The farm is alive with all things fully leafed out -- the blooms have come and gone from the fruit trees. So what is a local meal in May in Minnesota? Well, I'm making a stew of dried edible beans and the very last of the carrots and onions from the pantry.
Those carrots are not the botique image of local foods that people think about. But to eat seasonally, some stuff comes up from the pantry in May- before the new crop is ready to harvest and last year's produce is barely recognizable.
One of my elders said to me that when I talked of "local foods" all she could envision was the flacid, black carrots that the family dug out of the sand box storage under the floor boards (Minnesota circa 1950). Those carrots, like mine, bear little resemblance to the lovely fresh carrots we pulled from the ground. Eating seasonally and storing food needs to be part of the local food scene.
But I make it look worse than it is. My herbs are up and I have fresh thyme (which will go into the stew), cilantro, parsely, and oregano. We've had our first rhubarb and asparagus. The stored food in the pantry also includes canned candy apples, hot pepper relish, and italian sauces. We still have lots of frozen beets, sweet corn, chicken and one small package of lamb. For dried foods we have wheat, beans (in the stew), dried raspberries and strawberries (an experiment with the dehyrdrator), and dried sweet corn that I grind for corn bread- delicious.
Out with the old and in with the new... next month.
No comments:
Post a Comment