Slow Food 🐌 | Yogurt Workshop | Recipe: Kimchi fried rice
Issue No. 51
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I listened to a beautiful interview with the late John Lewis this week. He gave the excellent advice to live as if the world you are trying to build is already so. He speaks about his bold vision as a leader in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s:
I wanted to believe, and I did believe, that things would get better. But later I discovered, I guess, that you have to have this sense of faith that what you’re moving toward is already done. It’s already happened.
Talk about fractal-based thinking! Last week I wrote a bit about fractals and how small-scale efforts become the foundation for big change, and since then, I’ve been finding them everywhere, particularly in the people and movements I admire most. To be able to live out your values on an intimate scale while still contributing to large scale systems change and growth requires some serious presence of mind.
An organization that embodies this fractal-shaped view of food is Slow Food, which “envisions a world in which all people can eat food that is good for them, good for the people who grow it and good for the planet.” Slow Food is organized by thousands of semi-autonomous chapters around the globe (find your U.S. chapter here), which connect on the state and national level, all finding ways to enact locally the vision and policy goals of the international organization.
Slow Food was founded in 1989 out of a protest over the first McDonald’s built in Rome. Fast food represented not just a threat to Italy’s celebrated culinary culture, but to a rapidly disappearing way of life, which savored sensual pleasure and enjoyment as much as productivity and growth. Slow Food was formed to champion good, clean, and fair food, and work to make it a reality for all people. From the Slow Food Manifesto:
A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life.
May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency.
My instinct for cynicism means that when I read something like this, my eyes roll automatically. Yes life would be grand if we could all wile away our afternoons gorging on tomatoes and mozzarella in an idyllic garden on a hillside in Tuscany. But who has the time or the privilege?
Then I put on my fractal-tinted glasses, and my heart softens. It’s not ridiculous to work towards a world in which all people have the ability to partake in life’s pleasures. That actually feels like quite a noble vision. And of course to get there, we must work to eradicate the social ills that make that vision feel like a pipe dream.
Slow Food’s all-encompassing, “good, clean, and fair” mission and vision makes space for local farm tours, food waste discos, regional seed-saving initiatives, a national school garden program, the biggest annual raw milk cheese-stravagana on the planet, and advocacy for legislative policy around food waste and food insecurity. The seed is as important as the farm, which is as important as the law.
I’m excited to harness some of my newly unemployed energy to help grow the local Slow Food chapter here on the Treasure Coast. It is helmed by Jennifer Holmes, a friend, beekeeper, and one of the humans I most admire (also the lady in the video below). Perhaps more than anyone I know, Jennifer lives out her values on both the small and large scale with incredible grace and ease. I think that's what makes her such a productive and beloved figure in Florida’s food community. I’m committed to enacting some of those fractal structures for change in my own life, and hopefully transforming some systems along the way.
love,
Jackie
P.S. — Another devastating impact of COVID is that 14 million kids around the country don’t have enough to eat. Click here to contact your representatives about making school lunch free for all our children. Hat tip Caitlynne.
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Workshop: Yogurt
Holler a yogurt!
On Saturday, August 8 at 3 p.m., Jackie will be teaching a yogurt workshop via zoom for everyone that participated in our fundraiser for Grow Roots Miami.
If you would like to attend Jackie’s workshop on Saturday, please make a $25 donation to Grow Roots Miami, which fights food insecurity in South Florida. Email us a screenshot of the donation (see example below) and we’ll send you a link to the upcoming workshops on Zoom, including Jackie’s this Saturday! 🎉
Thanks to everyone who’s donated! Grow Roots is two-thirds of the way to the goal.
Jennifer Holmes presented the first workshop in our Grow Roots series — on making Yaupon Jun — at the end of July. Watch her demonstration below.
Fresh Links
🏺I Cured My Pandemic Anxiety by Making Tiny Food Out of Clay | New York Times
Designer and writer Rebecca Ackermann brings us this short, delightful photo essay of her quarantine obsession: making miniature meals in clay. After dalliances with a smattering of crafts and hobbies (including actual cooking, which she found quite stressful), she eventually fell hard for this quirky pastime.
[O]ne day I bought some polymer clay to pass the hours with my daughter. She wanted to make fruit, so we rolled baby apples and oranges in our palms. She demanded cookies, so we carefully placed minuscule chocolate chips onto tiny balls of dough. She enjoyed it; I was addicted. The soft clay in my hands slowed my anxious breathing. I fell into a trance mixing the perfect shade of icing. “Clay today?” I’d beg my child. After spaghetti, she lost interest, but I found my source of comfort.
This one is all about the photos. I found Ackermann’s miniature crab boils, key lime pies, and spaghetti and meatballs to be divine. Just looking at them makes me feel oddly peaceful, so I say she’s succeeded in her quest to sit down with clay and her tools and “try again to make one small piece of the world just right.”
🦪‘Last shot:’ Florida is trying to save the Apalachicola oyster fishery by shutting it down | Tampa Bay Times
Faced with a stark reality, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will close the treasured Apalachicola Bay to all wild oyster harvesting for the next five years. It’s a last ditch effort to save the area’s fragile ecosystem. TB Times’ Zachary Sampson puts it in perspective:
There was a time when nearly every oyster in Florida came from Apalachicola. Some say they are the best in the world. But boats disappeared from the bay as captains said it became nearly impossible to find legal oysters on reefs that had previously offered a steady bounty. In 2012, data from the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission show, Franklin County delivered more than 3 million pounds of oysters, worth about $9 million. Last year, those numbers sank to less than 19,000 pounds and $145,000.
A convergence of social and environmental factors has led to the dwindling oyster population: increased water salinity due to drought (aka climate change 😉), overfishing, fresh water supplies being diverted to Georgia agriculture, and controversy over dam management practices by the Army Corps of Engineers (a problem that will feel all-too-familiar for Treasure Coast residents).
And fewer oysters doesn’t just mean a shuttered fishing industry. The species contributes to the overall health of the ecosystem, filtering water and building reefs which serve as homes for a variety of other wildlife.
But this doesn’t necessarily have to be a sad ending. Scientists will use the closure of the fishery to complete a major restoration project, conduct research, and create a long-term strategy to manage the ecosystem. According to Felicia Coleman of Florida State University’s Apalachicola Bay System Initiative, “People are full of hope, but they understand this is like the last shot...If this doesn’t happen now it won’t exist.”
🌰Americans are Receiving Mysterious Packages of Seeds | NPR
Thousands of people in the U.S. have received a mysterious shipment of seeds. The package appears to have come from China — and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has a warning for anyone who receives the seeds: Do not plant them!
Why? Could they be an invasive species? Or a way of spreading disease? The answer is probably a lot more boring than that. It’s part of some sort of scam that raises vendors’ search rankings on Amazon. NPR spoke to Louisiana resident Darci Portie, who received the enigmatic seeds. Portie said the seeds look like dehydrated raisins, and it felt like a real life Jack and the Beanstalk situation. Could planting them lead to treasure? Instead she called the USDA, and a gloved agent had them placed in a bag. However, an Arkansas man planted the seeds and said they started “growing like crazy.”
Did you receive a delivery of mystery seeds from Amazon? 🌱Tell us about it or share pics with sunshineandmicrobes@gmail.com.
Kimchi Fried Rice
Kimchi fried rice, or Kimchi-bokkeumbap, is a popular korean dish, beloved in its home country and by hipsters the world over. For a classic Korean take, check out Maangchi’s recipe. Mine involves many of my favorite ferments including my beloved kosho and fermented sriracha-style hot sauce. I also add a great kitchen dynamo - fermented ginger-garlic paste (drop us a line if you’d like us to feature a recipe for fermented flavor pastes). And of course tons of kimchi. My favorite kimchi recipe is “Andrew’s Private Reserve Kimchi” from Fermented Vegetables by the Shockeys, or support a local Asian grocery and buy some there. And if you don’t have a fridge full of ferments, no worries. This is a very flexible recipe.
Serves one as a big main or two as a side
Ingredients
1 cup cooked rice, ideally dried out overnight in the fridge (see note below)
1 cup kimchi
neutral cooking oil
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon ginger-garlic paste (or one or two cloves garlic and 1/2 inch ginger, finely minced)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon hot sauce
1 teaspoon kosho (or the juice and zest from half a lime or lemon)
gomasio or sesame seeds
a few tablespoons chopped cilantro
optional finishers: chopped pineapple, thinly sliced kale or bok choi, any leftover cooked veggies, more hot sauce, more kosho, a fried egg
Note: One issue I’ve always had with homemade fried rice is that it feels way mushier than when the pros make it. My solution to this (inspired by the crispy rice salad recipe in Jessica Koslow’s SQIRL, which she probably yanked from an uncredited employee), is to boil the rice a few hours or even the day before. I fluff it up and let it dry out on an uncovered plate in the fridge before frying.
step-by-step
Add a generous pour of cooking oil and sesame oil to a pan over medium heat. Add ginger-garlic paste, giving a quick stir.
Once paste begins to sizzle, add soy sauce, mirin, and hot sauce.
Add rice, stirring constantly until liquid is absorbed and rice is hot, about 2 minutes.
Add kimchi and continue to stir.
Once kimchi is hot, add kosho and a healthy shake or three of gomasio. Stir and turn off heat. If you like some crispy bits, let the pan sit on the stove for a bit so the bottom of the rice starts to brown.
Stir in cilantro and any additional finishers of choice.
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Sunshine + Microbes team
Jackie Vitale is a cook and fermentation educator and co-founder of the Florida Ferment Fest. Her newsletter explores the intersection of food, culture, environment and community.
Matt Levin is a communications specialist at the ACLU of Texas. He edits Sunshine + Microbes and contributes other scraps to each issue.