Remember the 2007 Farm Bill? That incredibly important document that stirred up a storm of controversy (and a glimmer of hope for sustainable ag reform) last summer and fall, and then sort of disappeared for a while? Well, at long last, the House-Senate committee agreed on a final version of the Farm Bill yesterday, which will go to the House and Senate next week and, if it gets the green light there, to President Bush’s desk next week.

Hooray! Or maybe not.

Unsurprisingly, drama abounds - with Bush likely to veto the bill and sustainable agriculture supporters torn over whether to support the flawed bill as is, or back the veto. Tom Philpott over at Grist wrote a very solid overview of the situation. Print it out for your Shabbat (or weekend) table, and decide how you feel.

Related Posts
Apple vs. Snackcake - a funny and informative video on the Farm Bill.
Farm Bill Hits the Floor
Michael Pollan on the Farm Bill

x-posted at Lilith

Amy Ephron at The Huffington Post has a theory: “In order to be First Lady you have to have a cookie recipe.” Ephron’s tone is (of course) tongue-in-cheek as she describes Martha Washington’s “jumbles,” (a pretzel/biscuit hybrid) Jackie Kennedy’s peanut brittle, and Nancy Reagan’s coconut macaroons. Still, she brings up several serious questions.

If Hillary Clinton gets elected President, what sort of “cookies” would Bill be required to make? In other words, how would a woman’s presidency change the traditional roles of first spouse? And, more importantly, how would it change the presidency itself?

What sort of expectations of traditional “feminine/motherly” conduct would be foisted on Clinton in the White House? How would she balance her necessary role as Commander-in-Chief with these expectations (or would she)? Would she be pressured - like former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir was - to serve a literal “steaming pot of tea and [homemade] cookies” to diplomats?

The answers to these questions remain to be seen - but if Tuesday’s primary in Pennsylvania has anything to do with it, Bill had better start perfecting his baking technique.

Golda Meir’s Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe here
Hillary Clinton’s Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe here.

I just had one of the most revelatory food experiences of my life, and I didn’t even eat a single bite. Read on if you’d like to see how the Broadway musical South Pacific might inspire your Passover Seder this year. Read more »

“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.” - Anthony Bourdain, “Kitchen Confidential,” p. 70

Tell us how you really feel, Anthony!

Of course, vegetarians and vegan chefs were not about to take this crude, carnivorous cri de coeur lying down, and thus was born Hezbollah Tofu, a blog where vegan chefs are systematically veganizing chef Bourdain’s most celebrated recipes. They plan on selling the resulting compilation, and donating the proceeds to vegan causes (farm sanctuaries, public education, etc) in Bordain’s name. Take that, Anthony!

This topic brings up a whole host of questions for me, as a Jew and as a self-professed foodie who also strives to eat sustainably (although not regularly animal-product free):

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The most recent issue of Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture includes an article I wrote called “Reaping the Faith.”

The article profiles Zaid and Haifa Kurdieh, two religious Muslims who combine their faith and farming (sounds familiar somehow…). It focuses on the concept of Tayyib, which some Muslims view as a mandate to eat sustainably and healthily, and compares Tayyib with the significantly more widespread Muslim eating mandate, Halal. It traces the history of faith and farming throughout other religious traditions including Judaism and Christianity. Additionally, it touches upon Zaid and Haifa’s struggles to secure visas for Muslim farm workers from Jordan and Egypt to work as apprentices on their farm. And, naturally, it gives a healthy shout out to Hazon’s Tuv Ha’Aretz program.

The extra exciting news is - the folks at Gastronomica are planning an evening of discussion around the article on Tuesday, May 13 at the beautiful new Astor Center in in NYC - check back here in the next couple of weeks for more information about the event.

Here are the first two paragraphs as a teaser (the article is unfortunately not available online). To purchase a copy or subscription, check out Gastronomica’s website.

Reaping the Faith
By: Leah Koenig
Gastronomica - Winter 2008

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Ever wonder what your favorite presidential candidate thinks (or votes) about the Farm Bill, nutrition, or organic food? The folks over at Just Food put together an easy-to-read chart on that very subject.  (And they welcome suggestions/additions.)

Find out interesting facts like: Senator John McCain voted against “Country of Origin labeling, and co-sponsored the “Child Nutrition Act in 1998,” Senator Barack Obama plans to “strengthen producer protections to ensure that independent farmers have fair access to markets,” and Senator Hilary Clinton has emphasized the “importance of expanding organic food production” in her plan for rural America.

Check out the Democratic candidates’ food views here.
Check out the Republican candidates’ food views here.

Also - this just in - Ben & Jerry’s endorsed Barack Obama’s campaign and created a flavor to celebrate: Cherries for Change.  Obama is currently the only candidate to have an ice cream flavor made in his honor…but the race is still young. :) - Hat tip to Jewlicious.

*Some of the candidates listed in the charts have withdrawn from the race.

Today, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an above-the-fold, front page article about our newest source of mystery meat - cloned cows.

In the article “Consumers May Not Be Able to Avoid Cloned Food,” the Chronicle reported that the Orthodox Union has publicly stated that food items derived from cloned animals are kosher. Rabbi Menachem Genack of the O.U. stated that cloned animals would be kosher as long as they belong to a single kosher species, such as cattle, sheep, and goats.

Given the highly uncertain health effects of eating cloned meat, and the biological manipulation necessary to create cloned animals, I call on rabbis from across the denominations to speak out on this issue.

How can an animal production technology, which is proven to be cruel to the animals it creates, be kosher?

Animals can be cloned from the tissue of a dead animal. Would that cloned animal be kosher?

The principle of Kelayim requires the separation of species - what does it say about the replication of species?

What about the fundamental notion of eating food in its natural state, as God brought it to us. Does the biological tinkering with the DNA of life disturb our respect and awe for the divine manifestation of the natural world - in the food we eat?

I think the O.U.’s statement is wrong - I’d like to hear what others think, particularly our Jewish legal scholars.

With Love for Hashem, and Love for its divine manifestation in Food.

Z

By the way, for more information, check out my previous post, “Is Milk or Meat from a Cloned Animal Kosher?“

 What is it about Jews and Chinese food?This oddly-passionate obsession has inspired scholarly dissertations,  cookbooks, multi-cultural festivals, and even affected international relations [this last link, btw, about Asian chefs in Israel going on an eggroll strike over the elimination of foreign worker permits, is worth a trip to Jewschool to read in its entirety]!

So when this article appeared recently in the NYTimes about the history of the fortune cookie, I immediately thought, “hmmm…what’s the Jewish connection?” The answer? The long Jewish tradition of bibliophagy (eating the written word). Find interesting examples of Jewish bibliophagy after the jump:

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Hey friends,

Back again with my lawyer hat on - watching Monsanto in its state by state quest to prevent consumers from knowing what is really in our milk. We beat this back at the Federal FDA, we beat them back at the Federal Trade Commission, we beat them back in Pennsylvania…

Now they are going for Indiana.

A bill introduced in the Indiana House of Representatives by Bill Friend, a rep from the tiny town of Macy, Indiana, would make his state the first to prevent consumers from knowing how their milk was produced.
HB. 1300, which could be voted on any day, is couched as legislation to protect consumers from mislabeling. But it would prevent dairy labels that contain a “compositional or production-related claim that is supported solely by sworn statements, affidavits, or testimonials.” In other words, anything related to the moral or ethical dimensions of the product would be off-limits.

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Seldom have I found an article as compelling as the January, 19th NY Times article The Food Chain - A New Global Oil Quandary: Costly Fuel Means Costly Calories.

Many of us are very conscious of what we eat, where it comes from, and how it is produced. We do what we can in our communities by supporting CSAs, local farmers markets, buying not toxic household cleaning products etc. While we are aware on some level of why these choices are important, I find that it is often hard to see the big picture. It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around the extent to which there is a global food crisis emerging all around us. Because we live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, in many ways this reality has not yet hit home.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this article.

As a staff attorney for the Center for Food Safety, I was appalled that the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved cloned animals for use in our food today. I have to ask, “who does our federal government protect? How can they allow this into the food system without facts showing it is safe and without any labeling or public disclosure requirements?” As a Jew, it makes me ask other questions: “Will this be allowed in kosher milk? Kosher meat? What do our rabbis think? What about the eco-kosher movement?”

FDA Approves Cloned Animals for Our Food

Today’s FDA decision was a long-awaited regulatory assessment of cloned animals, proclaiming that food from cloned animals are just as safe as food from naturally raised animals. (See FDA on Cloning) And while the FDA did not address whether cloned milk and meat is kosher, they did decide today that it is safe for Americans to eat.

The FDA made this decision in the worst way possible. FDA based its decision on an incomplete and flawed review that relies on studies supplied by cloning companies that want to force this cloning technology on American consumers. Biotechnology companies such as ViaGen provided FDA with the “science” in this case. There are no peer reviewed studies showing that this stuff is safe for us to eat.

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(x-posted at Lilith) 

Last week I had the good fortune of attending a completely packed lecture at the 92nd Street Y called, “Hedonistic, Healthy, and Green: Can We Have it All?” Featuring Michael Pollan (of The Omnivores Dilemma fame), Dan Barber (Head Chef of Blue Hill at Stone Barns), and moderated by Joan Dye Gussow (This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader), it was the kind of event that sustainable foodies like me drool over. These are our movie stars, the people we choose when asked, “which famous person would you most want to take to dinner?”

The event itself was pretty straightforward: glowing introductions, 10-15 minutes from both speakers (Pollan on his new book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto and Barber on the fate of Boris, an over-the-hill - ahem - pig, that after much consideration by Barber’s team at Stone Barns, was turned into 500 pounds of the most delicious sausages he’d ever tasted and shared (20% of Boris’ sausages were donated to a local food bank), followed by questions from Gussow and then from the audience.

The real meat of the evening was not in the format of the event, but in the meeting of these amazing minds. For Pollan, Barber, and Gussow, this is life: travelling, speaking (often about the same thing), and answering questions. But for the audience, watching the exchange between these sustainable food “rebbes” felt like watching your grandmother make her favorite recipe. It looked so simple and obvious, and you left feeling full and nourished and inspired to try it yourself.

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Both amendments– Lugar-Lautenberg’s “Fresh Act” and Dorgan-Grassley’s payment limits– that would have included meaningful farm subsidy reform in the 2007 farm bill failed in the past two days, the latter falling only 4 votes short of the 60 it needed to be adopted.

The Environmental Working Group and the Center for Rural Affairs blogs have some interesting analysis of how the Democrats sabotaged reform by playing politics with the vote’s parliamentary procedure, in order to prevent Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) from embarrassing her own party. They place blame for the failure of Dorgan-Grassley squarely on the Democratic leadership and those reform-touting Senators who voted against the amendment.

A number of other amendments to reform agriculture policy remain to be voted on, including Sen. Tester’s (D-MT) attempt to “beef up” the new Livestock Title by adding a “packer ban” to check the power of industrial meatpackers and processors by reinforcing the Packers and Stockyards Act’s rules against market manipulation. Apparently, the meat industry has been hard at work preventing this amendment from passing.

You can watch here.

(cross posted on the US Food Policy blog)

Today’s New York Times included a fascinating op-ed called “Weed it and Reap,” by Michael Pollan, which notes the significant increase in public input on the 2007 Farm Bill.   Has the public’s voice made a difference?  Read “Weed it and Reap” here.

Have something to say about a kosher estabilishment in your area?  Here’s your chance.  Kosher Community Surveys is a surveying organization “dedicated to recognizing quality kosher establishments.” There are open surveys for the Washington DC and Philly area, and surveys opening soon across the country.

Reuters reported that Cargill recalled over 1 million pounds of beef distributed in the US because of possible e. coli contamination.  This is the second major recall for Cargill in the last month, prompting me to wonder, what is safe to eat these days?  Read the article here.