As the logistics (and debate) of schecting a goat at Hazon’s Food Conference next month continue, Alexander Lane over at Chow, describes how he decided to “kill Thanksgiving dinner.” Lane writes:

“Here I am in Maine, having relocated in April after spending my first 34 years around major cities like New York and San Francisco. Strange things happen here, such as wild turkeys wandering out of the woods behind your apartment complex. Even stranger, you develop the desire to shoot and eat them...”

Lane then goes on to describe his choice to forego the shrink-wrapped, store-bought turkey, to have a go at killing and preparing a real live animal.

His food story fits into the newly emerging “do it yourself” genre, which has Brooklyn families running full-scale farms in their backyards, and former supermarket goers jumping at the chance to kill their own animals for meat. These, “how I decided to get in touch with the food system by….” stories seem to be a hybrid of post-Omnivore’s Dilemma” ethics and American’s obsession with reality TV.

Whether DIY foodism will become a mainstay of how American’s source their food, or stay sparse enough to continue being story worthy, remains to be seen. For now, check out Lane’s article, “Gobble, Gobble, Bang,” here.

Will the goat shechting event happen at Hazon’s Food Conference this December?  Signs point to yes, pending the logistics get worked out.  In the meantime, the idea has stirred up a significant amount of debate and - it seems - inspired artwork.  Graphic artist, Mat Tonti, created an ”alternative” Food Conference postcard (below).  Quite an interesting contrast/foil to the original postcard, which you can see below Mat’s rendition. 

To find out more about the Hazon Food Conference, Dec 6-9, click here.

(For the record - despite the Hazon logo that graces Mat’s postcard, Hazon was not involved in its creation.)

Erev Yom Kippur / 20 / September 2007

Dear All,

I had one of the most astonishing and fascinating conversations of my life over Rosh Hashanah. It was about killing two goats, and I wanted briefly to share it with you ahead of Yom Kippur and Succot.

I spent Rosh Hashanah at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, and – after visiting the goats there – I sat down with Aitan Mizrahi, Freedman’s very own goatherd and the founder of the Adva Goat Dairy and Rachel Gaul, another goatherd friend of Aitan’s.  This Yom Kippur will be exactly a month since I posted a piece on The Jew & The Carrot, titled Schechting a goat at the Hazon Food Conference?  The conference will be at Freedman, and the key part of the conversation went roughly as follows:

-You know, of course, that if you want to schecht two goats at the Food Conference [in early December], you’ll have to pay to feed them from October till December.
-Why?
-Well, because otherwise they’ll be killed in October – that’s when bucks [male goats] get slaughtered.
-Why’s that?
-Well, goats give birth in the spring. The kids in due course give milk, so they live for a good number of years; but the bucks have no use, so they’re fed during the summer, when food is abundant, and then typically they’re killed in October, ahead of the winter.
-That’s unbelievable! That’s just incredible! You’re telling me that if we schecht two goats at the food conference, we’ll actually be extending their lives by two months – because otherwise they’d be killed in October?
-Yeah, Nige. You know – “no dairy without death.”
-NO DAIRY WITHOUT DEATH??!!

Read more »

The Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery ended this past Sunday and I’ll share some highlights that I think will particularly interest our readers.

• “Ecotarian/Ecotarianism” - What do we call ourselves? “Ecotarian” was proposed as a catchall term for most perspectives basically against industrial food, but which vary in emphasis: locavore, vegetarian, sustainable, organic, committed to humane conditions and slaughter of animals for meat - i.e., that diverse group that is us. But is it precise and universally understood enough let’s say to become a meal option on a plane flight, asked Jessica Lee, who proposed the term?
• “Conscientious Production” - another pair of speakers attempted to categorize eco-friendly values as “conscientious production” (in contrast to conspicuous consumption).

Read more »

One of the big international foodie events, the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, starts tomorrow, 9/8. The topic this year is Food and Morality

• Food and quality – should food be good?
• Food and safety and the environment – should food be clean?
• Food and justice – should food be fair?
• Food and human nature – is it right to take pleasure in food?

and the keynote speaker is Ruth Reichl. The Co-chairs of the program are notable food writers Paul Levy and Claudia Roden. Many of the topics are of particular interest to our readers - ‘ecotarianism,’ organics and consumerism, meat-eating and vegetarianism, eating local, and there’s even one session devoted to Jewish perspectives, at which yours truly is participating. I’m especially intrigued by one of my co-panelists Susan Weingarten’s topic ‘Eating People is Wrong: Cannibalism and Charoset.’ Wouldn’t you be intrigued, too? See the whole list of papers here. I had wonderful dinner table conversation with participants tonight over Jain vegetarianism, Michael Pollan, Irish Jewish foodways, Catholic Bavarian saints festivals, and selling olive oil and wine. I’ll have more to report later.

Dan Barber - my own personal food hero, and one of the featured presenters at Hazon’s 2007 Food Conference - was recently interviewed over at Salon.com.   The topic: agriculture, oil, and the 2007 Farm Bill.  Barber said:

In this country alone, food - from growing to processing, transportation and fertilizer — accounts for about 17 percent of all oil we use, a little less than automobiles. Not only is there an ecological cost to transporting food, because of fossil fuels, but there is a huge ecological impact from the way we grow our food - whether it travels 10 feet or 10,000 miles.  

And…

The typical American cow is just an oil barrel. It’s [fed] corn. And that corn is fed fertilizer and pesticides, meaning oil. It is trucked from a cornfield in Iowa to a feedlot in Colorado, or wherever, again oil. And then that hamburger meat is processed … in oil. And then that hamburger meat is shipped to all the fast-food restaurants — more oil. [The process is] a gas guzzler.

Read more »

Over the last couple of days, I’ve watched with interest the growing debate around whether or not Hazon should schect a goat (or two) at the Hazon Food Conference. Last night, however, I was faced with my own “meaty” challenge: whether or not to eat it.

I have been a vegetarian for the last eight years and was vegan for two. Over that time, I have never particularly craved meat aside from an occasional urge for a corned beef sandwich from this amazing deli near my parents’ house in Chicago. (Even then, I’m not sure if it was the meat itself I craved, or the comforting memory of my mom coming home with a warm corned beef bundle wrapped in hefty white paper.)

Last night, however, was a different story. I found myself tagging along to dinner at a kosher Bukharian restaurant on 108th street, also known as “Bukharian Broadway, in Rego Park, Queens. (To read more about Bukharian Jews and their culinary delights, read Julia Moskin’s great article in the NY Times Dining & Wine section.)

Up until last night, I had certainly never had Bukharian food and to be honest - I barely knew that this sub-group of Central Asian Jews even existed. So I didn’t realize right away what my friend meant when he said to me, “you might want to have a snack on the way.” Turns out, he was referring to the menu which was filled with chicken and lamb kebabs, lamb samsi (like an Indian samosa), sweet breads, and special pulled noodles…with spicy lamb.

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December 6th- 9th, 2007 / Shabbat Chanukah
at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Falls Village, CT

Jewish food traditions are rich and ancient, and today, growing numbers of Jewish people are also beginning to think more responsibly about food.  The Hazon Food Conference brings together educators, rabbis, farmers, nutritionists, chefs, food writers, and families who share a passion for learning about and celebrating food.  The 2nd Annual Hazon Food Conference will help participants:

• Gain a more direct connection to where our food comes from
• Learn from Jewish culinary traditions around the world
• Add a distinctly Jewish flavor to healthy eating
• Become a part of a vibrant, healthy Jewish food community

Read more »