Reduce, reuse, recycle

After reading an article in the NYtimes about food waste, I've suddenly become very aware of the food scraps that I indulgently toss into the trash and compost. Even though we have a compost (a couple actually), those little lumbrices (worms) can only do so much.


What would a banana peel taste like if it was candied? How long would it take for an apricot tree to grow from these pits? (Answer found.) Can you make onion soup from the outer layers of the onion?


When we pay for fruits and vegetables, we generally pay by weight. Apples, for instance, cost about $1.25 a pound in North America-- depending on if its local, organic, conventionally-grown, in-season, out of season, from a farmers' market, from a convienence store etc. How much of this apple do you actually eat? Do you eat the core? Do you keep the seeds to donate to a community garden or to plant in your own backyard? Do you peel the apple because your kids (or you) don't like the texture of the apple's skin? After cutting the apple down to edible pieces, how much are you left with? Maybe 60-90%. That might not seem like an alarming amount, but think about how many apples you eat in a week, month, year or lifetime. That's a lot of waste, per person.


A contributor to our wastefulness of food, however, is the stigma we have about what food should look like. One of the champion commitments of the food movement is to change and challenge notions of what food actually is. Whereas Chilean waxed-to-perfection apples in the grocery store certainly resemble pictures in a children's book, there are other examples of edible fruit that may have bruises, scratches or bumps. The importance of aesthetics has become a high priority of our food consumption and waste.


There's certainly more to a plant than just broccoli florets or the bulb of the beet. 
To begin: an experiment in Food Scrap Merriment..


  

Mi comunidad

Hay unos pocos de photos de mi huerta comunitaria en San Cristobal. Las personas son miembros de la huerta de todos lados en la ciudad.

Plantas de porotos listos para plantar

Las semillas

Romano

Las plantas aromaticas

Las palas de tomates

Las tomates verdes

Repollo

Un arbol de limones

Mis amigos a la huerta

Mis otros amigos a la huerta; Me estan ayudando plantar los porotos

Navidad a la huerta

Un horno para pizzas

Al dentro del horno

Fiesta

Cuidado de las picas

Once I convert, will my taste-buds be converted too?

As I prepare for Shabbas, I'm confronted with a discussion Ari and I a couple of weeks ago: whether nuts would be an acceptable addition to kugel. Yup. The exciting life we lead.

Below are some photos of what we made that week. 

1 challah

2 challot

3 challot

Four!

Kugel sin nueces

Although we share in the same excitement when preparing for Shabbas, there's a fundamental difference in our views of its festive food. Ari believes that the Ashkenazi food he's grown up with deserves the traditional recipe, tested and true from the Old Country. Kugel and challah are best enjoyed with refined flour, lots of oil, eggs and salt. And they're pretty damn good, I must say. Jews from Eastern Europe have been using the same recipes for hundreds of years and an attempt to modernize these recipes can be seen as an assault against tradition. Besides, where do we draw the line? One Friday its nuts in the kugel, the next its fish tacos or sushi and then, who knows, un-Kosher wine or bacon cheeseburgers. It's a slippy slope when we start making compromises between tradition and modernity.

But, what Ari likes to call, the "hippy" in me can't help but chime in "You know, nuts would be really good in this kugel!" or "Let me try making the challah with whole-wheat instead of bleached flour" (examples in the four photos above). And I admit: whole-wheat challah isn't as bouncy and fluffy and traditional as white challah. Kugel tastes better with that much sugar and oil. My attempts to bring a bit of modern, sustainable eating to the Shabbas table is innocent, but its reprocussions could reach far beyond a meal, say the critics.

After looking at Hazon's website (www.hazon.org) and The Jew and the Carrot (http://blogs.forward.com/the-jew-and-the-carrot/), I see other young adults questioning the traditional recipes too. Our modern values of local and sustainable eating often stem from similar values that turn us towards a more religious life: questioning the monotonous daily grind most people in the 21st century find themselves in. Conscious eating helps bring us back to the basics of health and lifestyle choice, while a religious life brings us closer to The Basic: God. 


While I'm still a novice in terms of Jewish study, I found a wonderful example in a recent article of the overlap between ancient tradition and modern "green" thought (http://blogs.forward.com/the-jew-and-the-carrot/147068/). In the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides writes "In the summer time, cold food should be consumed; one should be sparing with condiments; vinegar should be used. During winter, warm foods should be eaten; condiments should be liberally used with a little mustard and asafetida.” (Mishne Torah, 4:8). Maimonides doesn't exactly settle the "to nut or not to nut kugel" debate, but he provides a beautiful example of how our seemingly modern whims actually take root in ancient food philosophy. I gather this isn't the only example and I intend on finding more like it!


For this Friday night, the challah is whole-wheat, the cookies are vegan, but the kugel remains nut-less. Shabbat Shalom!