For whom the dinner bell tolls

Disclaimer: this post is not for the faint of heart.

During my first afternoon helping out at Green Meadows Farm, the farm manager (Andrew) had proposed that I stay for chicken processing day. I had intended from the outset of my journey toward a greater understanding of food on its way to my plate to participate in one of these events, I explained, but hadn't planned to investigate this piece this early on. I'd read about the whole process in some detail in The Omnivore's Dilemma -- a method considerably more humane than traditional slaughterhouses, but something which would nonetheless require a good bit of psychological preparation on my part beforehand. Also, I offered, I was planning to leave Monday morning, the day scheduled for slaughter. And... I balked. But Andrew ultimately convinced me to stay. And it wasn't just the friendly conversation and tasty food on Saturday afternoon (or, as Andrew jokingly referred to it, "the lobster payoff" technique, though the local lobsters were delicious). As I got to know the knowledgeable and friendly crew at the farm, I felt more comfortable with the idea. If I meant to really learn about what goes into sustainable food production -- all of what I eat, including animals if I am to continue consuming them -- then this farm, modeled closely on Joel Salatin's methodology and managed by thoughtful, compassionate folks was the place to face the prospect of taking full responsibility for my food (including taking its life).

I was still pretty anxious on Monday morning when I showed up for the chicken crew pre-brief. Perhaps in an effort to help me mentally prepare for the event, or perhaps to utilize my kitchen prowess, the farm manager asked me to sharpen and sanitize the knives. Good, I can do that. Sharpen knives. Yes, just like a regular run-of-the-mill day in the kitchen, no problemo. A bit later, over iced coffee and muffins -- not a bad idea in case I lost my usual appetite later -- Andrew talked the assembled team through each station, each role. There was the chicken wrangler (who chased the chickens around the yard and brought them to be processed), the killing cones (where chickens clucked their last cluck), the scalding tank (that loosened feathers of the expired birds), the defeathering machine (kind of like a kinky washing machine with water jets and lined with rubber fingers), the chopping block (where each defeathered bird lost her head and feet), and the evisceration table (after which the chicken is identical to what you buy at the market). Evisceration?! I opted to be on scalding and defeathering. Pretty innocuous, considering my other options.

The group of six -- half experienced, half newbies -- formed a circle and held hands as Andrew offered thanks to the animals for giving their lives to nourish us. Then we got started. I watched as Jim brought a bird to each of the four cones and pulled their heads down to cleanly, swiftly sever their throats. At least I knew the knives were razor sharp, so the animals didn't suffer. I got a little choked up watching Jim's steady but compassionate hands take each life and hold each bird's head so that it didn't flail and alarm the others while it lost consciousness and bled out. Once he gave me the sign that each bird was ready, I transferred it by its feet to the scalding tank. The scalding was harder than I had anticipated, as too short of a dunk time didn't adequately loosen the feathers but too long would melt the fat and begin to cook the bird. Had the full impact of the life-taking not been so omnipresent, the next step -- the defeathering process -- would have been downright comical. As it was, I did catch myself laughing when I once started to say something while switching the machine on and dripping chicken feathers flew into my mouth. Talk about centrifugal force. (Or is it centripital? I mix them up. Anyway: feathers everywhere.) Muddy, sopping feathers tasted pretty bad.

Near the end, after watching each of the other stations, I knew that I wouldn't be able to handle the killing cones, but I did want to try my hand at the task most akin to my cooking experience. Andrew had mentioned that my hands, relatively smaller than those of the rest of the crew, would be well suited for evisceration. Previously, the word "eviscerate" always conjured up images of velociraptors disemboweling their prey. This process hasn't really dispelled that association: to be honest, it was pretty gruesome, especially since the birds were still warm. Sarah talked me through the process of removing all of the internal organs and we practiced together. I did it, with only one major intestinal-slicing mishap, and found myself oddly proud of making it through without an emotional meltdown or nausea. Am I more callous than I thought? Could I do this every time I had the urge to eat poultry? Would I ever have the urge to eat poultry after this? I wondered.

As each crew member parted with thanks and a freshly processed, free-range organic chicken, I decided to make a curry dinner for my wonderful hostess and her grandson Ingmar who was visiting from Germany. Ingmar was an amazing assistant chef and merrily chatted away as I sipped a beer and assembled an impromptu chicken curry, chickpea curry, rice, and raita with fresh mint from the garden. (Aha, all of those spices stockpiled in my pannier came in handy!) It was a delicious end to an intense day learning about the meaning of life (and death) and I was elated to share it with my new friends. I don't know that I'll be eating a lot of chicken from here on out, but I now have a very real understanding of what it takes to bring it to my plate.

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A town's trash becomes everyone's treasure

Ollie and I arrived on the doorstep of Green Meadows Farm -- historic home of the famous Patton family in northeastern MA, and the only certified organic farm in the area -- on Thursday evening, drenched, exhausted, and starving after an intense day of cycling from Boston. Mrs. Patton, one of the most gracious hostesses (and human beings) I have ever met, welcomed us into her home with open arms and a hot meal. The following morning after breakfast, Mrs. Patton introduced me to her neighbor, Peter, whose innate curiosity and thoughtful commitment to making the world a better place (globally -- through his work with the youth leadership program, Outward Bound International -- and locally, which I'll get into momentarily) have led him to develop a brilliant solution to the dual problems of soil depletion and waste production.

Peter and his wife Beatrice moved to Hamilton, MA in the mid 70s and acquired a piece of land on which Peter hoped to realize his dream of slowly revitalizing the soil. He was not a farmer by trade but an anthropologist and a teacher, yet he dove right into the project and today remains doggedly committed to his original vision of converting waste into compost and reviving the land. This man is perhaps the only individual I have ever met who gets more excited about compost than I do. (Shocking, I know.) His vision is to help as many people as possible grow food on their land and he has vowed to give away the black gold he produces at Brick Ends Farm to any farmer or home gardener in the area who asks for it, by the bucket or the truckload. Talk about giving back. Peter cheerfully showed me around his property: mountains of compost at various stages of decomposition, an area for aging horse manure ("thank you, Martha Stewart, for convincing horse owners to pay me to take their horse manure and then buy it back from me the next year for their flowers," he quipped), and the small First Light CSA which he hosts on his land. It was the largest composting operation I've ever seen, and it produced such high-quality stuff that Mike, who runs First Light, grows all of the food for the CSA (in its second year here) in straight compost, not even mixing it with soil -- something I had previously come to understand as a big no-no in the garden, though I vaguely recall the explanation for this being tied to the concentration of nitrogen in most compost being too strong for undiluted use on plants. (Soil scientists, help me out here.)

Peter, like most folks I've met here, is proud of his work while being modest about his successes. The following morning at breakfast, Mrs. Patton and I read a feature in the local paper about the unprecedented success of a pilot town composting program that Peter helped to initiate. The setup supplied 74 families in the town of Hamilton with food waste buckets which are collected by a truck and brought to Peter's farm one day a week. An analysis of the trial period proposed that 10 of the average family's 27 pounds of weekly trash were being redirected to compost through the program -- the waste management and financial implications of which did not escape the state's notice. The pilot was deemed a wild success and there is some talk of expanding the program (the pickup cost will run roughly less than a dollar per household per week) to include all homes in Hamilton and nearby Wenham. If the recent shift in weather to (finally!) clear and sunny didn't bring a big enough smile to my face, this program sure has.


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Beets Not Bombs

The highlight of my time in the Boston area was on Tuesday morning when I had the pleasure of working with a group of middle schoolers involved in the City Sprouts summer program (an initiative of the Cambridge Public School system that encourages community gardening in schools). Louise had invited me to talk a bit about my project and do a culinary lesson with her group of young gardeners at Graham & Park School, so after a tour of their lush green space, we flipped on the hot plate and got cooking. About fifteen minutes later, with the help of three willing and able sous chefs, we sat down together at the garden's picnic table to enjoy my favorite broccoli (complete with nuts, raisins, red pepper flakes, and garlic, but lacking tomatoes, as these were not yet in season). They were so great, the rising 7th and 8th graders, and while we ate they regaled me with descriptions of their favorite recipes and tales of field trips around the city that they had taken with the City Sprouts program. Afterwards, Ollie and I rode back through the drizzle along the lovely Charles River to Brookline and I proceeded to cook up a storm for a group dinner with Caron and her roommates. I love when friends let me take over their kitchens, and contrary to her claims of unpreparedness Caron had lots of interesting goodies for me to work with, including a tin of anchovies and a bottle of red wine. Yum.

After a visit to a less-than-welcoming local farm (which will remain nameless to protect its identity) with Caron on Wednesday, I made my way to Jamaica Plains to grab a bite at Cafe Ula -- good food, cantankerous staff -- with my friend Michelle before heading to Bikes Not Bombs. I hadn't seen Michelle since our days in AmeriCorps, so I was elated when she decided to join me at the peacenik bike co-op for one of the weekly volunteer nights. We chatted away as we sorted and packed crates of handlebars, bike chains, and other bits in preparation for an upcoming shipment of hundreds of bicycles and spare parts to Ghana next weekend. Good stuff. We even flattened our first bike to get it ready for loading. (Check out Michelle wielding the wrench!)

Speaking of bikes, I needed to get Ollie looked at after 9 1/2 weeks of rain and an unfortunate series of city potholes began to elicit odd new sounds. Things were bustling at last night's BNB volunteer night, so I waited until this morning and made my way to the closest neighborhood bike shop. In this case, it was the Brighton Ave branch of the International Bicycle Center, where Marcus got Ollie unsqueaked and even reattached her tire pump holder (which I had temporarily macguyvered with a piece of sponge and some zip ties after the infamous ditch dive). Now, bike mechanics have a bit of a reputation for being surly, but such was certainly not the case here. We chatted about bike touring, I learned about wheel rim cleaning, and Erich wandered over at one point and chimed in, telling me about the city's locavore scene. Pity that I finally meet the friendly folks on my way out of the city.

Yes, once this morning's thunderstorms dwindled to mere pouring rain and sideways gales, Ollie and I hit road, heading north toward our next farm....


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Feats of Dairy-ing Do

As fate would have it, my plans to check out farms in western Massachusetts fell through just when a number of folks started sending me information on amazing farms further east in the state. (Thank you, Mike, Daniel, and Mother Margaret Georgina!) Ollie and I conferred and agreed that rerouting made sense. So after a few phone calls, we began to head east from Southwick to Foxboro, where I was to learn all about raw milk, the dairy industry, and the Farm Bureau from the friendly and knowledgeable Terri, her parents, and her sister. (I also learned a lot about sharks and dinosaurs from Terri's son, Joseph, but since you can't milk them, I won't go into detail here.)

I arrived at the Lawton Family Farm on Saturday morning, catching a ride from Warren, MA with Terri's sister, Danielle, who had kindly hosted Ollie and I (and our ridiculous amount of gear) the evening before, and who filled me in on the family's history of dairy farming. She and Terri -- the driving force behind Oake Knoll Ayrshires (a raw milk production operation at her family's farm in Foxboro) -- had always been around farmers, been actively involved in their local 4-H organization, and since the 80s when their father converted the farm to a dairy, been around cows. This family knows dairy. (If ever there's a farm trivia night at Wonderland when I get back to DC, I know who I want on my team for the round on bovines.) Terri's degree in Animal Agribusiness and her time as a state dairy inspector have informed her professional practice, but she also clearly really cares for her cows. She names every cow and is acutely aware of the quirks of each; the cows, in turn, seemed comfortable and even a bit curious around various members of the family, and me when I made my way to the pre-milking area. The milking routine moved like a well-oiled machine: the cows waited outside the milking barn until the gate was lifted, then they marched in, found the nearest empty spot, and poked their heads through one of the 12 headgates to nibble on a small pile of grain. The milkers -- Ed and Nancy -- cleaned and sterilized the udders and teats, then hooked the cows up to the milking machines. When the whole group was done, the teats were disinfected once again, the cows unhooked, and everyone marched out the far end of the barn to make room for the next cadre. Amazing.

Terri is very much connected not only to her cows but also to her community of raw milk drinkers who regularly come by the farm to pick up their pre-ordered fresh milk. One afternoon, she told me of a recent time when the price of organic oats and grain (which she uses to supplement the cows' main diet of forage -- grass and hay) rose sharply from $5 to $30 over the course of two months: she took a poll among her loyal customer base to see what they wanted to do. Of the options -- 1) start feeding the cows conventionally grown oats and grain, 2) start feeding them organic corn and soybeans, or 3) let the cows attempt to subsist on a diet of grass and hay alone (which, it turns out, means that they lack key nutrients) -- the group as a whole decided to abandon the organic feed (option 1) in order to keep the cows happy, healthy, and productive. Democracy in action.

I was surprised to learn from Terri's mom that, contrary to what I'd read in books like Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma, cows actually love corn. They will seek it out. If they get loose in a field, I was told, they will always go for the sweet-tasting, easily accessible calories of a corn stalk over the usual grass. (Yes, I know corn is a grass, technically, but there are different chemical things going on that make corn especially appealing... and complicated. There is a good deal of debate among those who raise cattle as to whether chopped corn stalks -- a common component of the diet of conventionally-raised cows -- count as "grain" or "forage" or some combination of the two.) This doesn't mean cows *should* eat corn, or if they do, certainly not anything close to what they are stuffed with when crammed into the typical beef cattle feed lots. For her part, Terri avoids feeding corn products to her herd, a practice which is both more expensive and requires more work to locate appropriate alternatives for her cows. But the decision has philosophical and financial underpinnings for her business, and Terri continues to nourish her cows without corn products.

Speaking of nourishing, I was put on calf-feeding patrol the last morning at the farm. Apparently Ed and Nancy thought I could hold my own after Nancy and I had successfully fed the group the previous morning, so they sent me into the calf barn with a big bucket of fresh milk and a bottle. (In retrospect, I think they might have been mildly hazing me.) Hilarity ensued as the calves proceeded to knock each other (and me, almost) over in the feeding frenzy. I tell you, those little guys are hungry. Whitey got his head stuck in the bucket at one point, while one of the other calves tried to headbutt the bottle out of the mouth of the calf I was feeding as another of the calves jumped on his back, the last little guy nibbling on my fingers and then, when that didn't work, my pants. Total chaos. I was seeing the "suck or die" instinct in action. I'd heard about this principle of calf behavior -- not to be confused with the Republican Party's motto -- during my time at the Abbey, and have found the aggressive nursing instinct to be pretty intense. But I made it out alive and all five calves were fed. Whew!

I purchased a small container of the farm's newly marketed fromage blanc and tossed Ollie into the back of Ed's truck: I'd managed to hitch a ride into Boston during Ed's regular brewer's grain pick-ups. (Hey, I'm biking *most* of the way around the country, but I'll hitch a ride here and there with folks going my way. And after the intensity of the morning's calf riots, I was glad for the rest.)


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