On growing potatoes
Originally published in the Northern Agrarian. When I write about gardening I sometimes, without meaning to, give the impression that I wake every morning to survey a vast domain of neatly tilled beds...
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Gourmet survivalist
(Photo by Justin Watt) Last December we were hit with an ice storm unlike any storm I have ever seen. It began as snow early on a Wednesday afternoon as I draped the last of the Christmas lights over...
View ArticleNo such thing as a free lunch (literal edition)
It never ceases to amaze me that people are surprised by things like this: Kids in England don’t like the healthy lunches the schools are serving them. Why are they surprised that kids will happily...
View ArticleBeet greens
Originally published in The Northern Agrarian, May 2008. When I was young my parents tended a small garden: Peas, tomatoes, lettuce, parsley, zucchini, beets. All this in the small backyard of a small...
View ArticleStandards and Stewards
I wrote this essay in 2003 and for various reasons am only now (January 2009) publishing it. Much has changed in six years: The market for organic food has grown tremendously, and alongside it the idea...
View ArticleIgnorance is fear: or, “it’s gross” is not an argument
(Cross-posted from Walbert’s Compendium.) A former “food industry insider” named Bruce Bradley has started a blog to tell the world about all the terrible things the food industry does. In his most...
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Abundance and want: A thought for St. Stephen’s Day
The beef has been roasted, the cookies devoured, the wine and the eggnog drunk. Bits of ribbon still litter the floor. But there are leftovers, glorious leftovers, and it’s nearly lunchtime on the east...
View ArticleCan we just eat, Mom?
Is anybody else getting tired of the constant drama about what we should and shouldn’t eat? Maybe it is because I have been thinking about this stuff for fifteen years and I am just tired of it, but it...
View ArticleHospitality at a fractured table
Originally published at Front Porch Republic. “It sure is hard to have people over to dinner these days,” the food writer lamented, at a talk I attended the other week. She told a sorry tale of a...
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A brief history of USDA nutritional advice
The USDA has made a big deal the last couple of years about its “healthy plate” model of good eating, which replaces the old food pyramid, which replaced the four food groups, which replaced… well… I...
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The hen in winter
Researchers have found the oldest known collection of medieval food recipes: The recipes, which include both food and medical ointment concoctions, were compiled and written in Latin. Someone jotted...
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Fat(e), free will, and forgiveness
A hundred-odd years ago, gluttony was a sin, but fat men could be seen merely as successful. We seem to have reversed the calculus. Some of the new research on possible causes of obesity is...
View ArticleMeat and mystery
Another day, another tale of mystery meat. Nestle voluntarily recalled two of its Hot Pocket products as part of a larger meat recall…. These products may have been affected by a recall by Rancho...
View ArticleLife and death (and soup) in the city
Originally published by New American Homesteader in 2015. Under a bright December sky we gathered to kill the St. Elizabeth House chickens. My friends who built the coop and tended the chickens had...
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Further perils of authenticity
Completely by accident awhile back I ran across this ad from Life magazine: Heinz ran that ad in August 1958, at the height of the popular interest in Pennsylvania Dutch food, when that cuisine was...
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Gourmet survivalist
(Photo by Justin Watt) Last December we were hit with an ice storm unlike any storm I have ever seen. It began as snow early on a Wednesday afternoon as I draped the last of the Christmas lights over...
View ArticleNo such thing as a free lunch (literal edition)
It never ceases to amaze me that people are surprised by things like this: Kids in England don’t like the healthy lunches the schools are serving them. Why are they surprised that kids will happily...
View ArticleBeet greens
Originally published in The Northern Agrarian, May 2008. When I was young my parents tended a small garden: Peas, tomatoes, lettuce, parsley, zucchini, beets. All this in the small backyard of a small...
View ArticleOn growing potatoes
Originally published in the Northern Agrarian. When I write about gardening I sometimes, without meaning to, give the impression that I wake every morning to survey a vast domain of neatly tilled beds...
View ArticleStandards and Stewards
I wrote this essay in 2003 and for various reasons am only now (January 2009) publishing it. Much has changed in six years: The market for organic food has grown tremendously, and alongside it the idea...
View Article
