Several years ago, Rabbi Deborah Prinz and her husband Rabbi Mark Hurvitz were traveling in Bayonne, France.  While glancing at a placard in one of the museums they were visiting, Rabbi Prinz was shocked to read that Jews had brought the fabrication of chocolate to France in the 17th century.  As she would come to realize, Jews played a vital role in of early production and distribution of chocolate in Europe.  Even as far back as Christopher Columbus whom some have speculated might have been Jewish and some of his crew may have been converso. If true, then it would have been Jews who brought cacao to Europe.

The New York Times Dining Section today published a jeremiad of vegan traveler, Wayne Pacelle, who lamented the lack of vegan options at airports.  I was once a vegan too, so I can sympathize with the feeling of being hungry, and surrounded by untouchable flesh and dairy-filled foods.  But as I read through the article, I was underwhelmed by his argument – and by his anecdote about the mean security guards who tried to take away the peanut butter stashed in his bag.

My senior year of college wasn’t all that long ago (going on 5 years), but it feels like a lifetime. So it’s hard for me to remember now the sense of low-grade panic that consumed me during most of second semester as I struggled to figure out “what I was going to do with my life.” Luckily, one of my house mates told me about WWOOF – an international organization that pairs up willing volunteers with work stays on organic farms across the world. Within the span of a week, I had checked out WWOOF online, paid for my membership via the web, emailed a handful of farms halfway across the world, and secured myself a real life summer stint on an organic vineyard in Tuscany.

At the time, I didn’t quite understand how remarkable this process was, or that fact that a mere decade or two earlier, it would not have been possible. But the Eat Well Guide understands – and their new resource Cultivating the Web: High Tech Tools for the Sustainable Movement is out to clue everyone else in.

New York Times book critic Janet Maslin recently picked Adam Gollner’s new book, The Fruit Hunters (Scribner: 2008), as a top summer read—and it’s easy to see why. Gollner writes mellifluously about his extraordinary (writ extraterrestrial) experiences traveling the world in search of fruits and the wacky people who devote their lives to this quest.

In the Seychelles, Gollner—or perhaps Adam is his best suited moniker—manages to get his hands on the uncannily female-looking coco-de-mer, or ‘lady fruit,’ whose “innards are translucent, almost like a silicon gel implant but with a softer, shaky-pudding texture” with “a mild citruslike quality, refreshing and sweet with earthy, spunky notes…like coconut flesh, only sexier.”

He then visits the jungles of Borneo to taste the intensely odoriferous “nutty, almondlike,” and “fully constructed dessert” of fresh durians, where the “juicy white cubes of flesh fuse a custard’s richness with a cakelike powderiness… topped with “vanilla-spruce frosting”—a far cry from the false gas leak alarm-spawning durians he got in Manhattan’s Chinatown, where they tasted of “undercooked peanut butter-mint omelets in body-odor sauce.” In Hawaii he tempts us with his description of the dusky brown chicos tasting of “maple syrup pudding,” and a host of other Neverland varietals such as bignays, gourkas, sapotes, mombins, langsats.

Over fruit smoothies one recent morning in Montreal, I met with Adam to discuss his new book and the sweet allure of the infinite world of fertilized flowers.

Below the jump: Win a copy of Adam Gollner’s The Fruit Hunters!

Monday (7/21) New York Times article, The Food Chain: Mideast Facing Choice Between Crops and Water, was a good reminder to me as to why I am glad to be involved with Hazon, and the work that we do to create a healthier and more sustainable world. Learning a bit about the crises that have already presented themselves, particularly in the Middle East, also reminded me of just how much work we have ahead of us to bring about a world where healthy, nutritious, ethically raised food is a right of human existence and not a privilege. Water and land shortages are, of course, hitting hardest in the poorest places of the world where there is no money to invest in creative solutions.

The article presents a pretty bleak world. But, Hazon’s Israeli partners – the Heschel Center for Environmental Learning & Leadership (of the Hike) and The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies (of the Ride) are both doing critical work towards addressing some of the issues raised in the NYT piece in Israel.

It’s been a while since my husband and I returned from our month-long trip to Vietnam – the one that significantly changed my outlook on traveling to new countries as a non-meat eater! As promised, here is a photo journal of our food adventures.

I also included one of my favorite recipes from the trip – Steamed Lemongrass Fish. Enjoy!

Despite the shock value of my photos from a few days ago, Vietnam is a fascinating place to visit for the food obsessed. And while markets have always been one of my favorite places to wander through in developing countries, this was my first big trip abroad since I started thinking differently about food.

As I wrote previously, I wouldn’t recommend that people who keep kosher go there. It simply would be too hard to avoid the treyf. The default meat there is pork, and shrimp comes in a close second. It’s ironic too that one of the most common fish dishes, fish in a clay pot – a white fish coated in a delicious concoction of caramelized sugar, fish sauce, shallots, garlic, ginger and chiles, is made with catfish – once again, not kosher.

But it sure is good to be home. For those readers who missed my series of posts about eating in Vietnam, here’s a reminder:

Dog. Cat. Porcupine. Deer.

The ‘Lonely Planet’ Guidebook describes the Vietnamese people as “fiercly omnivorous,” and I couldn’t think of a more apt description. We are not uploading photos so I can’t illustrate this post properly but today we took numerous photos of a skinned pig’s head, pig’s feet, live goats tied to a back of a motorbike, same with live chickens in a mesh cage, pigs tied in tortuous ways, the list goes on.

Greetings from Vietnam, the most unkosher place on the planet (kosher-keepers, never, ever come here, unless you plan on packing a month’s supply of canned tuna).

Below the jump, I’ve posted a few photos that give you a taste of our (for us) shocking food experiences in Viet Nam. Warning – they’re graphic, so look with caution.

Almost three weeks into our trip to Vietnam, and I’ve lost count how many times we’ve uttered the following statement: “That was the best meal we’ve had in Vietnam.”  Undoubtedly, things have greatly improved since my last post – basically since we reached the central part of the country. Vegetarian restaurants are plentiful in Hue (well, maybe plentiful is an understatement, but we found and ate in two, both of which charged local prices and were excellent), and in Hoi An, where we are now, every menu we look at as numerous veggie options.

We’ve now been in Vietnam for well over a week. And while I continue to be, well, pretty much disgusted by the way animals are treated (today we saw a common site here; two live pigs tied to the sides of a motorbike — photos will have to wait until I’m home), I am also partially awed by the Vietnamese willingness to see food as it really is before they eat it.

As I mentioned before, it is nearly impossible to keep kosher here, or for me to remain a vegetarian. I was doing a pretty good job of it so far, but this morning, when served noodles for breakfast with bits of pork in it, our guide reminded our host that I don’t eat meat. We were staying at Ba Be Lakes in a “home stay,” with a family that is incredibly poor, and makes extra money by taking in tourists. Food is plentiful, though, here, even with the poor. Anyhow, after the reminder, he promptly made me my own noodles — in a bowl of chicken broth.

Below is the full text of Friday night’s keynote at The Hazon Food Conference.  The keynote was given by Nati Passow, co-founder of The Jewish Farm School.  It’s a long post, but definitely worth the read – even if you have to print it out (on recycled paper of course!) and take it home.

(Nati’s on the right, next to Simcha Schwartz.  Photo by Sabrina Malach.)

Hazon Food Conference
December 6-9, 2007
Keynote Address: Nati Passow

Thank you Nigel. Shabbat Shalom and Chanukah Sameach. It is a great honor to be here with you all tonight. Nigel suggested that I begin by sharing my story with you, my connection and relationship to food, which I think is a great way to begin this talk, because one of the things I like most about food is that sitting down to a meal is a great excuse to spend time with friends and listen to each other’s stories. So here is a little bit of mine.

Seven years ago I took a Sabbatical. I left university for the year and traveled in Israel. I studied in yeshiva, toured the country and then settled into an apartment in Jerusalem. After having little success finding a job, I decided to enjoy my sabbatical for what it was time to just be present. This was when I discovered good coffee, which for any honorable coffee drinker is a moment you never forget. An older friend of mine sat me down and said that if I was going to drink coffee everyday, I should make it good. Buy whole beans, grind them myself and brew something delicious.

The coffee was my gateway drug to the world of slow food.

I am sitting in the Nagycsarnok — the Great Market — in Budapest, thinking: I’m only here for 4 days, there’s no way I can possibly eat my way through this country! Only four days, and one of them Yom Kippur.

This food is the Hungarian countryside, only edible. Cucumbers. Celery. Leeks. Melons. Yellow beans. Carrots and parsnips and piles and piles of peppers — pale green ones and bright red ones that look like crumpled wads of newspaper. While the amount of global food in Budapest is a little sobering (Burger King, pizza places, gyros and felafel and Chinese fast food), there are still a lot of foods I’ve never seen before, and that makes me feel I’m in a new place.

Such as bags of cheese — turned out to be a sort of dry cottage cheese. And a biscuit-type thing with cheese and pumpkin seeds. And (baruch hashem!) all the “meggy” treats — sour cherry turnover, strudel with sour cherries and poppyseeds….

What does it mean, to eat my way through a country? And what does that mean for Yom Kippur, a day of not eating?

Bonjour from Paris!! I have spent the last three days biking in France — the first of a seven-week vagabonderie in Europe. (The transition from Adamah to traveling was very quick: a week ago I was eating just-picked cucumbers and harvesting round 57 of our beloved & prolific green beans. I expect that this trip will give me space to think about everything that happened this summer, & fully intend one or two posts on the subject. But for now, though I’m still in my Carharts, I’m in Paris on a rented bicycle and it’s a few hours before Rosh Hashanah.)

One thing I will say about the summer, as it relates to me now in France, is that I’ve never FELT more Jewish my entire life than I did at Adamah. I’ve always been more or less connected and involved with Jewish people and events, but this summer for the first time I developped a Jewish practice that I really connected to, involving food brachot, morning prayer & Shabbat. It was easy this summer, living as I was with all Jews (& all Jews who mostly wanted to practice as I did). But now I’m here, & the holiday is starting soon, & I’m trying to decide how I can still “feel Jewish” while travelling with my non-Jewish friends & staying at a hostel in Pigalle!

Hazon’s mission is to foster a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community as a step towards a healthier and more sustainable world for all.  Our programs are focused around two pillars: bikes (and physical health more broadly) and food. 

So I was very excited to find out about two upcoming bicycle rides that are focused entirely around food:

Tour de Blintz: Visit Greater Vancouver’s Jewish restaurants, delis and bakeries – by bicycle!  Guided tours available Aug 12, 19, and 26.  A self-guided version will be available Aug 31.  The August 12 and 19 tours will be all kosher.  More info / register here.