the planning for the classes but Luke comes and helps out. Hondurans are used to route-type memorization in learning situations so we try and make the classes dynamic and fun by using games, dialogs, roll-playing, etc. The students seem to have a good time. We started the class in mid-February and as of yet, don’t know when the class will end. That’ll either be when Luke and I get tired of teaching or when the class number starts dwindling but for now, we’re enjoying it.

Teaching at the internet cafe last week