Preparing for hard times
- November 20, 2008 11:22 AM |
- By Kevin Yarr
by Kevin Yarr, CBCNews.ca
For food lovers in Canada there are difficult times coming.
No, it has nothing to do with the economy. It's just winter, and for Canadians who love fresh, local food, these months can be hard to face.
Every week for the last few months I have walked into the Charlottetown Farmers Market to be greeted by some fabulous new treat: swiss chard, strawberries, new potatoes, baby zucchini, tomatoes, blueberries, corn, black currants, peppers, apples. While it is possible to get most of these things year-round, nothing can match the taste of getting it in season within a couple of days of it being picked.
The last couple of weeks the experience at the market has been changing. The selection is only growing thinner, increasingly composed of meat and root vegetables.
There are some new things coming into season, but not from around here. Oranges are getting fit to eat again, though I don't get the same pious pleasure from buying them.
Some foods that are equally good all-year round I tend to save up for winter: Iranian dates, smoked salmon, chocolate.
OK, so I eat chocolate all year long.
What foods do you enjoy in the winter?
About the Authors
- Elizabeth Bridge is a producer with CBC's Digital Archives project. She got her start in the kitchen baking brownies and making fudge but is still trying to get pastry right.
- Andrea Chiu
is an associate producer at CBC Radio Digital. Though she loves to eat, cook and discuss food,
don't ask her to bake. It never turns out well. She tweets as @TOfoodie on Twitter and organizes food and wine events in Toronto called FoodieMeet.
- Amber Hildebrandt
works for CBCNews.ca in Toronto. Growing up on a farm in Manitoba, she acquired an insatiable appetite, but it was during a stint in Japan that she developed her discerning tastebuds and foodie ways.
- Tara Kimura
is a multimedia producer for CBCNews.ca.
- Andree Lau
is a CBC web reporter in Calgary. Her journalism career includes seven years as a CBC-TV reporter. Her own blog called "are you gonna eat that?" chronicles her eating adventures (including sampling snake and camel hoof tendon).
- Jessica Wong
is a CBCNews.ca writer who loves to eat and cook, as well as discuss, read and watch programming about food, sometimes all at once.
- Kevin Yarr
, CBCNews.ca's writer in Prince Edward Island, wrote about food and beer for national and regional magazines before joining the CBC. He acquired a desire for new tastes on his first trip to Europe, and an appreciation of eating locally and in season when he finally settled down on P.E.I.
Categories
All News blogs
Most Commented
Most Recommended
Food Bytes
Most Commented
Most Recommended
Recent Entries
- Food in times of sorrow
- In spring, a doctor discovered that my grandfather had glioblastoma multiforme, the deadliest and most aggressive primary brain tumour. As he battled the tumour over the following months, it was food that connected the family and allowed him to still 'live' instead of merely survive. Later on,... Continue reading this post
- Going deep in Chicago
- No, I’m not talking the Chicago Cubs, I’m talking Pizzaria Uno, creator of the original deep dish pizza.... Continue reading this post
- Q&A with Khalil Akhtar, host of The Main Ingredient
- The Main Ingredient is one of CBC Radio's new summer programs. It's an inside look on the food we grow, buy and eat. In a Q&A, host Khalil Akhtar took the time to discuss his relationship with food and why... Continue reading this post
Comments (23)
Waaaaa...
If you think the above scenerio represents "hard times", you are completely detached from reality.
I freeze and can fruits and vegetables in season. These are very pleasing in the cold winter months, especially the fruits.
The imported fruits and vegetables are a waste of money.
I definately agree with jeff pitt. I ate KD and instant noodles for 3 weeks straight last winter and i still dont consider that hard times!
I so know what your talking about!! I live on an island...by the time the produce gets beat up all the way here, we get to spend top dollar trying to pick out the worthy ones!!
Cute article, but the headline, under current conditions is not.
As to the first comment... do you think the article may have been tougue in cheek? Perhaps an attempt to take folks minds off the situation the world is in now. So Jeff lighten up...lol
As for missing fresh foods that is kind of a sad thing along with the coming of winter.
With knowledge ..becomes wisdom..without either ...you are alone . Sorry, Jeff but your comment shows disregard to info. that could be more useful for others beside YOURSELF
Thank u
Kevin Yarr w/ the research and all the best.
Kevin B.
This is an article in the Food Bytes, so I don't know what topic the complainers were looking for!
As our local fresh foods go out of season for the most part, it is time to really enjoy the meat products, in roasts and stews, and to experiment with more root vegetables than you ever have, or than you do during the summer. I love the root veggies, parsnip, turnip, rutabaga, carrots, yams, onions, as well as long-storage cabbages, celery also lasts a long time and goes great in stews and soups. Beets! Gosh, I love to make borscht when the weather gets cold, it can simmer a long time, and if you don't put any meat products in it, you can leave it unrefrigerated overnight, and eat it for breakfast and lunch and dinner the next day, as the flavour blossoms! As a note, any kind of beans are a good addition to borscht. Dry beans/pulses are a great winter food, too. You can have some awesome soups, hummous, lots of great, hearty food that is totally available in the winter, and not by having it flown instantaeously across the continents, either.
Have a wonderful, frugal, fragrant, winter.
Jeff is right. Winter in the land of 24-hour grocery stores is not hard times. Hard times is the depression. Hard times is living in the third world right now where people really don't have enough to eat. Hard times is the Congo and Darfur. The headline is not amusing.
You think living on an island makes getting produce hard? Think about Newfoundland in the 30s and 40s. My dad has said that getting oranges at Christmas was a real treat.
I clicked on this story because I thought there would be some advice about making food dollars stretch further and make cheap foods taste better. Silly me.
Lisa
I agree with Lisa. I thought this would be a serious article about common sense and creative ways to make food dollars stretch, not a whining "oh, we won't have any fresh food to eat" statement.
Dealing with the cycles of the seasons is something we've had to do since settling Canada. It's our modern cheap-energy society that can fly/ship apples from New Zealand in winter and kiwis and grapes from God knows where (Calif/NZ/Chile) that has become accustomed to an 'any food at any time' way of thinking.
And heaven forefend that anyone make the effort to grow, store, slaughter and/or preserve their own harvest. If the supermarkets were to close for one week people wouldn't know what to do!
The author pointed out at the start he was not referring to the economic problem, but the problem of finding fresh fruits and vegetables in winter in Canada, the true north strong and free but too cold to grow fruit in winter.
After reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle I too cannot buy imported fruits and vegetables with a clear conscience. However I can plan ahead and grow and freeze my own in summer. Or preserve in jars if I like the result, which I don't for starwberries.
I choose to live in Canada, not the very warm area of my birth. I choose on purpose, but not for the types of food I would get to eat. I chose for the over-all life style, which includes the freedom, the right to think my own thoughts, the freedom to earn money and keep enough of it to get to eat all year round.
As a citizen of the world at large I also choose to eat locally grown produce to cut down on the polution caused by shipping fresh food to far away places. Winter is a good time to learn to appreciate summer, and winter does not last forever, even in Canada.
I agree with most of the posts here that with the current conditions around the world and close to home.I think the writer has not seen hard times he should spend a couple of weeks with the homeless!Maybe try finding scraps of food from the dumpster.Thats hard times!
If you want common sense advice on how to stretch your food dollars, here's some: shop on your supermarket's customer appreciation day (Extra Foods is the first Mon and Tues of the month), you can get up to 15% off various levels of purchase. Also, buy in season. Don't buy heavily processed food, take the time to cook it yourself. If you don't know how to cook, look for a community cooking program, you can learn how, share community with others, and possibly have free dinner one night a week! Throw away any brand loyalty that you have been conditioned to have! For many people, the brand that they buy is very much part of their purchase, and this is outright stupid.
One good way to make the most of an inexpensive cut of meat is to use a slow cooker. I can get a $30 roast for 50% off, plus another 10-15% off for customer appreciation day, slow cook it the next day (put it in before work with some potatoes & carrots and onions, herbs), come home, and have a house with a full hearty dinner waiting for me, smelling great, that the kids will eat, and leftovers for stew, roast beef sandwiches, whatever! How's that for advice?
Bread: go to your local bakery outlet store and get a crapload of bread for cheap. At McGavin's breadboxes, you can get 10 loaves of whatever didn't sell for 89 cents per loaf, but it's luck of the draw what will be there, it could be regular sandwich bread, tortillas, pitas, raisin bread, prebiotic, whatever. At City Bread, go with a garbage bag, I think you get a bag for 5 or 10 dollars at the dufferin area bread plant.
If you know hunters, see if you can get them to give you some meat, same for fishers, invite them to dinner!
I have been pretty poor as a young mum, and for some reason one of the most empowering things I did was learn how to make my own fresh mayonnaise! Get the big jug of no name canola oil, and you won't have to choose between getting mayo and getting eggs- if you have an egg, you can make the mayo.
Buy the frozen chicken breasts on sale (big box), you can then easily do many quick chicken recipes (pasta, stir fry, stew, baked with herbs, cacciatori).
Good luck all, learn how to make mayonnaise, you'll feel better!
Hi folks!
For those looking for cost-saving tips, readers posted some really fantastic ones in response to my blog post from Nov. 4:
Tightening the belt before dinner
Cheers and thanks for reading!
I too clicked on this article thinking it had to due with the current financial/political climate and thought it would be about budgeting and saving tips.
Great job by Caitlin on her post. terrific tips and thoughtful advice. Your kids must be very proud of their mom.
Hard Times!! Born with a silver spoon in your mouth were ya? Sure every year even our best economic times has seen a shortage of seasonal foods in the off season. I'd hate to see you if Starbucks went out of business. I guess you'll think the end of the world is near.
The local farmer's markets's are running out of fresh produce AND winter's coming? Where have you been wintering? Certainly not in Canada. I can't believe CBC actually let you post your inane thoughts.
The grocery store is full of good things to eat, but this body craves the basic - roast chicken, beef, hamburgers and potatoes. Winter vegetables are great - squash, turnip, cabbage (make cabbage rolls and freeze) real carrots (not those mini ones) - all good for you. Do not eat salad much, it only tastes good with tons of dressing - besides it can make you sick. ( e coli)
Would love to make my own mayonaise, store bought can turn - watch the expiry dates.
It's too bad that most of the posters on here don't seem to realize that buying local, in season, produce is one of the best ways to stretch your food dollars.
Oh, and learn how to cook!
3 leeks, 3 potatoes and a bit of water or chicken stock will make enough leek and potato soup to feed 4 people as a main course (6 people as a side).
It beats KD any day and you don't have to worry about the unfortunate side effects of a grain and chemical only diet (like scurvy!).
2 words: rooftop greenhouses
Good remarks on using root vegetables & Caitlin's suggestions are fantastic. Get off the KD and noodles diet, cooking is not hard & can be a community event or try a potluck dinner with friends. Personally, I freeze local berries, especially Vancouver Island blackberries. You can also grow your own, I don't have a yard but I borrow a plot to garden. As an island resident it benefits me to support local farmers & food security is a major issue here so I better be able to look after myself and stock up.
Lou, you saying "Vancouver Island blackberries" brought me right back 10 years! I lived in Victoria for a year at that time, and was dead broke! Whenever we went for a walk on the trails, there was a WALL of blackberries, and I would bring a pail or yogurt container with me every time! People gave me some looks, but it was public land and no one else was picking them, plus leaving them on the bush attracts wasps. :-)
I know some people must have read my post about the McGavin's, they were doing booming business on Saturday, I was glad to see! I half wanted to keep it to myself, but bad karma! :-) Good luck, all.
..must...not...smirk...
ah heck. I live on Vancouver Island. I get to eat fresh local produce ALL YEAR LONG. Mwa ha ha ha...
(and why yes, the family DOES start to get a little sick of kale around March. But it makes them appreciate the fava beans and fresh greens in May just SO much more.)