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food & poetry, but mostly the poetry of food

Food • Writing • Poetry

Yesterday CR-FAIR hosted a brilliant speaker, native plant specialist and herbalist Elise Krohn, who runs the Diabetes Prevention Through Traditional Plants program at Northwest Indian College in Bellingham, Washington, as well as the Native Plant Nutrition program at the Northwest Indian Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center.

She was speaking at the Victoria Native Friendship Centre, and began by introducing her programs and talking about the various people who’d guided her along the path to a pretty impressive level of knowledge about native foods, herbs and medicines, and how these have been used by various tribes in the Pacific Northwest, and elsewhere. (One of her teachers, Skokomish spiritual leader Bruce Miller, was featured in the film Teachings of the Tree People.)

Her talk included discussion of the foods used in traditional diets and ceremonial meals. For example: horsetail, thimbleberry and salmonberry shoots can be peeled and eaten. Spruce tips are high in Vitamin C and can be eaten straight off the tree or made into tea. Bull kelp can be pickled, or dried and eaten as chips, for its thyroid-controlling properties and its ability to remove toxins from the digestive system.

Skunk cabbage leaves are “Indian wax paper” used to wrap food for storage or cooking: salmon baked in green skunk cabbage leaf stays moist and has a sweet flavour. Leaves should not be eaten without knowledgeable preparation, because they contain calcium oxalate crystals which are an extreme irritant to say the least (this is what kidney stones are made of).

Huckleberries contain flavonoids (to protect and strengthen arterials) and antioxidants; berries and leaves both contain compounds that will lower blood sugar – eat the berries and dry the leaves for tea. Evergreen huckleberries are sweetest after the frost.

Salmonberries have been so important in native diets that families used to cultivate their own patches. Its name might originate in its appearance, since it resembles salmon eggs (and can be used as trout bait for that reason). Salmonberry abundance in its preferred habitat – near fast-running streams – is said to be an indicator of a good salmon year.

Then we got to camas, which is one of the best known native foods in this area; in fact, Victoria is built upon one of the best camas prairies in the area, cultivated for centuries through a system of burns and careful harvest. (We also heard that the Empress Hotel, built on a portion of James Bay that was dredged, drained, and filled, sits on one of the richest clam beds on the Island) Camas bulbs are harvested with a traditional digging stick which allows the root to be lifted and the bulblets that surround it to be replanted, leaving the ground relatively undisturbed. This aerates the soil and gives the remaining bulbs room to grow, so will result in larger crop yields.

The burning that was traditional for maintaining the camas prairies took place in the fall (seed having been collected in the spring); it improves the habitat by reducing competition to the camas bulb by other vegetation. Camas prairies are important habitat for other native vegetation, including chocolate lily and serviceberry (saskatoon). The bulbs are harvested nowadays in the spring, while the flowers are blooming, although they grow sweeter and fatter in the fall; but the flowers are needed for identification, so as to avoid a toxic imitator, the death camas, which has a very similar leaf. I’d tasted some camas bulb at a pit cook several years ago, but found it inedibly bitter; I learned that this was due to undercooking. It needs about 24 hours to cook fully (and should be black, inside and out) before the inulin it contains activates and becomes sweet and delicious. Nowadays it’s often precooked in pressure cookers before being added to pit cooks with other foods.

Elise then turned to discussing the various projects that culminated in a resource and recipe book I’m grateful to have been able to purchase from her, as the book (together with a companion volume I’d also like to get one day, Wild Rose and Western Red Cedar: The Gifts of the Northwest Plants) is normally only available within tribal communities, to protect the cultural property rights of the tribal contributors. Feeding the People, Feeding the Spirit: Revitalizing Northwest Coastal Indian Food Culture was developed using research from the Traditional Foods of Puget Sound project, which included archaeological digs to identify traditional foods from the remains of old cooking pits and middens. There was also a round table discussion with native peoples in the area, about barriers to eating and accessing traditional foods. And then they held a Tribal Cooks Camp, where experienced tribal cooks worked together to develop a series of healthy recipes suited to modern kitchens and contemporary access to traditional foods.

After a break, we prepared to learn how to make lip balm (a clever instructor is this one, who draws young people in by teaching them how to make their own cosmetics!) Here Elise talks about the cottonwood bud, which she’d infused in olive oil and would be using in the lip balm demo. It’s a pungent aromatic, and the oil, or salve made from it, is also known as Balm of Gilead; like most essential oils it’s anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial, and it’s also an analgesic, so a good thing to put into lip balm. Or salve.

She brought with her quite a selection of infused oils, including cedar, wild rose, cayenne (used in Tiger Balm among others), calendula, devil’s club, St John’s Wort, arnica and chamomile. She’d made these with the help of her students; some of the herbs had been heated gently with extra virgin olive oil in a water bath; the more fragile ones (like rose and calendula) had been solar-infused: placed in sunlight. The oils can then be used as massage oils (e.g. devil’s club is used for arthritis relief) or turned into lotion, salve or lip balm.

Mix grated beeswax

with infused oils, essential oils (for our mixture she used black spruce, western cedar and lavender),

and extra virgin olive oil (organic from the US or choose brands from Spain, Italy or Greece where there is less pesticide use). You can also, as she did in this instance, use jojoba, a plant-based oil from the American southwest, which is said to be the closest substance to bear grease (which is said to be the closest to human fats and therefore perfect for lotions and salves to rub into your own skin). Stir gently over heat until it melts.

Test on a spoon – cool to room temperature – to make sure it’s the right consistency.

Then decant into a pouring jug

and pour into tubes. If you’re making lots, this handy holder means you don’t have to spill it all over the counter: you can just scrape the excess off with a credit card.

Slap a label on the tube, and you’re done. Great gift for potlatch or canoe trips, she observed.

I was thinking it would be nice to take some Eastern cheeses back west with me, and when I asked about cheese shops, Sandra suggested Nancy’s Cheese on Dupont at Spadina. I duly sweltered along there in the late morning heat of departure day, and was able to take a good long look at the current offerings while Nancy set up an order for someone’s cheese tasting party.

I was pleased to see the cheese selection was relatively modest

– decision-making is hard enough – and Nancy

was generous with the samples and her knowledge.

It was mostly Ontario and Quebec cheese – just what I was after – plus a few well-chosen foreigners (Parmigiano-Reggiano, Gruyère, Brie de Meaux (raw milk brie), Aged Beemster).

Here’s some Bleu Bénédictin

which I didn’t buy, but I came away with a good and interesting selection:

Bleu D’Elizabeth (Quebec); Avonlea Cloth Bound Cheddar (PEI); Le 1608 (Quebec); Île-aux-Grues 2 Year Old Cheddar (Quebec); Cape Vessey (Ontario – washed-rind aged goat cheese which I encountered at its orgins in Picton County last year); Paradiso (Ontario – sheep’s milk cheese).

I like the informative labels and look forward to sharing…

Managed to fit a flying visit to the Wychwood BarnsFarmers Market in before the Writers Union meeting plenary on Saturday. It opens at 8 for the summer season. Another misty morning

but enough vendors and a steady stream of custom that showed it to be a healthy neighbourhood market. Lots of variety: local honey, wool, assorted wild foods from around the country – including maple syrup, dried wild mushrooms (from BC), saskatoons (from Saskatchewan), wild rice, ocal fresh ramps (wild leeks)

and exotic pickles (like spruce tips and cattail hearts). And produce of course, including some spectacular Ontario apples,

sweet potatoes (I think he said the variety was Bordeaux, not the Georgia Jet I’m growing in 5 gallon pails this year),

asparagus,

and some fine vegetables

including a couple of beautiful winter roots, both of which I’ll be planting again this year myself:

It’s a well organized market, which operates year round thanks to the shelter of the barns. There’s a sensible scheme for the bakers, which keeps them well under cover while the other vendors are under tents:

Then I sprinted off to catch a streetcar and a subway and settle in to a good day’s politicking with the writers. Copyright was the most active topic. Passion on both sides of the discussion, which had to do with the manner in which copyright fees are distributed to creative artists. It could have been a long-winded and ugly discussion, but chair Alan Cumyn managed to guide the concise and respectful speakers through to the vote with a firm and friendly hand. It was a great meeting, after which the writers passed a couple of free hours gearing up for the banquet and short readings and presentation of the Danuta Gleed award (to Billie Livingston for Greedy Little Eyes). And then it was time for 3 Chord Johnny

to bring it on home: great stuff, not least because the musicians are all writers. We danced our feets off and then were regaled for an hour or so by a rogue fire alarm which attracted a swarm of fire engines and slowed the ascent to the after party.

Today’s meeting, in which the gavel was handed over to incoming chair Greg Hollingshead,

was a peaceable wrap-up with elections and farewells.. until next year in Vancouver.

Like anyone with that ominous birthday on the horizon, I’d say the Writers Union of Canada approaches its fortieth (2012) with a year-before do in Toronto that combines about the right mix of congeniality, information overload, anxiety and a drop or a bite too much to drink or eat.

Today was the day of workshops, also known of the day of impossible choices. The sessions were recorded, so it should be possible to catch up later with what I missed. We had the relative novelty of a book table this year

for the first time in several years. It seems to be going well.

The Public Lending Right session offered some ominous rumblings about the fate of this 25 year old institution that’s put a few bucks in the pockets of Canadian writers whose books are in the holdings of Canadian libraries. It’s at risk now because of digital publishing – which could drain the system dry if it tries to compensate authors of with new or repurposed electronic titles (not currently included) at a time when PLR funds have already ebbed away to half the per capita amounts enjoyed 25 years ago, due to lack of new moneys to meet the influx of new print titles to the funding pool. Though its cheques are shrinking, they’re incredibly valuable to writers living on marginal incomes; but its future, like other federal spending initiatives, could well be at risk with promised funding cuts coming from a government whose commitment to culture is, shall we say, unclear. And the whole digital rights question is, in the words of panelist Michael Elcock, the “kind of thing that turns your brain to porridge”.

We replenished ours with a break and then returned to porridge country in the New Gatekeepers session, which was more about epublishing and emarketing. Much of the discussion batted around the relevance of publishers (which pay about 10% in conventional royalties, or if you’re lucky some 25% in erights) versus self-publishing or self-representation through the likes of Kobo or Smashwords (where you’d get as much as 70% – but potentially then have to shell out for the kinds of services publishers usually handle: editorial and marketing and administrative). Mention was made of interesting innovations like Cellstories, which publishes short fiction, or Kickstarter, which allows artists to pitch ideas and raise money to carry their projects out; and publisher ECW was there talking about its digital arm, Joyland, which takes only erights, leaving writers free to seek out print publishers separately (or not at all) and is looking into subscription publishing which would allow it to publish up to three such titles a year.

Thus boggled, we briefly emerged to lunch on bi-bim-bap and returned to hear about The New Realities of Book Publishing, which were – you guessed it – largely about epublishing and emarketing. One independent bookseller held out against the flow of chat about blogging and tweeting and social networking to argue that there was still a place for a good bookstore owned and staffed by people who read and love books and can serve customers who do likewise. In support of this, one of the few under-forties writers at the meeting -a teacher – described bibliomania days where her grade 5 and 6 students wore pyjamas to school and lay around reading books all day – a wildly popular program!

Some seriously calorific treats helped us leap the mid-afternoon slump and make it through The Writer as Promoter (Or, Who Has Time to Write) (or, as a panelist quipped, Shouldn’t My Publisher Be Doing This). Wherein there was more chat about blogging and tweeting and social networks. Cassandra Sadek, the director of online marketing for Random House, said that publishers should be guiding authors in building their online presence, and using that to allow readers to be their “brand ambassadors”. Author Cathy Marie Buchanan features a little tutorial about skyping on her website so that she can use it to speak virtually to book club meetings, and also gives live chats on GoodReads (a good place for fiction writers, apparently). Resident curmudgeon Russell Smith was left to object to the idea of thinking like a marketer which he said would mean commoditizing one’s own writing and aiming it to please a target audience rather than writing for writing’s sake: “I also don’t like the idea of “brand”” he said: “I don’t want ‘brand ambassadors for a product’ I want ‘readers for my novel’.”

Then after a swift round of regional meetings it was time to forage for supper. The Pilot pub

may have literary cred, but it was full and noisy on a Friday night so we opted for the quieter confines of the Coffee Mill, which Myrna says is a long-lived Hungarian restaurant, which offered a fair spinach pie

that fueled me for the Margaret Laurence Lecture, introduced by outgoing union chair Alan Cumyn

in which Graeme Gibson

spoke on A Writer’s Life. It was an entertaining tour through his travels in Europe and his beginnings as a novelist, which were as bumbling as any, but distinguished by dedication that still sees him writing some 40 years after his first novel was published. He was also one of the founders of the union, so a description of its humble beginnings rounded out his talk.

And more there will be tomorrow.

All is well at Haliburton Farm, although cold, wet weather makes for slow growing. Unless you are a lettuce in Farmer Ray’s greenhouse of course:

One hates to think what size they’d be if he ever started using artificial fertilizer…

Gord Hutchings‘ bee barn is humming with blue orchard mason bees, who are laying eggs while the sun shines. Which is about one day in ten at the moment.

Lovely greens.. that are not green.

New plantings this year include kiwi, just starting to leaf. It should start fruiting next year, if it likes the climate on the farm.

Seedlings loaded in the growing cupboard:

In the greenhouse, a lot of plant starts, some of them for sale on the farm stand and at the various markets and plant sales.

Greens and salads

are popular sellers at the moment. All harvested

and washed and packed by hand, of course.

Cold frames

and row covers

and greenhouses large and small are getting a good workout until it warms up: