Ric's Schtick on the Reality of Using Sustainable and Organic
foods in New World Home Cooking
As we enter the 21st century, we at New world Home Cooking are
making a strong commitment to keeping the majority of our inventory sustainable
and organic. Our grains, legumes, eggs, and milk are now all organic. Our
coffee and teas are all organic. We are offering some organic wine and beer
choices---even Rain vodka is organic (have that Martini!) We have always served
local free range chicken. We have developed new relationships with organic
livestock producers in the Hudson Valley so that we can have reliable sources
of excellent meat on our menu. We serve Coleman Natural beef on our dinner menu
and organically grazed Northwinds Farms hamburger on our cafe menu. As we
increase our organic inventory, we are going to offer choices in portion size
so that you can eat within your budget.
Watch the menu and help us make a real commitment to cleaner
and smarter food.
Here is a sampling of some of the local and national brands
that are used on our menu at New World.
·Murray's Chicken · Eco-Fish Sustainable
Seafood · Meadow Raised, Coleman, Niman Ranch, Elihu Farms &
Northwinds Farms Meats · Nettle Meadows, Old Chatham and Great Hill
Cheeses · Feather Ridge Free Range Eggs · Champlain Mills Organic
Flour · Floridas Crystals Evaporated Cane Juice · Spectrum Cold
Pressed Oils · BioNature Organic and Tinkyada Brown Rice Pastas ·
Muir Glen Tomatoes · Seasonal Local and Organic Produce · Aunt
Debbie's Mushrooms · Benziger, Lolonis, La Palma and Mas de Gorgonniers
Biodynamic and Organically Grown Wines, Pinkus Organic Beer, Rain Organic
Vodka, Stonyfield Farms Organic Yogurt, and the list goes on....
Why are we making this commitment?
Read on, baby...
The Great Horror Show...
What am I eating??
Ah, Marketing, Marketing...everybody wants to be on the right
side of the consumer's conscience these days. So, how does it feel to be a
consumer? Do you feel---Confused? Guilty? Perplexed? Bombarded? Folks, let me
tell you that as a chef the simple notion of buying clean food is frighteningly
complex! The complexity has increased tenfold over the last five years.
Sourcing real food---unprocessed, that is---is a full time effort.
Our son Terry attacks his organic turkey!
Photo: Liz Corrado
We chefs are approached by waves of salespeople---some
innocent though ignorant and some bordering on diabolical---with hundreds of
"Money Saving" or "Value Added" items. When the name of the game is survival,
many restaurant operators are blinded by the initial price of the food they
purchase. The industry press has us all in a state of fear, and for the
uninformed operator, the panacea is CHEAP FOOD!
The idea that cheaper is better has divided the industry. Fine
restaurants are offering a greater selection of locally grown, free range and
organic items because they have an informed and well heeled customer base that
appreciates their effort and will not cringe when buying a conscientiously
created menu item. On the other hand, those who are not informed, either
through naivete or willful ignorance, have ventured much further from fresh and
clean food than ever before. Dangerous chemicals and genetically modified
ingredients are in EVERYTHING! The shiny produce items we all see on the
shelves at the supermarket are coated after harvest with preservatives and
pesticides. I know this because, though this is not listed on the actual apple
that is displayed in such a fine still life pose under nutrient sapping
florescent lights in the store, it is stated in small print on the packing case
it was shipped in. Unless you are an investigator, you are sold and are
reselling poison.
I wish that every person who is not in the food service
industry could attend just one corporate "Food" show. There are many types of
product expos---fine foods, fancy foods, health foods, etc. But the Industry
"Food Shows" run by Sysco, Kraft, US Foodservice etc are at once fascinating
and ghastly. Imagine a conference center filled with rows of tables sporting
plastic tablecloths and disposable serviceware laid out for you to taste the
latest in portion control wedding fare? How about the "Grab and Go"
line--pastries that stay "Soft for a week!" Folks, of the thousands of items on
display, my guess is that fewer than 10% of them are products that you would
pick up if you saw them in a supermarket. The saddest picture, though, is the
army of fervid sales reps vying for your attention to sell you their latest
concoction. As you walk by any given table you're bound to see a tired looking
guy in a polyester suit holding out a plastic fork with a sample of something
scary like a new heat and serve Cajun Sausage popover while he looks past you
into the freckled cleavage of the Uneeda Bicuit lady across the aisle!
My feeling is that the dumbing down of America has made it
into the food chain. Food service buyers are being sold on the concept that the
consumer is clueless. Operators who have been groomed (and intimidated) into
thinking only of immediate cash savings serve these unseemly victuals to
contain costs so they can stay in business.To assuage their fear of demise,
they have resorted to the lowest of the low. And believe me it is low.
Ah, but there is a catch---and it is a catch that doesn't
affect the corporate factory food producers who are designing this arsenal of
unhealthy slop. The catch is that when a restaurant or diner degrades the
product that they sell, they also degrade the quality of patron that their
establishment draws in. And the lower they go, the lower the expectations
become---including an expectation of unrealistically low prices. And
then--poof---the little guy who bought the cheap processed food to save a few
bucks is out of business because he could not survive selling at the low prices
his customers have come to expect. So now the corporate food producer's sister
company---the cheap food chain shop--moves in and thrives. Because of their
deep pockets, they have the ability to market and purchase on a grossly larger
level. They also have the financing to sustain lower profits for a longer
period of time. Bye, bye Mama Mia's. Hello Olive Garden!
So there you have it---the food you might eat is all in the
hands of a few publicly held corporate giants who must show quarterly growth or
their portfolios will shrink and their CEOs will lose their heads. WOW--and I
thought I was just going out for lunch! Look at this simple chain of events
--the chemical makers sell products to the food producers who use them to
create cheap but diminished ingredients. These products are sold to the food
wholesalers who turn it over to the food retailers. You buy and eat this food
which is not wholesome or nutritious and ultimately over the years you develop
diabetes or worse from all of the processed food in your diet. Your doctor
prescribes you a few medications that you have to take for the rest of your
life----Have you looked at your stock portfolio lately?
Chemicals, Processed Food, Fast Food Chains, Drug
Companies--- all working in harmony.
Well---it doesn't have to be so bleak. My hope is to get
everyday people to think about this. Let's talk to the kids and the moms and
pops of the world. Many of us chefs are preaching to the converted at these
wonderful conferences and retreats. That is good for networking and
brainstorming but we need to address this on a more populist level. This is MY
MISSION. I believe that we as humans want clean food and we want to be healthy.
And I believe that if I can convince people that cooking in itself is not a
chore or a skill left to the star chefs, even those with little means could
begin to enjoy a healthier lifestyle.
The following are my basic rules for survival
1. As often as you can, buy sustainable, free range or
organic. Make one of the most important statements in your life--- and keep
yourself and your family healthy by buying organic food. The more we use our
consumer dollars to buy clean food, the louder the message is to big business:
WE WANT CLEAN FOOD.
Remember that businesses respond to our demands. In the
1950's and 60's when we decided that we wanted year round access and simplicity
in the kitchen, the huge commercial food producers responded by forcing
production, limiting the variety available in the market place and lowering the
standard of flavor in our food.
2. Our food supply has become so driven by chemicals that it
isn't even as nutritious as it once was. Greens raised in depleted soil don't
bring anything to the table. It is the minerals from well composted soils that
make greens a desirable form of food. Though there is conflicting information
in the lobbyist-polluted American information system,
The Organic Retailers and Growers Association of Australia
have recently completed an extensive study comparing organically raised
vegetables from well composted soils to commercially grown "supermarket"
tomatoes. Their study concluded that the organic tomatoes were "20% higher in
vitamin C, higher in beta carotene, ten times higher in potassium, seven times
higher in calcium and six times higher in zinc. Higher levels of vitamins and
minerals were also found in beans, silver beet and capsicum." It is reasonable
to believe that naturally composted soil and rotated crops will provide better
nutrients than dirt pumped with Round-Up and steroids.
As they say in Woodstock, You don't have to be an Einstein to
figure that one out! Organic farming brings healthy food back to the table. In
order to grow organic, composting and crop rotation are essential. When the
soil is made healthy, the plants are actually stronger themselves and are more
resistant to pests and diseases. On the other hand, the more artificial the
growing procedure, the more the producers rely on pesticides and chemical
growth stimulants to keep bringing food to market.
Remember that the word pesticide includes sprays for weeds,
insects and other vermin. Many of these are WWII-era neurotoxins and are
notoriously destructive and carcinogenic, regardless of what the bought FDA has
to say.
Availability of Organics
Organic vegetables are now available most of the year. In the
winter lettuces come from Southern California, Arizona and now Mexico. Root
vegetables and some stalk vegetables are also in the market year round.
However, committing to organic produce also means committing to common sense.
We have caused the corporate agri-culture to produce less than desirable food
due to our unreasonable expectation of finding everything under the sun all
year round. As I said before, businesses will do what they can to respond to
our demands. If we want red tomatoes in February, someone will figure out a way
to make them happen, even if it means genetically engineering them to grow in
ice cubes!
Remember that food is alive and responsive to its environment.
Anyone who has ever had a vegetable garden knows that real produce has
variations in size and color. When all of the tomatoes on a shelf look exactly
the same, don't you get a little suspicious? Are these the Stepford
tomatoes?--and is that what you really want rushing through your bloodstream en
route to your heart and brain?
To help keep our produce marketplace clean and sane, try to
think seasonally when buying stuff for salads. Baby greens, root vegetables,
apples, allium and cabbages all are reasonable products that either grow
quickly or cellar well. Insisting on white asparagus, yellow tomatoes or fresh
peas in winter will just bring us more of the same chemically assisted suicide
we have commissioned all along. Shop for produce in your local co-op or health
food store. They are committed to carrying organics all year. When you see
organics in the larger supermarkets, support the idea and watch the effect it
has on the stock and the price in the long haul.
What about the price of organics?
Organic produce is more expensive than commercial produce. In
most cases it is about double the price. But does that mean that it is
expensive? I suppose that it is a relative question. We do have the cheapest
food in the world. That is one of the great yet strange American truths. Our
insistence on cheap food has created this monster of genetically engineered,
chemically fed foodstuff. Let's try doing some math. A regular head of romaine
is .89 in Walmart, an organic head is $1.59 in the health food store and a
MacDonalds hamburger is .89 .Two people can have a beautiful organic romaine
salad for the same price as they can each have a Macdonald's hamburger.
Notice the value? These absurd comparisons are fun. Is an
organic loaf of bread half the price of a pack of cigarettes? Is an organic
apple cheaper than Blue Gatorade? Are you having fun yet? I have costed out
dinner for four made with an organic roast chicken, organic brown rice, organic
carrots and an organic salad to be about $4.75 per person. That is the same as
a Banquet frozen turkey dinner. Duh! The price of organic food is really a
matter of perspective. If you are cooking at home with fresh stuff for your
family, using organics is about the same as buying frozen prepared dinners or
eating out in a chemical rich "Budget" restaurant.
