The istfraustblaug and its blaugger have moved on and moved up in the world. He's found himself a lady farmer, a farm and a new farm blog––with the slightly more mature o. If you would still like to keep up with him, his farming and his wine ranting, feel free to follow him over at ROUGHDRAFTFARMSTEAD.BLOGSPOT.COM. It'll be a hoot.
holla,
Fraust in Third Person
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
That How I Came to Live in a Barn Series
Pawpaw wine, tomato wine... It's been a lively season, and for two more weeks I still live in a barn but there are big movements to follow. Read or refresh yourself on How I Came to Live in a Barn (scroll to bottom), so you are prepared to find out what's next. Hint: it rhymes with "officially starting the farm." Too cryptic? No worries, it will all be revealed in due time.
Always sucked at ryhming,
Fraust
Always sucked at ryhming,
Fraust
Monday, April 4, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
How I Came to Live in a Barn: Postscript Edition
"My impulse to write books originates in the urge to find out what I don't know."
-Michael Ruhlman, Ratio
When I awoke in the barn one uncharacteristically chilly July morning, I had the thought, how the hell DID I come to live in a barn? The curiosity became such that I obsessed over it. I could understand on a basic level how it happened––tracing my steps from skateboarding to farming in my head––but that was ultimately unsatisfying. Thoughts, however clarifying, are inherently fleeting. It's easier for me to reason and understand things when I explore them, study them, and especially, write them down. So it wasn't hard to decide to do a series like this––it was selfish. I wanted to know the answer just as much as I wanted to share it. As the author, I felt at times I did a good job, at times I mighta dropped the ball a little, and at times I might not have captured the sheer impact of a subject on my most excellent journey. Books for example, but a writer should never be expected to do justice to the importance of books in their lives. September? Natural Wines, though? I owe so much to these things, and I did my best to offer them credit, but no matter what, it will always feel impossible to properly thank the one's who raised you. All in all, through typos, hangovers, basketball and existential meanderings, I'm extremely pleased with the results, excited about the findings, and thrilled with the opportunity to share them.
In conclusion of the series, I would like to thank you all for the kind, encouraging notes. I hope to keep posting occasionally throughout the season, but mainly I hope to work, read, ferment and learn a lot, while washing the sweat off in the swimming hole. So if you don't hear from me for a while, you know where I am.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Farm stories: The moving in edition
Our first intern moved onto the farm this week, and I'll be joining the festivities on April 6th. I'm excited for her! It was exciting for me. Those first two weeks are amazing, but have the potential to be the longest, hardest and most challenging two weeks of the entire season. At least, that was my experience.
For me, I'd moved straight from New York City where the most physical thing I did in a week was play my best friend at basketball, which was only physical at a squint. I arrived at the farm on April 7th. Eric emphatically tells his interns to take it easy and adjust to the farm life those first few days. I can attest, my friends, this is both necessary and damn near impossible. I'd spent a year planning this adventure––I didn't want to adjust to it, I wanted to get dirty! And dirty I did.
I put my things in the barn, threw my sleeping bag on the mattress, laced up my embarrassingly new boots, and headed straight up the hill to join the family in the garden. We were transplanting strawberry plants. Eric dug a furrow and we set each transplant into the rows a couple feet apart. I became immediately aware of how long a farm project lasts that week, and immediately aware of the pathetic shape my body was in. I was knelt down in the dirt, cursing the softness of my knees exposed by every rock or stick, back bent, burying each plant carefully for a couple of hours that afternoon. After moving the livestock and finishing our chores, I headed back down for dinner, then over to my barn, and immediately passed out.
I wasn't sore that first morning, but I was definitely sore every subsequent morning for the first month. There was a lot of preparation to be done: cutting and stacking firewood, making soil blocks, cultivating and transplanting––most all of it physical. April was a fickle lady, too. We'd have a freeze, then a week of 80 degree days, then another freeze and a shit-load of rain. I found myself adjusting to a lot of things all at once: to bugs, to labor, to animals, to silence, to mornings, to sun, to the outdoors, to the whims of nature, and to bathing in a creek or showering in a greenhouse. There are no easy foods on the farm either. If you want to have a snack, you have to make it. The first thing I missed about New York was grabbing a slice. (It was also the second, third and forth thing I missed about New York.). It should never be assumed that this is easy. It should also never be assumed that just because it's not easy, that it's not the most rewarding strain you can put yourself through.
In a few weeks the strawberry patch will be fruiting wildly. I'll be eating raw asparagus from the garden and cooking the rest in cast iron. I'll be hunting morels ("dry land fish") and picking sour cherries. The work will be hard and food will be our salvation. I'll be back into that creek the second I can be, and that, too, will save me. My knees will be sore, my back will be sore, and we'll be working like hell to stay ahead of the prolificness of nature. (I've always loved the spring, but never as much as nature does.). One thing I told myself when I left New York was that I might have to work through some pretty shitty weather, but I'll never have to lose another nice day to work again. This was not an exaggeration, it turns out, your entire world is outside. In retrospect, surviving those first two weeks isn't really the hard part. It's leaving in November when your time is up that's truly difficult.
I wasn't sore that first morning, but I was definitely sore every subsequent morning for the first month. There was a lot of preparation to be done: cutting and stacking firewood, making soil blocks, cultivating and transplanting––most all of it physical. April was a fickle lady, too. We'd have a freeze, then a week of 80 degree days, then another freeze and a shit-load of rain. I found myself adjusting to a lot of things all at once: to bugs, to labor, to animals, to silence, to mornings, to sun, to the outdoors, to the whims of nature, and to bathing in a creek or showering in a greenhouse. There are no easy foods on the farm either. If you want to have a snack, you have to make it. The first thing I missed about New York was grabbing a slice. (It was also the second, third and forth thing I missed about New York.). It should never be assumed that this is easy. It should also never be assumed that just because it's not easy, that it's not the most rewarding strain you can put yourself through.
Friday, March 18, 2011
How I Came to Live in a Barn: Part 7
Ladies and gentlemen, you've made it––or you've cheated, respectfully––but either way, you've arrived! This marks the seventh and final installment of "How I Came to Live in a Barn," the series that strives to connect drinking to farming as relevantly as humanly possible.
If you're just tuning in, as a quick preface to this series, from April to December of 2010 I lived in a barn. No electricity, running water, losses to Morehead State in the first round of the tournament (Sorry, Cards fans), or losses to West Virginia in the second (Let's go, Jorts!). During that time I worked on a legitimately (though proudly uncertified) organic farm in Southern Kentucky. This series is about the many whims, fascinations and revelations that eventually inspired me to drop everything and go farming. This preface appeared at the beginning of the entire series, so I guess this marks the end of that, too. sad-face emoticon. Anywho, y'ready? Wunderbar
You know how they say, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket?" Well, anyone who says that simply isn't romantic enough for me to listen to. I liked what I'd read about the place and confidently, I put all of my eggs in the their basket, never once looking back.
I learn best by experience, so immediately I ruled out going to farm school. I'd found Bugtussle on the internet, wishfully searching for biodynamic farms in and around Kentucky. Luckily, being the lush-ass area it is, natural farms abound in this part of the country. One word in particular appeared regularly in my searches––"Bugtussle"–– and the more I read about the place, the more it appealed to me. I wanted a farm either close to Louisville or close to Nashville; I wanted it to be diverse including both animals and vegetables; and I wanted to learn from someone doing something similar to what I wanted, and time and time again, my search results rendered the same farm.
Hoping for the best, I filled out the application, sent it off, crossed my fingers, and waited anxiously. I was in the book store when the phone rang and it was Bugtussle. Running out onto the busy streets that surround Union Square I nervously chatted with Eric over the sirens and horns. I couldn't believe how nervous I was, but I was also happy to be so; it meant I wanted this gig bad enough to know I could screw it up. We got along well, and he said that they required a farm visit before they could take anyone on, which I suspected, was fine with, and prepared for. After we got off the phone I booked myself a trip to Nashville, and this was that farm visit.
The driveway is a solid quarter mile of rocky dirt road, distinguished in the forest by a single, hand-made cedar mailbox. It looks nothing like any farm I'd ever entered. Guided by a thick tunnel of trees, you cross two low water fords––low most of the time. About halfway in, you pass a high tunnel on the left now, however at the time I passed its skeleton. There was a cow in my path that moved along unconcerned and leaped back into the neighbor's pasture when it saw me. As I pulled down the driveway, I could see smoke billowing out from the cabin's chimney, an outdoor kitchen and a stack of shiitake logs that told me I had chosen the right driveway in the middle of nowhere. Whew.
It didn't take long for me to warm up to the family. Eric and Cher are welcoming, intelligent, and curious, as are their 3 children. Eric and I had already spoke on the phone many times, and I had read most of what he'd recommended, including Joel Salatin's "Everything I Want to do is Illegal," and Gene Logsdon's "The Contrary Farmer" among others. We had some lunch, then set out to do chores––moving the livestock and such––then headed back down the hill to the house to warm up. It was January, and it was cold. That night it was supposed to get down to 20 degrees, and I can attest to the fact that it definitely did so.
He started me a fire in the wood-stove in the barn, where I'd be staying. My space is two rooms––one up, one down––a desk (down) and a bed (up). That's about it, besides the cookstove which was what I had to rely on for heat, that, and my ability to keep a fire going, or lack there of. At first, it was raging hot, then it was raging cold, and it stayed that way until 5:00am when Eric came over to the barn to get me. We had to move the chickens before sun-up, I was a solid block of ice. Despite my sleeping bag, layers and long-johns, it was still the coldest night of my life. I had failed at bundling, or keeping the fire going, two things I could do proficiently in New York (where the landlord keeps the fire going by law). Needless to say, when Eric came to get me, I was excited to get the blood flowing.
After we moved the chickens, we headed down to breakfast. Eric always says that you feed the animals before you feed yourself, and we never strayed from that. After some oats and fresh maple syrup, we tackled a few things on the farm––there was a snow storm coming and though he never feeds his livestock hay, he didn't want to starve them if the grass was inaccessible. So I tossed him bales for the first time in my life, and it was truly (and and little sadly) difficult. I lacked any and all form of farm muscle, the baling twine slicing through my soft, wine-shop-reared hands, and the simple act of tossing a bale off of a stack from about twenty feet up was just about enough motion to send me with it. Farming, he would tell me, is the materials handling business. I learned on the farm that you move a bunch of stuff around all day long and somehow, at the end of the week, food pops out. It's physical, then it's a miracle.
For lunch that day we had roasted pork with sweet potatoes and kimchi––all from the farm. I sat there at the table quiet, admittedly more exhausted than I wanted to admit. Eric ran out of the house and returned with a bottle from the cellar and sat it next to me. "Persimmon wine" he said, and smiled. This, I have to say, was the proverbial moment I moved into the barn. I made the kids a plate, then Cher, then Eric, then myself. Eric poured the wine. They wanted to know what I thought, and I, being a nerdy wine nerd, couldn't wait to taste it. It was unctuous, slightly oxidized and a little funky: like riesling, sherry and pears all had a feral son and it was called Persimmon Wine. And it was great. Alongside the pork roast, it was perfect even. I was elated, and (way too) excited that they drank––a legitimate fear I had going into this farming world. After lunch, they offered me the internship and they offered me that room in the barn if I wanted it. I said yes to both, then the six-year-old introduced me to all 200 hundred of his fish paintings and we spent the rest of the evening hanging out.
When I left, I took with me both soreness and enthusiasm as a souvenir. I also took with me the fact that this was going to be harder than it was in my dreams. The gravity of moving away from New York City was compounded by the gravity of how incredibly different this lifestyle would be. And how incredibly difficult. And not just for a few days like this farm visit was, but nearly 8 months to a lifetime. Between the food, and the wine, and the return to my homeland, however, it all spoke to me. I had no idea if I was going to survive it, but I was sure as hell going to give myself a chance to die trying. That April, after nearly four years at September, three and a half years after my obsession with natural wine, and a year and a half after Hervé and Éric, I was moving into my barn. I passed 8 hard fought months in that barn, through the heat, the cold, the bugs and the bites, and come April 6th of this year, I'll be fighting 8 more, eating like a king daily. When Eric offered me a second year internship, I couldn't resist. The first year I dedicated to the experience, but I still have a long way to go. The second year will be dedicated to the education, which I'll do my best to apply to the rest of my life.
I like to think that my family––generations from now––will look back fondly on the story of how crazy ol' Grandpa Fraust decided to go farming all those years ago. Hopefully they will be reminiscing over a glass of persimmon wine, or paw paw wine, or blueberry wine from the farm I willed them, and hopefully they will still be farming it. Even if I didn't really have a damn clue how to farm when I moved into the barn, and it wasn't in my family to do so, I knew it had to start somewhere, right?
So that, my friends, is how crazy ol' Grandpa Fraust came to be, came to Kentucky and came to live in a barn. In a weird little nutshell.
I want to thank you all for reading, and to say go Cats (sorry, it's March, but seriously, go Cats!)! Thank you, and happy growing.
-Fraust
If you're just tuning in, as a quick preface to this series, from April to December of 2010 I lived in a barn. No electricity, running water, losses to Morehead State in the first round of the tournament (Sorry, Cards fans), or losses to West Virginia in the second (Let's go, Jorts!). During that time I worked on a legitimately (though proudly uncertified) organic farm in Southern Kentucky. This series is about the many whims, fascinations and revelations that eventually inspired me to drop everything and go farming. This preface appeared at the beginning of the entire series, so I guess this marks the end of that, too. sad-face emoticon. Anywho, y'ready? Wunderbar
How I came to Live in a Barn: The Barn edition
You know how they say, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket?" Well, anyone who says that simply isn't romantic enough for me to listen to. I liked what I'd read about the place and confidently, I put all of my eggs in the their basket, never once looking back.
I learn best by experience, so immediately I ruled out going to farm school. I'd found Bugtussle on the internet, wishfully searching for biodynamic farms in and around Kentucky. Luckily, being the lush-ass area it is, natural farms abound in this part of the country. One word in particular appeared regularly in my searches––"Bugtussle"–– and the more I read about the place, the more it appealed to me. I wanted a farm either close to Louisville or close to Nashville; I wanted it to be diverse including both animals and vegetables; and I wanted to learn from someone doing something similar to what I wanted, and time and time again, my search results rendered the same farm.
Hoping for the best, I filled out the application, sent it off, crossed my fingers, and waited anxiously. I was in the book store when the phone rang and it was Bugtussle. Running out onto the busy streets that surround Union Square I nervously chatted with Eric over the sirens and horns. I couldn't believe how nervous I was, but I was also happy to be so; it meant I wanted this gig bad enough to know I could screw it up. We got along well, and he said that they required a farm visit before they could take anyone on, which I suspected, was fine with, and prepared for. After we got off the phone I booked myself a trip to Nashville, and this was that farm visit.
It didn't take long for me to warm up to the family. Eric and Cher are welcoming, intelligent, and curious, as are their 3 children. Eric and I had already spoke on the phone many times, and I had read most of what he'd recommended, including Joel Salatin's "Everything I Want to do is Illegal," and Gene Logsdon's "The Contrary Farmer" among others. We had some lunch, then set out to do chores––moving the livestock and such––then headed back down the hill to the house to warm up. It was January, and it was cold. That night it was supposed to get down to 20 degrees, and I can attest to the fact that it definitely did so.
He started me a fire in the wood-stove in the barn, where I'd be staying. My space is two rooms––one up, one down––a desk (down) and a bed (up). That's about it, besides the cookstove which was what I had to rely on for heat, that, and my ability to keep a fire going, or lack there of. At first, it was raging hot, then it was raging cold, and it stayed that way until 5:00am when Eric came over to the barn to get me. We had to move the chickens before sun-up, I was a solid block of ice. Despite my sleeping bag, layers and long-johns, it was still the coldest night of my life. I had failed at bundling, or keeping the fire going, two things I could do proficiently in New York (where the landlord keeps the fire going by law). Needless to say, when Eric came to get me, I was excited to get the blood flowing.
For lunch that day we had roasted pork with sweet potatoes and kimchi––all from the farm. I sat there at the table quiet, admittedly more exhausted than I wanted to admit. Eric ran out of the house and returned with a bottle from the cellar and sat it next to me. "Persimmon wine" he said, and smiled. This, I have to say, was the proverbial moment I moved into the barn. I made the kids a plate, then Cher, then Eric, then myself. Eric poured the wine. They wanted to know what I thought, and I, being a nerdy wine nerd, couldn't wait to taste it. It was unctuous, slightly oxidized and a little funky: like riesling, sherry and pears all had a feral son and it was called Persimmon Wine. And it was great. Alongside the pork roast, it was perfect even. I was elated, and (way too) excited that they drank––a legitimate fear I had going into this farming world. After lunch, they offered me the internship and they offered me that room in the barn if I wanted it. I said yes to both, then the six-year-old introduced me to all 200 hundred of his fish paintings and we spent the rest of the evening hanging out.
When I left, I took with me both soreness and enthusiasm as a souvenir. I also took with me the fact that this was going to be harder than it was in my dreams. The gravity of moving away from New York City was compounded by the gravity of how incredibly different this lifestyle would be. And how incredibly difficult. And not just for a few days like this farm visit was, but nearly 8 months to a lifetime. Between the food, and the wine, and the return to my homeland, however, it all spoke to me. I had no idea if I was going to survive it, but I was sure as hell going to give myself a chance to die trying. That April, after nearly four years at September, three and a half years after my obsession with natural wine, and a year and a half after Hervé and Éric, I was moving into my barn. I passed 8 hard fought months in that barn, through the heat, the cold, the bugs and the bites, and come April 6th of this year, I'll be fighting 8 more, eating like a king daily. When Eric offered me a second year internship, I couldn't resist. The first year I dedicated to the experience, but I still have a long way to go. The second year will be dedicated to the education, which I'll do my best to apply to the rest of my life.
I like to think that my family––generations from now––will look back fondly on the story of how crazy ol' Grandpa Fraust decided to go farming all those years ago. Hopefully they will be reminiscing over a glass of persimmon wine, or paw paw wine, or blueberry wine from the farm I willed them, and hopefully they will still be farming it. Even if I didn't really have a damn clue how to farm when I moved into the barn, and it wasn't in my family to do so, I knew it had to start somewhere, right?
So that, my friends, is how crazy ol' Grandpa Fraust came to be, came to Kentucky and came to live in a barn. In a weird little nutshell.
I want to thank you all for reading, and to say go Cats (sorry, it's March, but seriously, go Cats!)! Thank you, and happy growing.
-Fraust
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
A Prayer for Death in Passivity, Apathy and Abuse
"There are not enough rich and powerful people to consume the whole world; for that, the rich and powerful need the help of countless ordinary people." - Wendell Berry.
Articles like this from the Huffington Post infuriate me and millions like me, but the worst part is that that's even possible. If they start jailing people for recording the abuse of animals, it's our fault. It's because we (as a whole) haven't learned a god damn thing from the thousands and thousands of hours they've already recorded! Who hasn't seen the inhumane conditions their food comes from? Very few. But who hasn't ignored it? Not enough. If we simply ate better, none of this would be an issue, and we'd have all the power, not to mention sweet bods, healthy hearts, and clear consciences.
Nothing is more powerful than food. As Michael Pollan - among countless other brilliant food writers - has pointed out, you vote with your mouth 3 times a day. If you seriously want things to change in this country, you have way more control than you think. Corporations like Monsanto and big agriculture play a huge role in our government, because the government governs the people, and people gots to eat. What the people eat is up to the people however. Support a small farmer, stop eating shitty meat, stop eating fast food, get your food from the farmer's market, change gonna come.
Happy Tuesday.
Articles like this from the Huffington Post infuriate me and millions like me, but the worst part is that that's even possible. If they start jailing people for recording the abuse of animals, it's our fault. It's because we (as a whole) haven't learned a god damn thing from the thousands and thousands of hours they've already recorded! Who hasn't seen the inhumane conditions their food comes from? Very few. But who hasn't ignored it? Not enough. If we simply ate better, none of this would be an issue, and we'd have all the power, not to mention sweet bods, healthy hearts, and clear consciences.
Nothing is more powerful than food. As Michael Pollan - among countless other brilliant food writers - has pointed out, you vote with your mouth 3 times a day. If you seriously want things to change in this country, you have way more control than you think. Corporations like Monsanto and big agriculture play a huge role in our government, because the government governs the people, and people gots to eat. What the people eat is up to the people however. Support a small farmer, stop eating shitty meat, stop eating fast food, get your food from the farmer's market, change gonna come.
Happy Tuesday.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Pigs vs. Cows and the Origins of Fermentation
I've read far too many things about the origin of wine not to wonder why you guys still hang out with me. The theories are amazing, though! The most classic coming from good ol' Mesopotamia, where some fortunate tribe stumbled upon a berry bush, filled their baskets heavily, then discovered over the week that the juice at the bottom of the baskets had become delightfully fizzy. After experimenting with the magic of this, they found that if they crushed the berries, gathered the juice, covered it and let it sit, they would have a safe beverage to drink that rewarded them with a buzz––but that's not why they knew it was important. Between beer and wine (beer being discovered in a similar fashion––neither was "invented"), they almost single-handedly caused the agricultural revolution. However, as my oft-quoted fermentation guru Sandor Katz once told us, animals were well-aware of fermentation before they started walking upright, and those people who discovered how to intentionally make wine, were well of aware of it, too.
I have some theories, and they lie in the difference between pigs and cows.
Fermentation is a necessary part of our digestion. Like pigs and dogs, humans are monogastrics, or single-stomached creatures. Cows and lamb for example (called ruminants), have four stomach compartments, mostly for fermentation. That is to say, they do their own fermentation inside of their stomachs, whereas humans do their fermentation before or while they consume. However, both creatures require it to digest their food, and draw out all the microbial life (the enzymes, vitamins, etc.) that contribute to your immune system and digestion, as well as microbial diversity. It's why we salivate, and why we put vinegar on our salads, and why we like yogurt: fermentation helps to break down the food and provide the nutrients we cannot obtain through food alone. Although pigs are great foragers, there is a reason they like their food disgusting.
We had a great deal of bruised tomatoes and squash last year that we couldn't give to our shareholders, so we put them in our slop for the pigs. However, put a raw butternut squash on my plate and I'll laugh at you. so will pigs. I discovered that if I packed them in a bucket, covered it with water, and let it sit for a few days, all of the sudden I was feeding the pigs lobster! They loved the freshly fermented squash, fought over them, and devoured them. They love things to be cooked, fermented or rotting, because they, like humans, require a balance of fermented and raw food in their diets.
Sally Fallon, author of Nourishing Traditions writes that, “The enzymes in raw food, particularly raw fermented food, help to start the process of digestion and reduce the body’s need to produce digestive enzymes.” then goes on to say, “A diet composed exclusively of cooked food puts a severe strain on the pancreas, drawing down its reserves, so to speak. If the pancreas is consistently over-stimulated to produce enzymes that ought to be in foods, the result over time will be inhibited function.”
These ancient tribes were well aware of this "inhibited function" and fermented out of necessity. Things like kimchi, kefir, yogurt, pickles, coffee (yep, fermented), and chocolate (fermentation's getting cooler, right?) all have ancient origins, preservative, and biological practicality.
So when I talk about wanting to come to Kentucky and make wine, I don't mean some gimmicky grape wine, I mean anything I can ferment––my motivation is health; my motivation is the same thing that motivated Mesopotamians to start fermenting their own beverages: necessity. It should be mentioned that although most of what you find in the grocery store is legally allowed to call itself wine, it's negligibly related to it. A lot of those wines (non-natural wines) are made more like soda than wine (or "pop" depending on where you're from), and albeit tasty, they lack the beneficial qualities of fermentation. (Sally Fallon also has one of my favorite quotes about mass-produced fruits and vegetables, "Some commercially raised oranges have been found to contain no Vitamin-C," which you can apply to anything commercially raised or produced. Especially wine). My advice is make your own fermented anything. If you eat a lot of cooked food, drink more fermented fruit, eat more fermented food––even pickles!––but make them yourself for best results, or buy them locally.
I have some theories, and they lie in the difference between pigs and cows.
Fermentation is a necessary part of our digestion. Like pigs and dogs, humans are monogastrics, or single-stomached creatures. Cows and lamb for example (called ruminants), have four stomach compartments, mostly for fermentation. That is to say, they do their own fermentation inside of their stomachs, whereas humans do their fermentation before or while they consume. However, both creatures require it to digest their food, and draw out all the microbial life (the enzymes, vitamins, etc.) that contribute to your immune system and digestion, as well as microbial diversity. It's why we salivate, and why we put vinegar on our salads, and why we like yogurt: fermentation helps to break down the food and provide the nutrients we cannot obtain through food alone. Although pigs are great foragers, there is a reason they like their food disgusting.
++++
We had a great deal of bruised tomatoes and squash last year that we couldn't give to our shareholders, so we put them in our slop for the pigs. However, put a raw butternut squash on my plate and I'll laugh at you. so will pigs. I discovered that if I packed them in a bucket, covered it with water, and let it sit for a few days, all of the sudden I was feeding the pigs lobster! They loved the freshly fermented squash, fought over them, and devoured them. They love things to be cooked, fermented or rotting, because they, like humans, require a balance of fermented and raw food in their diets.
++++
Sally Fallon, author of Nourishing Traditions writes that, “The enzymes in raw food, particularly raw fermented food, help to start the process of digestion and reduce the body’s need to produce digestive enzymes.” then goes on to say, “A diet composed exclusively of cooked food puts a severe strain on the pancreas, drawing down its reserves, so to speak. If the pancreas is consistently over-stimulated to produce enzymes that ought to be in foods, the result over time will be inhibited function.”
These ancient tribes were well aware of this "inhibited function" and fermented out of necessity. Things like kimchi, kefir, yogurt, pickles, coffee (yep, fermented), and chocolate (fermentation's getting cooler, right?) all have ancient origins, preservative, and biological practicality.
So when I talk about wanting to come to Kentucky and make wine, I don't mean some gimmicky grape wine, I mean anything I can ferment––my motivation is health; my motivation is the same thing that motivated Mesopotamians to start fermenting their own beverages: necessity. It should be mentioned that although most of what you find in the grocery store is legally allowed to call itself wine, it's negligibly related to it. A lot of those wines (non-natural wines) are made more like soda than wine (or "pop" depending on where you're from), and albeit tasty, they lack the beneficial qualities of fermentation. (Sally Fallon also has one of my favorite quotes about mass-produced fruits and vegetables, "Some commercially raised oranges have been found to contain no Vitamin-C," which you can apply to anything commercially raised or produced. Especially wine). My advice is make your own fermented anything. If you eat a lot of cooked food, drink more fermented fruit, eat more fermented food––even pickles!––but make them yourself for best results, or buy them locally.
Friday, March 11, 2011
How I Came to Live in a Barn: Part 6
Welcome to Friday and another edition of "How I Came to Live in a Barn," the series that strives to connect drinking to farming as relevantly as humanly possible.
If you're just tuning in, as a quick preface to this series, from April to December of 2010 I lived in a barn. No electricity or running water, but all the paw paws, persimmons and passion fruit you could eat. During that time I worked on a legitimately (though proudly uncertified) organic farm in Southern Kentucky. This series is about the many whims, fascinations and revelations that eventually inspired me to drop everything and go farming. Once we catch up to the present, I'll use the occasion to explain what I'm up to now, beyond the blaug. Is this preface going to appear at the beginning of the entire series? You Betcha. Ready? Wunderbar.
By facilitating this whole fiasco, New York City became the unsung hero of my barn life. It introduced me to the shop, that introduced me to the wines, that introduced me to the people, who introduced me to the idea that I might one day want to be a farmer. New York is quite possibly the only entity inspiring enough to inspire someone to move out of New York City. I remember when I returned there, after my adventures with Éric and Hervé, I had a theretofore inconceivable thought: in one year, I'm gonna jet.
My goal was to commence a winemaking education by April of 2010, but I would be forced to define what that meant, and how and where to go about it––New York City not really an option. Every move up until then had been a simple, semi-logical reaction to something else––like meeting winemakers because I liked their wines––whereas this decision, I feared, required actual decision making. To make it worse, there was an offensive array of options: France? California? School? Winging it? I would spend the following year chewing on numerous ideas and spitting out the unreasonable, until I eventually landed upon the one with the most resonance. But said resolution did not come easily, until I tackled all the of the existential challenges of what do I want out of this?
I was relatively sure of two things: 1) I wanted to end up in Kentucky, my homeland, and 2) I wanted to make wine. My worries mostly fell to whether or not there would have to be concessions made to have both. Could one make good wine in Kentucky?––I feared not. Or at least that's how I felt at first, but one unexpected consequence of having to make these decisions was that I had inadvertently became obsessed with all things fermentation over that year––kombucha, kimchi, wine, cider, beer, etc.––for its social as well as medicinal attributes. I had inundated myself with nerdy wine books, leading to an obsession with microbiology––one I'll kindly spare you––but which proved to be invaluable in aiding my eventual decision. When I redefined wine, I redefined my possibilities.
An idea began growing in my head, mid-way through that year, that I could see myself simply on a farm––it didn't strictly have to be a vineyard. When we were talking to Hervé Souhaut he had said something interesting: "Wine people are almost always food people, but food people aren't necessarily wine people." Cooks aren't obliged to like wine, whereas most wine people––like myself––find the two inseparable, and I didn't really want to pursue one without the other.
Wine-making is simple––grapes, crush, ferment, right?––at least in theory. Perhaps I could teach myself, I thought, because what really intimidated me, was that I hadn't a clue about how grapes or vegetables grew, save for what I read in books. If I couldn't produce the fruit, I couldn't produce the wine. I began casually researching farms in Kentucky at the same time I was talking to winemakers in France. Food, I decided, was to remain central in my plans, no matter what I chose. Weighing the ease with which I could start my training in Kentucky (where I spoke the language and didn't require a visa) against the bureaucracy and foreignness of France––staying in the states seemed rather appealing. I remained incredulous however until one fateful night when I met biodynamic winemaker Tony Coturri in Brooklyn, and unprompted, he validated the idea.
Tony is a calm and intelligent personality, garnished with an impressive beard and an incomparable knowledge of natural winemaking. Coturri's wines of California are among some of the most pure in all the land, and I greatly respect and seek his opinion. That night, Tony suggested that he didn't think they should focus so intensely on growing grapes in the south, that it's not a grape growing climate. He added, "There's so much good fruit there––you can ferment anything," and boom. Here was one of my favorite winemakers in the world telling me that it was possible to have my cake (Kentucky) and eat it, too (fermented). That was all I needed, his words confirmed it for me. I was sold on staying in the states, on going to a farm, and teaching myself to make wine... once I learned to grow the raw materials. Now I just had to choose a farm, but luckily I had one in mind; one in Kentucky; one I'd been eying with more than just passing curiosity. So the next day, my correspondences with France stopped and I printed the application, filled it out and sent it off. A few days later, I got a call from the farmer, and next week, we'll conclude the series with a trip to Bugtussle and the glass of wine that changed it all.
Until next week, friends, cheers.
If you're just tuning in, as a quick preface to this series, from April to December of 2010 I lived in a barn. No electricity or running water, but all the paw paws, persimmons and passion fruit you could eat. During that time I worked on a legitimately (though proudly uncertified) organic farm in Southern Kentucky. This series is about the many whims, fascinations and revelations that eventually inspired me to drop everything and go farming. Once we catch up to the present, I'll use the occasion to explain what I'm up to now, beyond the blaug. Is this preface going to appear at the beginning of the entire series? You Betcha. Ready? Wunderbar.
How I Came to Live in a Barn: The New York, Tony Coturri, and one fateful year edition
My goal was to commence a winemaking education by April of 2010, but I would be forced to define what that meant, and how and where to go about it––New York City not really an option. Every move up until then had been a simple, semi-logical reaction to something else––like meeting winemakers because I liked their wines––whereas this decision, I feared, required actual decision making. To make it worse, there was an offensive array of options: France? California? School? Winging it? I would spend the following year chewing on numerous ideas and spitting out the unreasonable, until I eventually landed upon the one with the most resonance. But said resolution did not come easily, until I tackled all the of the existential challenges of what do I want out of this?
I was relatively sure of two things: 1) I wanted to end up in Kentucky, my homeland, and 2) I wanted to make wine. My worries mostly fell to whether or not there would have to be concessions made to have both. Could one make good wine in Kentucky?––I feared not. Or at least that's how I felt at first, but one unexpected consequence of having to make these decisions was that I had inadvertently became obsessed with all things fermentation over that year––kombucha, kimchi, wine, cider, beer, etc.––for its social as well as medicinal attributes. I had inundated myself with nerdy wine books, leading to an obsession with microbiology––one I'll kindly spare you––but which proved to be invaluable in aiding my eventual decision. When I redefined wine, I redefined my possibilities.
An idea began growing in my head, mid-way through that year, that I could see myself simply on a farm––it didn't strictly have to be a vineyard. When we were talking to Hervé Souhaut he had said something interesting: "Wine people are almost always food people, but food people aren't necessarily wine people." Cooks aren't obliged to like wine, whereas most wine people––like myself––find the two inseparable, and I didn't really want to pursue one without the other.
Wine-making is simple––grapes, crush, ferment, right?––at least in theory. Perhaps I could teach myself, I thought, because what really intimidated me, was that I hadn't a clue about how grapes or vegetables grew, save for what I read in books. If I couldn't produce the fruit, I couldn't produce the wine. I began casually researching farms in Kentucky at the same time I was talking to winemakers in France. Food, I decided, was to remain central in my plans, no matter what I chose. Weighing the ease with which I could start my training in Kentucky (where I spoke the language and didn't require a visa) against the bureaucracy and foreignness of France––staying in the states seemed rather appealing. I remained incredulous however until one fateful night when I met biodynamic winemaker Tony Coturri in Brooklyn, and unprompted, he validated the idea.
Tony is a calm and intelligent personality, garnished with an impressive beard and an incomparable knowledge of natural winemaking. Coturri's wines of California are among some of the most pure in all the land, and I greatly respect and seek his opinion. That night, Tony suggested that he didn't think they should focus so intensely on growing grapes in the south, that it's not a grape growing climate. He added, "There's so much good fruit there––you can ferment anything," and boom. Here was one of my favorite winemakers in the world telling me that it was possible to have my cake (Kentucky) and eat it, too (fermented). That was all I needed, his words confirmed it for me. I was sold on staying in the states, on going to a farm, and teaching myself to make wine... once I learned to grow the raw materials. Now I just had to choose a farm, but luckily I had one in mind; one in Kentucky; one I'd been eying with more than just passing curiosity. So the next day, my correspondences with France stopped and I printed the application, filled it out and sent it off. A few days later, I got a call from the farmer, and next week, we'll conclude the series with a trip to Bugtussle and the glass of wine that changed it all.
Until next week, friends, cheers.
Friday, March 4, 2011
How I came to Live in a Barn: Part 5
Welcome to Friday and another edition of "How I Came to Live in a Barn," the series that strives to connect drinking to farming as relevantly as humanly possible.
If you're just tuning in, as a quick preface to this series, from April to December of 2010 I lived in a barn. No electricity, no running water––no way! Yes way. Anyway, during that time I worked on a legitimately (though proudly uncertified) organic farm in Southern Kentucky. This series is about the many whims, fascinations and revelations that eventually inspired me to drop everything and go farming. Once we catch up to the present, I'll use the occasion to explain what I'm up to now, you know, beyond pushing the limits of the blaugosphere. Is this preface going to appear at the beginning of the entire series? Damn skippy. Ready? Wunderbar.
If you're just tuning in, as a quick preface to this series, from April to December of 2010 I lived in a barn. No electricity, no running water––no way! Yes way. Anyway, during that time I worked on a legitimately (though proudly uncertified) organic farm in Southern Kentucky. This series is about the many whims, fascinations and revelations that eventually inspired me to drop everything and go farming. Once we catch up to the present, I'll use the occasion to explain what I'm up to now, you know, beyond pushing the limits of the blaugosphere. Is this preface going to appear at the beginning of the entire series? Damn skippy. Ready? Wunderbar.
How I came to Live in a Barn: The Éric Texier and Hervé Souhaut Edition
Eric Texier tasting
January of 2009
January of 2009
When we finally found Éric's place, and introduced ourselves, he promptly led my friend Josh and I into his cellar and began telling us about his life. Éric is a reserved man, but excitable, and he never seems to lack for interesting musings. Being a nuclear scientist turned winemaker, this is not shocking. Around 30 years old he returned to his homeland of Bordeaux and went to school for winemaking then eventually found himself in a small town outside of Lyon called Charnay where Josh and I were about to taste his wines.
The wines he poured for us were perfect, all of them. This came as no surprise to either of us, as we've always enjoyed his wines, but what did come as a surprise was what he told us next: he was "moving away from biodynamics...."
Wait, what? This was the first (albeit modest) hint of negativity about biodynamics from a biodynamic producer I'd ever heard. He said that he didn't need them anymore, that his goal from the beginning was to become sustainable and he couldn't by simply practicing biodynamics. Biodynamics is about healing the earth, so what does one do once it's healed? All the gas he wasted driving back and forth to the vineyards, plus the numerous times he had to spray copper sulfate had turned him off. His vines, he told us, would die without him. Three years prior, he'd begun farming one vineyard under the tutelage of Fukuoka's writings (see last week's post), using clover cover crops and moving towards a no-till system of viticulture. These Fukuoka vines, he assured us, "don't care about Éric Texier," and he laughed.
He eventually led us into an entirely separate part of his facilities where a lone barrel of wine awaited. He kept it apart from his biodynamic barrels, uninfluenced. Using his wine thief, he thieved us all a small taste and we stepped out into the light. Vibrant. Textural. Wild––this was his first vintage of Fukuoka, and we, he told us, were the first people to taste it besides himself.
Hervé Souhaut Sainte Epine Vineyards
+++++
+++++
Later that week Josh and I, along with our friend Anca, were shaking hands with Hervé Souhaut in Ardèche––a couple hours south of Éric. He invited us to climb the steep Sainte Epine vineyards behind his house where his St Joseph grapes were grown, and he lamented the fallen parts of the stone trellis––victims of a rainy '08 vintage. He pointed to other famous vineyards on the massive, rolling hillsides as we carefully stepped through his 100-year-old syrah vines. Then he and his lovely wife, Beatrice took us about 30 minutes into an ancient, winding, aqueduct-laden paradise where his 1400's era cellar/castle houses his barrels. Then we tasted through a number of wines at different levels of bubbly fermentationess and slowly and reluctantly crept back towards his house.
After the general tour, we sat at his kitchen table and chatted––a sentence that does nothing to express how much of an honor it was being invited to do so. We talked wine philosophies, and the industrial revolution and the bourgeois of old Lyon and tasted numerous ingenious concoctions. His wife brought us some local cheese and sausage, and I attempted my best not to overindulge, by conveniently changing my standards of what it meant to indulge in the first place. As we were leaving that night, I realized that we'd just spent 8 hours hanging out with one of my favorite producers, in his home, drinking his wines and eating the cheese and sausage of his region. I'd flown halfway across the world, nearly killed Josh and I driving in Beaujolais, and spent absurd amounts of money, all for the opportunity to hang out with a few artisan farmers. All in the name of wine. wow.
Vineyards of the Ardèche
+++++
+++++
Although on the surface, it might not seem obvious how tasting the first vintage of Fukuoka wines with Éric Texier or sitting down at Hervé Souhaut's house and kickin-it for eight straight hours might inspire someone to want to move to a barn, but it absolutely did. Almost more than any other factor. As I was driving back to Lyon that night, Josh said something about becoming a winemaker, and it lingered cruelly in my thoughts. I realized I loved wine, and talking wine, and tasting wine, but that's as close to it as I'd ever get. I'd never have to make a decision to switch from biodynamics to Fukuoka, or to bemoan the hardships of a vintage even. Wine is far more than just tastes, collections and experiences, but being a wine clerk, I was only allowing myself those few sensory qualities. I would always just be a tourist of these artisan farmers like Philippe Faury, or Mathieu Lapierre, or Jean-Paul Brun, who we'd also visited on this trip and who were also off enriching their communities, culture, selves and land while making extraordinary tipple. There are plenty of tourists, I decided, but not enough communities, and especially not in the United States. I wanted to be on their side of the dinner table, inspiring people like myself, who'd came halfway across the world to meet me in my homeland, where I was busy trying to make my own champagne––OUR own champagne––while getting to know the substance that'd inspired me to do so: good ol' nature.
Josh and Philippe Faury in the Northern Rhone
Next week's post will be about the subsequent year and the decisions that had to be made––an intermezzo before the finale––and then we'll conclude the series. Ready for that bomb? mega. Until next week––cheers!
Jean-Paul Brun
Dipping corks at Marcel Lapierre
(Note: My spell check hates France and the word Blaugosphere. HATES.)
(Note: My spell check hates France and the word Blaugosphere. HATES.)
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