Vital - distributed monthly within the Detroit Free Press & The Detroit News. Also available free in hundreds of local racks
Advertisement
Advertisement
Nick Seccia, executive chef at The Henry Ford, with Roast Leg of Hannawald Lamb and Goat Cheese Gratin (recipes below).
Take It Slow
Cuisine pairs plate, planet
Do you know where your next meal is coming from? Better yet, do you know where your last meal came from? If you don’t – or if your answers involve a food-processing plant 1,000 miles away – you might consider changing the way you eat, trading it for a more pleasurable eating experience that benefits your health and the Earth’s.
You’d have plenty of company: Champions of the worldwide Slow Food movement believe in choosing locally grown and produced items, preparing them in traditional ways and savoring those meals. It’s a relaxed approach that contrasts with the eaton- the-run lives many of us lead.
There’s a strong connection between plate and planet, says Melinda Curtis, founder of Slow Food Detroit and program representative for the Michigan Department of Agriculture’s Select Michigan Program.
“Twenty-five percent of our meals are eaten at the dashboard,” she says. “Not only does fast food breed isolation, but it endangers our food supply. When we choose local food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius, it’s fresher and tastes better. We’re protecting the local food supply by ensuring biodiversity.”
To keep standard crops healthy and avoid inbreeding, Curtis explains, we need crop varieties, many of which are becoming extinct.
“Since 1903,” she says, “more than 63% of native crops have disappeared in the U.S.”
Enjoying food
Going slow isn’t just about going green. It’s also about rediscovering the joy of food.
“Slow Food is all about getting back to what food used to be: nourishment and a vehicle for drawing people together,” says Curtis, of Keego Harbor.
In cooking terms, Slow Food is the opposite of fast food. It means taking seasonal foods that are grown locally and serving them in classic ways. Such meals take longer to prepare, and also to eat. Also called eco-gastronomy, Slow Food links the pleasures of food to ecology, fair trade, the use of native foods, and getting to know the people who raised what you put on your plate.
“We can’t take the culture out of agriculture,” Curtis says.
The movement was started in 1986 by Italian food writer Carlo Petrini, in protest of the opening of an American fast-food restaurant in Rome. He worried that fast food threatened the Mediterranean lifestyle and its tradition of preparing fresh meals with local, seasonal ingredients, then savoring the dishes with family and friends.
Petrini’s Terra Madre (Mother Earth) now is a program of Slow Food International, with more than 85,000 members in 130 countries; Slow Food Detroit’s chapter has 150 followers.
Local proponents
Several metro Detroit chefs are passionate supporters of Slow Food’s principles, including Nick Seccia, executive chef of The Henry Ford. He’s so dedicated that, since 2006, Slow Food dominates the menu at The Eagle Tavern, the 1831 historic inn in Greenfield Village.
“It occurred to us that everything about The Eagle Tavern, even using candles and oil lanterns for lighting, was historically accurate except the food,” Seccia says.
His goal at first was to put only local tomatoes on Tavern tables. Slowly, he began developing relationships with area farmers, and the variety of local foods he served grew, although the decision to serve mainly Slow Foods has posed its challenges.
“You have to make a lot of effort to buy local food,” Seccia says. “You can’t just call a farm and say, ‘Send me two boxes of tomatoes.’ You have to develop relationships with the producers, see what they have on any given day, then create your menu from there.”
Some of Seccia’s recipes are from cookbooks more than 150 years old, from a time when all food was slow food. Looking for tips from this old-school chef? Seccia says there are no big secrets in a Slow-Food kitchen.
“A dish is only as good as its ingredients,” he says.
For more information about Slow Food Detroit, visit www.slowfooddetroit.org, or e-mail Melinda Curtis at Melinda@slowfooddetroit.org.
SPRING SLOW FOOD DINNER AT THE EAGLE TAVERN
7 p.m. April 18, 2008
- Locally crafted breads
- Pickled seasonal vegetables
- Fresh Goat Cheese Gratin
- Morel Mushroom Bisque
- Free-Range Turkey Bockwurst
- Roast Leg of Hannawald Lamb
- Spinach Farmhouse Gouda Pie
- Organic Wheat Noodles
- Maple Brown Sugar Pie
Roast Leg of Hannawald Lamb With Spring Mint Reduction
Roast Leg of Hannawald Lamb with organic wheat noodles.
Lamb
Ingredients
- ¼ cup fresh basil leaf
- ¼ cup fresh parsley
- 2 garlic cloves, peeled
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 4 tablespoons red wine, divided
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 5- to 8-pound boned leg of farm-raised free-range lamb
- Cracked black pepper, as needed Sea salt, as needed
Directions Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Combine basil, parsley, garlic, olive oil, 2 tablespoons red wine and mustard in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.
Open the lamb leg and rub the inside of the leg with some of the puréed herb mixture. Close the leg and net or tie tight with twine, then rub the outside with the remaining mixture. Season with salt and pepper, place in a roasting pan and roast for 2½ hours, or until internal temperature of 160 degrees is reached.
Remove leg from oven and allow to rest on countertop for 15 minutes.
Remove twine or netting and slice lamb thin. Serve glazed with mint reduction (recipe follows). Buttered whole-wheat noodles with chopped parsley is a good accompaniment.
|
Roasted Lamb Stock Ingredients
|
Directions Rinse bones and lightly coat with oil. Place in roasting pan and roast at 400 degrees until golden brown. Place bones in a deep pot. Pour off fat from roasting pan. Combine celery, carrots and onions with tomato paste; add to pan in which bones were roasted. Return to the oven and roast until well browned. Add cold water to bones and bring to a boil. Reduce down to a light simmer. Remove browned vegetables from pan and add to bones. Heat the pan in which vegetables were browned and deglaze with red wine; add to stock. (Deglazing loosens and dissolves meat and drippings from bottom of pan that formed during cooking to extract all flavor.) Add spices and herbs to stock and simmer about 6 hours. Strain liquid from bones and use for mint reduction. |
|
Mint Reduction
|
Directions Combine all ingredients except salt and mint in a saucepan; cook at a low boil until reduced down to about three cups. Strain out tomato and thyme. Before serving, chop the mint fine and add to the sauce. Season with salt if needed. For information on ordering Michigan-raised Hannawald lamb, call 517.851.7304. |
Fresh Goat Cheese Gratin on Dried Cherry Arugula Salad
Ingredients
- 1 small sheet or round focaccia bread
- 4 ounces locally made fresh goat cheese
- ¼ cup dried Michigan-raised cherries, plumped overnight in ¼ cup white wine
- 1 cup baby arugula
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon organic apple cider vinegar
- Pinch of coarse sea salt
- Pinch of cracked black peppercorns
Directions: Cut out 8 1½-inch circles or triangles from the focaccia bread. Scoop a ½-ounce of cheese onto focaccia and brown under a broiler or with a torch until a golden color comes over the cheese.
Drain dried cherries and combine with arugula, olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Place two focaccia rounds on each plate, and top with dressed arugula and cherries.
WHERE TO BUY LOCAL
Wondering where to buy local in metro Detroit? For starters, ask your grocer which fruits and vegetables have come from local producers. Most have some Michigan produce. For a wider variety, check out Plum Market (Ann Arbor, Bloomfield Township, (www.plummarket.com) and Whole Foods (Ann Arbor, Rochester Hills, Troy, West Bloomfield, www.wholefoodsmarket.com); both are committed to carrying locally grown products year-round.You can also visit a farmers market, some of which are open yearround.