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Carole Peck on Sustainable Agriculture and Eating in Season
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Q&A with Carole Peck:
Everything Edible in Its Own Season
An interview by Karen Berman reprinted from The New York Times
Over the last few decades genetic engineering, faster transportation and better preservation technology have dramatically transformed the nation's food delivery system, making more varieties of produce available to more places throughout the year.
Not everybody, however, sees this as a positive development. In the culinary world, chefs and others are beginning to bemoan the loss of variety, flavor and nutrition that have accompanied the new technology.
One such chef is Carole Peck, a graduate of the prestigious Culinary Institute of America and owner of Carole Peck's Good News Cafe in Woodbury, Connecticut. Ms. Peck has been a trend setter at Le Pavilion in New York and in kitchens in Hilton Head, Austin and Miami, as well as at her own Cafe Greco in New York and Carole Peck's restaurant in New Milford. In 1992, Food Arts magazine named her one of the nation's top young chefs, and Eating Well magazine included her on a honor roll of eight chefs from around the country. In 1993, she was one of four chefs from among 900 to cook for the Julia Child Cookbook Awards gala.
In the following interview, Ms. Peck shares her thoughts on the nation's food production system and how it affects the way we eat:
Q. Thanksgiving was created to give thanks for the harvest at the end of the growing season. But now the growing season never ends -- you can eat strawberries when there's snow on the ground. Some chefs are questioning the wisdom of that. What's going on?
A. The more you know food and the more you work with it, the more you like to have seasons for things. I get very excited when fiddleheads are only here for a short time because that's the only time I have to use them. I don't want to see things like that being cultivated or farmed because after a while you lose your appreciation of the taste. There are more and more chefs now who are taking that reversal: Let us have what we can have only for a season, let food be appealing, let us forget about asparagus when they're not in season. Let's not try to have them all the time. In the '80s everyone was looking to have the unique thing, the most different kind of vegetables; everybody wanted to pay the highest price and have the most extravagant kind of thing. Nowadays we have all tightened our belts somewhat and, by tightening our belts, realized, "I don't need to have these extravagant things out of season."
Q. Is there an ecological factor in this move to eat foods that are in season and locally grown?
A. I think for some of us there is. I was a child of the '60s and I grew up in that whole era when we were starting to think ecologically. I know people will say you're not helping commerce if you don't buy vegetables from New Zealand or if you don't buy from California in the middle of the winter. But at the same time, we also have to think about transportation, all that fuel and energy we waste, and the packaging involved. It's become too much influenced by corporations -- the loss of different varieties of fruits because people say, "Oh no, now the Delicious apple travels much better than the McIntosh." Or the beans now: They're mechanically able to pick them, it doesn't bruise them, and they have a much longer shelf life. They've got a bean that's much tougher. People have given up the sense of taste and variety for the convenience of having it a lot of the time.
Q. How does this fit in with the movement called "sustainable agriculture"?
A. Sustainable agriculture is trying to promote local farmers so they can maintain their farms and continue to cultivate their land. The problem is we've lost a lot of our farmlands here in Connecticut. Sustainable agriculture helps us take back the land, use it again in a productive way, and start offering products that are grown locally. When you take an apple that has been picked in the morning or the day before, as opposed to one you're taking out of cold storage that's been in Oregon and has been trucked across the country, there's a whole difference in the taste of the apple. That's the immediate thing you're going to find. But also as the food breaks down from sitting, you get just a different kind of nutrition.
There are a lot of people out there trying to offer things that they grow on their family farms and these people have to be supported because, once they disappear, we're stuck with vegetables that look fine, but where is the taste? I give these people so much credit because it's not such an easy life. At the same time, the farmers I know have a real sense of self worth and accomplishment.
Q. I would bet most residents of Connecticut aren't aware of the variety of foods produced here. For example, I've read about a pork producer in Litchfield.
A. I use him exclusively. We have chicken farmers and, of course, eggs. You can still buy whole cows and they will have them slaughtered and butchered up for you. There are venison, pheasants, quails. There are quite a few people who are doing sheep. Quite a few local farmers do a lot of variety from all your greens to your lettuces, your tomatoes, eggplants, cauliflower, basically every spectrum of vegetable. I have one woman in the spring, I get currants from her and all kinds of berries. She does peaches, apples, she does some pears and then maple syrup in the winter. There are a lot of people doing all kinds of seasonal things to make their farms work all year long. In the fall, I use a tremendous amount of local stuff: Squashes and quinces and apples and pears and cider. It's interesting to see that you can still maintain supplies late into the season.
Q. Let's talk about that. People praise innovators like Alice Waters of Chez Panisse; her menu is local and seasonal all year round. But that's California. How do you manage in our climate?
A. In our climate, we have to find ways to supplement. When it's potato season, between the farmers' barns and my cooler spaces in the cellars, we try to hoard stuff away. It's the old system of having root cellars. You do it with cabbage, with squashes, with potatoes. My winter menus reflect those kinds of foods.
Q. And in summer at the height of the growing season, do you use 100 percent local produce?
A. Yes. It's definitely possible.
Q. How about winter?
A. In the winter, it probably goes down to about 40 percent. I have to offer variety. You can't say, in a restaurant, "Well, you can't have that because it's out of season."
Q. I would think that's just a fact of modern life. You can just hear the people saying, "What's wrong with strawberries in February?"
A. Well, strawberries in February, I have to agree with them. They come out of Florida and they're pretty good. What I don't agree with is going to any length to have something that looks like a strawberry but really doesn't taste like one.
Q. You are known for cross-cultural cuisine. How does that fit in with sustainable agriculture?
A. It's easy. When you start to know the cooking of different cultures, there's a lot of similar dishes. It's using ingredients that are locally grown in dishes and styles of cooking that are foreign.
Q. What can the home cook do to buy and eat more locally grown foods in season? The supermarket is often the easiest place to shop.
A. We're not asking people to go out foraging in the woods, but we are asking them to be a little aware of the things that you can do to improve what you're eating. It's a conscious effort. It doesn't just happen overnight. People have to give up a TV program and maybe go in the kitchen and do something that will be useful for them for a week's worth of food. Once you get into it, it's amazing the pride you have in yourself. It can be very simple things: You can take a great head of lettuce that you got on your way home from work at a local stand and some pears, and make a wonderful salad. It can be beautiful.
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