Thursday, September 29, 2011

An apple a day....

Part of the reason I took on doing the garden project was to show Walter food doesn't just 'appear' on the shelves and stands at the market but it needs to be grown, cultivated and harvested. That there are seasons for growing and then for enjoying. His love affair with the snap peas come to mind--he still goes out to the back yard and asks for them. Couple that with my love affair of going to my neighborhood's farmer's market is to build a relationship with the actual people who grow the food we consume.  I have become pretty food savvy--or so I thought.....

There is the little nugget  of information I learned yesterday that singlehandedly re-ignited my zeal for buying food from the source. Here's why; my friend was asking about Braeburn apples and why she hadn't seen them in the stores. The man replied "because they haven't been harvested this year yet". But apple season has just started and those Braeburns had just been in the market in July, somewhere they must have been harvested. And then it came out, the truth, most apples are frozen at harvest and thawed out when they are ready to be sold. Apple season only really lasts from August-October, ergo apples should only be available then. And then I think of all the apples I have eaten between October and July.

Now I realize that harvesting and freezing is not the same as injecting meet full of hormones or genetically modifying a food. But I do feel a bit bamboozled by this information. It also makes me leery of buying apples from a grocery store from now on. Or perhaps maybe I should buy a year's worth of  apples from my apple friend at the farmer's market and then freeze them myself. I just can't get over the fact that I've paid money for a very old apple thinking it was fresh.

What are your thoughts?

3 comments:

  1. Braeburn are delicious.

    My Dad grows Boskop. He harvests in fall but then he stores them in the garage where it's reasonable cool.

    They definitely don't last till July but we've been eating them till spring for sure. Without freezing. :)

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  2. I became disenchanted when I realized that the majority of the people selling at my farmers market are not the actual farmer/grower/harvester, they are just someone (wo)manning a booth. Many of the booths sound like local farms and aren't, they're just companies. Maybe it's time to revisit CSA.

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  3. ooooooo. That is so sad! One of the criteria to sell at our farmer's market is that they have to be a small, independent farm. I am weighing the pros and cons about CSA, I just think we may waste a lot of food, and I would have to change my cooking habits from what to I "feel" like to what we have...

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