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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: March 7th, 2024

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  • Oh! I had a local mushroom CSA once - it was so good, but I just couldn’t keep up with the mushrooms! I’ve opted into their holiday shares instead :)

    We also had a place called Lost Bread Company. They bought a small mill and then were like, “Well, what do we do with this?!” They eventually built up a network of people who were growing various “older” grains on hobby farms or odd bits of land - grains that just aren’t in everyday use these days like spelt, emmer, etc - and they ground their grain for them. But then they were like, “Wait, what do we do with the grain?!” So they started a bakery - and a CSA.

    Every month, you got a box focused on the grain of the month. There was a little booklet going over the history of the grain, it’s various traits and uses, and then several tested recipes for what you could do with the grain in it’s various forms. The box would also contain the grain in it’s flour form, the grain in it’s whole-grain or partially hulled form if appropriate (so you might get rolled oats or wheatberries or something), a range of baked goods made from the grain, and usually something else associated with the grain - you might get buckwheat honey, for example, or a small decorative sheaf in October or November. It was a really cool concept, and I really enjoyed it. They eventually backed off the CSA - it was too much work for them - and focused on their hobby mill and bakery. They make these absolutely killer pretzel shortbreads …


  • They can be expensive, yeah. I’m currently paying $400 for a ten-week share, which used to make me wince when I wrote out the check - $40 a week for veggies? What was I thinking?! And then I put it into context. The food in those boxes filled 80% of my veggie needs for the entire year, plus most of the herbs I use. 80% of a 52-week year is a bit over 41 weeks - and ten dollars a week for a bunch of incredibly fresh produce is a bargain.

    One thing I’d suggest, for people who might be interested in CSAs but can’t afford them is to check with all your local CSA farms, as some farms have other options available. Some farms offer work-shares: you agree to work for the farm (it’s usually about 4 hours a week), and you get a free share. Another farm I belonged to offered a distribution-share: a small truck would drop off shares for local people at your place - in front of your garage, or on your porch, or some other agreeable location - and over the next few hours people would come by to pick up their shares. In exchange for hosting the boxes, you got a free share for your family. There are miscellaneous variations on this, and they’re generally offered only by a minority of farms, but they are out there.



  • You have cool parents null

    I’ve belonged to a few different ones (moved a couple times, one wasn’t a great fit, and one farmer retired during the pandemic), and there’s always something new. Not just heirloom tomatoes and different types of hot peppers, but odd varieties of herbs (lemon basil is fantastic!), odd fruits like paw paws, ground cherries and incredibly fresh Asian pears, weird upscale vegetables that you usually only get at higher priced restaurants and groceries, etc.

    Between my boxed farm share and the pick your own extras that come with it, it’s probably about 80% of my veggies for the entire year.



  • Nicole asked around among her friends. “Where do you get real food?”

    They stared at her, not comprehending her question.

    “Whole Foods?”

    Nicole drifted through the aisles of expensive, organic food. Even pricey lettuce after a few days in the fridge wilted and turned slimy. She felt trapped, confined to the industrial food distribution network that girdled the globe.

    I could try to grow a head of lettuce, she thought. It can’t be that hard. She was not indentured to the corporate grocer. She was free. Free to grow a head of lettuce. Maybe more.

    For anyone who isn’t in a position to grow their own food and also has this question, look into Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). At the start of the year, you buy a share in a local farm, and you get a box of veggies every week of the growing season. [There are variations: you can get a large box or a small box, you can choose to get a box just on alternate weeks, etc.] By having their money up front, the farmer is no longer at the mercy of start-of-season bank loans and the risk of a bad harvest: the farm is guaranteed to survive to the following year. In exchange, you get a box of peak produce: no lettuce that’s been making it’s way through distributors for three weeks, or apples that have been warehoused for nine months. No food that’s traveled halfway across the world - everything is small scale, seasonal, and incredibly fresh.




  • My point is that the big manufacturing boom in the US in the 1950s was a direct result of the devastation from WWII, and the US being the one less affected country that wasn’t facing inner turmoil (China, India) and that had a lot of resources and a lot of population. And that the decline of American manufacturing has less to do with the US transitioning to a service oriented economy, and more to do with the rest of the world rebuilding their economies and industrial bases after the war. When you’re the only large-scale industrial manufacturer in the world, of course you do well. When you have to compete with a bunch of other countries, you actually need to compete.




  • The decline in manufacturing, however, is less a story about policy blunders than one about the long progress of the US economy, which has to a large extent graduated out of producing stuff like phones and cars and into the delivery of services, like finance and healthcare – a process similar to that followed by other countries that moved up the ladder of success.

    Oh, ffs! You’d think that a British journalist focused on economics and politics would get this right, but apparently not.

    The Republicans look back at America’s manufacturing boom of the 1950’s with nostalgia, and they completely ignore the reasons for the boom - namely, the devastation from WWII. South America, Africa and the Southern Pacific countries didn’t have big manufacturing economies. A significant number of other countries (Russia, Japan, most of Europe, etc) were physically devastated by the war and needed to rebuild from scratch.

    With China focused inward and India focused on independence (and both countries recovering from the war), there simply wasn’t another large, heavily populated country to compete - New Zealand, Australia, Canada, etc, simply didn’t have the population to build and staff factories to the extent that the States could. That’s where the US post-war manufacturing boom came from: the war itself.

    And the boom died out because other countries recovered from the war and built their own manufacturing bases. That boom was never going to last, and it’s unlikely to ever be repeated, and I just wish that people would realize that and move on from that dream.