UVM Food Feed

Two Indignant Chefs: Austin, Texas, and Today’s Menus

Posted by Guest Author | March 31, 2016

Chefs Justine and Esteban spend their days asking what’s happening to good food. They rail against the loss of seasonality, foodies who treat food as too precious, and taste buds that don’t remember simple, elegant flavors.

We recently returned from the food-oriented-obsessive-disorder-insanely-embraced (FOODIE) City of Austin, Texas. The bustling city is growing by 4,000 people per month, and most of them are between ages 25 and 35. Austin is loaded with well-paid professionals, who roam the food scene all day and long into the night. It seemed to us that the number of places to eat verged on about a million.

It was amazing how many food trucks there were—from sushi and Korean tacos to cupcakes—and restaurants: craft beer houses of every brew type, barbeque road houses, and high-end nouvelle. There was something for everyone, ten times over.

Photo by Jeremy Keith/Flickr

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Posted in Environmental, Recipe | Tagged Environment, regional food system | Leave a comment

Flavor, Fermentation & Creativity at Wild Rhythms Farm

Posted by Erica Houskeeper | March 30, 2016

UVM Farmer Training graduates Caitlin and Jason Elberson are featured in a recent issue of Seven Days. The couple, who met in a Spanish literature class at Villanova University in 2007, share a love for farming and sustainable living.

At their Marshfield property, Wild Rhythms Farm, the couple makes kimchi, ‘kraut and kvass (fermented beet juice) under the name Sobremesa.

Suzanne Podhaizer of Seven Days writes, “It’s an untranslatable Spanish term best rendered as “time spent lingering around the table after a delicious meal, having food-induced conversations with your companions.” Such a meal can’t be rushed, and neither can fermentation. Like the products they create, which change slowly over time, the Elbersons’ approach to agriculture entails finding rhythms — be they the “wild rhythms” of the land or those of the food community”

The couple graduated from the UVM Farmer Training Program in 2013 (and they were profiled on the UVM Food Feed two years ago).

Posted in UVM | Tagged farmer training program, UVM, Vermont | Leave a comment

What Makes Vermont Food (Education) Delicious?

Posted by Guest Author | March 24, 2016

By Vicky Parra Tebbetts

Under mostly stormy skies last June, a cohort of a dozen students threaded their way through Vermont, traveling 404 miles to learn from leaders at five colleges, one university, and a law school, and mulling through 54 afternoon hours at 21 of Vermont’s most commendable food systems field destinations. Scattered across the country, these students came to take part in the Vermont Food Systems Summer Study Tour, an experiential learning immersion hosted by the Vermont Higher Education Food Systems Consortium. Food and farm education is the focus of this group of seven learning institutions, of which UVM is a part.

Amid this tempest of learning and lore, the students settled themselves for two days in Burlington for the UVM Food Systems Summit. There they joined the group to engage with speakers of international significance on the right to food. They wrote, connected, and posed provocative questions. Fast forward to June 2016.

What Makes Food Good?

This year, the UVM Food Systems Summit is scheduled for June 14 and 15, and a fresh crop of Food Systems Summer Study Tour students will join the Summit just prior to the Tour’s kickoff on June 16. The Summit’s theme, “What Makes Food Good,” examines the social, environmental, and political values that greatly influence individuals’ and communities’ sense of the “good.” For example, in the context of food systems, we may favor certain agricultural production practices, culinary traditions, or labor policies.

Claire Kremen at the 2015 UVM Food Systems Summit.

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Posted in Environmental, UVM, Vermont | Tagged education, UVM, uvm food summit | Leave a comment

As Vermont GMO Law Approaches, General Mills Opts to Label Products Nationwide

Posted by Erica Houskeeper | March 23, 2016

General Mills announced Friday it will begin labeling products nationwide that contain genetically modified ingredients.

The company said that since it will be forced by July 1 to begin labeling for GMOs in Vermont—the result of a state law here—it will extend GMO labeling nationwide. Vermont is the first state to require such labeling.

Photo: Rosalee Yagihara/Flickr

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Posted in Environmental, Health, Vermont | Tagged Environment, food culture, GMO, public health | Leave a comment

Food Waste Gets Second Life as Renewable Energy on Vermont Dairy Farm

Posted by Guest Author | March 22, 2016

By Laura Hardie

Recycling is at the heart of dairy farming. Water is recycled to use on crops or to clean the milking parlor. Manure is recycled as fertilizer for the fields or converted into electricity on farms with cow-power technology. Now, a Vermont farm has found a way to help their community recycle inedible food waste.

Blue Spruce Farm in Bridport, Vermont, has a farm waste digester, which converts manure, food waste, and farm by-products into natural fertilizer and energy to power 400 to 500 homes. They will soon be piloting a new project with Casella Organics to help communities understand the importance of properly separating food waste so that it can be collected and turned into a mixture that can be fed into the farm digester.