Mission Challenge: Jam Season (in Music, Canning, etc)
We challenged people in Mission, B.C., to try local eating for 100 days starting June 1. Nearly 100 people signed up - and we couldn’t resist signing up, too. Can a community change the way it eats? It’s never too late to get involved: Join in for a month, a week, even a single meal.
DAY 33 - One-third of the way through the 100-day challenge, not that anyone’s counting, right? A few notes from the community mojo wire…
First, a big happy birthday to Kaity! She’ll be celebrating, I bet, with mom’s cake and fizzy drinks! (I’d forgotten which brand of club soda was made with local water; Frances let me know that it is Schweppe’s. So there you have it, fizzy-drink lovers.)
Now let’s get down to the serious business of…canning. Johanna had some good info for Mission 100-milers as the season begins:
For those wanting to make jams and jellies without the use of added pectin, now is the time to prepare black and red currant pectin and gooseberries, all of which have natural pectins. There is a good supply at the fruit stand on the north side of the highway on Nicomen Island at the Fire Hall road. If you are looking for canning jars, the Cottage (hospital auxillary thrift shop) on First has them on sale, buy one get one free and on Friday they still had a good selection. We made our first bread since June 1st and had it with strawberry rhubarb preserves. Yum! Now that we have a good supply of wheat available I can bake a loaf weekly. I also baked a great sponge cake.
Leda Meredith, an instructor at the New York Botanical Garden and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where she specializes in edible and medicinal plants, got in touch, too, to offer up some seasonal jam wisdom:
My favorite jam in the world is also one of the easiest.
Strawberries
Fresh currants (or gooseberries)
Simmer together until as thick as you like your jam, then add honey to taste. Yum!
Next up, Helen in Mission is the self-proclaimed Kitchen Witch for the Mission Folk Music Festival (July 25-27), and in the spirit of the 100-Mile Challenge is working to source local bulk and whole food ingredients (she also signed up for a 50-percent challenge for the 100 days, but is managing about 65 percent!). She had some question to put out there to the community:
(1) I am working on a resource list that goes beyond BC FarmFresh. I’m seeking lesser-known purveyors within the 100-mile ‘zone’ - vendors who are interested in being listed. If anyone has new info, please send it on to Marion Robinson or me. For example:
any professional growers of heritage garlic with last year’s stock
any grower/small farmer not listed in the usual directories
any lesser-known farmers/vendors who can help with good local protein choices
(2) Does anyone have info about locally grown, native, or wild-growing tea plants (jasmine and rose need blending; mint tea is getting boring)
(3) Is anyone planning to run a locally grown/100-mile food kiosk at the Mission Folk Music Festival?
Send any info and I will forward it to Helen (or contact her directly if you have the contact info). Actually, I have lots of ideas for #2: sage, nettle, strawberry leaf, raspberry leaf, cranberry, tarragon, fennel seed, lemon verbena, Labrador tea - for herbal teas, there’s no limit to the possibilities.
Finally, I just wanted to leave everyone with this story from Mandy in Springfield, Illinois, that captures the spirit of going local for the first time:
I started today. Actually, I started mentally a long time ago, but today I announced my intentions to my family (okay, my husband…my children are one and three so i don’t really know if they “got it”). But my children are my reason for doing this. Since they are so young, I figured if this is all they ever know growing up, this will become a part of their psyche, their make-up. They will do this without even thinking.With my youngest daughter in her baby sling, we set out for the farmers’ market. I went with $17 in my wallet and my reusable bags. I found tomatoes! You know, the things we ate before the salmonella scare. The “ugly” ones were cheap, but huge, so I bought two. Then I got tomato focaccia bread, butter greens, new potatoes, and green beans. I still had four dollars left in my wallet when I got home. For lunch, we had tomato salad with basil from our own garden. For dinner, roasted potatoes and green beans with the rest of the focaccia. My one-year-old could not eat enough tomato. My three-year-old devoured the potatoes. I don’t think anyone missed a thing.
My goal is to start slowly at first, eating about 50 percent of our food locally. Then, if and when our home garden starts coming in, that number will increase. I am going to start looking for local dairy farmers. I am studying up on how to make my own cheese, and possibly yogurt. Wish me luck!
For more Mission blogs, including the rules, click here.
-JBM
