TO AN ISLAND AND BACK WITH THE SCENT OF THE SEA

The green green Ontario countryside is unrolling outside the window as this train I'm on speeds toward Toronto in the golden late-afternoon light. The half-full moon is up and there are wispy trails of cloud gauzily draped across the blue sky, catching the late light.

I've been on the island of Grand Manan this week, a completely transporting trip to another world, it felt like. The drive across small roads in Quebec's Eastern Townships, huge swoops of hills, was great, and a reliving of drives I took as a kid with my parents, though now those roads are paved, not dirt. Northern Maine is as pine tree-lined and dark as ever, with beautiful salt-box houses and outbuildings, sparely elegant. But it was Grand Manan, with its steep sandstone cliffs on the west coast, and curving small harbours on the other side that was the new pleasure.

My friend Lianne and her husband have a small house just near Castalia Marsh, on the north end of the island, with a view due east across the water, Nova Scotia out of sight across the blue of the Bay of Fundy. The tides weren't as huge as usual this week, because the moon is not full, though they were still remarkable compared to the tides in most places. The weather was changeable, so skies were dramatic.

On the food front, we went each day to the terrifically good (we have nothing near this quality in Toronto) artisanal bakery, North Head Bakery, not far from Lianne's house. The St John's River breads, multigrain, au levain, with a wonderful crust, were stunning, and so was the Old French Raisin bread (even though I don't usually love raisins in bread). The bakery alone is worth the trek to Grand Manan, seriously. (It's open from May until Canadian Thanksgiving, in October, five days a week.)

We had other luck too: there were fresh scallops at the Kwik-Way one evening, so we bought a pound of them and cooked them lightly and quickly in a little oil with some fresh local garlic. We ate them over fresh rice, with tender salad greens and yellow cherry tomatoes from a wonderful local garden in Whale's Cove. Instead of salt, I sprinkled my rice and tomatoes with dulse flakes - a great condiment from Grand Manan. Lianne and I are hoping to do a three day immersethrough session at this time next year on Grand Manan, probably the week after Labour Day. Now I've seen for myself how much food and culture there will be to explore with people. ANd then there's the whale-watching too....

We stopped in at a dulse-selling place and learned a little about how dulsing works, and about the other seaweeds/algaes that are gathered in Grand Manan. Talk turned to the perils of fishing: a few days ago a scallop boat with four aboard went down in the Bay of Fundy. There's no explanation for it, but the boat has gone. The men at the dulse shop talked about another boat that went down suddenly recently: something important (I don't remember what, the rudder? or?) broke or popped, making a large hole, but in that case the men were luckier, there was a lifeboat and they realised in time to get it launched and save themselves. I had thought that weather was the big risk, but really, it was a reminder that nothing can be taken for granted when you depend on the sea.

My small bag of clothes from the trip is impregnated with sea-aroma, the taste of the wild deeps, for I've brought bags of dulse back with me to Toronto. That haunting iodine-iron-salt-and more scent brings with it the reminder of our fragility in the face of mother nature's power. And it also reminds me of our ongoing debt to those who fish and grow and gather food for us.

HEALTHY LOCAL AGRICULTURE MATTERS

It's a rainy Saturday morning, quiet, with only the sound of drips onto window ledges and spattering raindrops on leaves, and then that sprinkling lighter sound of fine rain as it hits the ground.  Out the glass doors at the back, open to let in the slightly chilly moist air, there's a wall of green.  It's the ivy on the garage, lushly in summer leaf, a green wall at the back of our compact garden.  I have the impression that if I had different ears to hear with, I'd also catch the slurping sounds of the growing tomato and pepper and cucumber plants out there, as well as the herbs, sucking up this fresh rain.  

The problem with a rainy Saturday morning is that it does the outdoor farmers' markets no good.  There are two major ones in central Toronto, at Brickworks and at Wychwood, both of them relatively new (in the past five years).  At Brickworks there's a huge roof over everyone, so the rain is a problem "only" because it is apt to discourage shoppers from turning up.  But at Wychwood vendors must rely on tents and canopies, and shoppers are stuck walking in the rain., so it's uncomfortable as well as discouraging.  Those who usually go by bicycle, like me, will most likely stay home, as I am doing today, writing this blog rather than pedalling through the lovely empty early morning streets.

The largest farmers' market here, long-established, is downtown, at St Lawrence Market, in the "north building".  The south building has a permanent market of fishmongers and cheese merchants and butchers, etc etc (open Tuesday to Saturday).  The north market is only on Saturdays, and is packed with vendors selling meat and cheese and vegetables and fruit, and bread and sweet baking, as well as some prepared foods.  There's no hard rule about local only, as there is at the outdoor markets, nor any requirement that foods on sale be organic or sustainably grown, though as consumers' awareness of those issues and labels grows, who knows?

The St Lawrence Farmers' Market is there year-round.  So is the Wychwood Market (it moves indoors in cold weather, into a beautiful galleria space in the refurbished TTC barns).  And so too is the Thursday market at Dufferin Grove, to the west of downtown.  So people who go to those markets can and do develop the habit of going each week ... and it is habit that can sustain a market.  In fact without it, the markets have to rely each week on consumers knowing about a particular market and then deciding to go.  Habit and necessity are much more reliable sustainers of farmers' markets than last-minute whim.

And why am I going on and on musing about this, as the rain intensifies outside?  Well once you've seen how hard farmers work, especially farmers doing family-farm-scale sustainable agriculture, the fact that that hard work is not enough, that they also have to cope with the vagaries of consumer behaviour at fledgling farmers' markets, makes you anxious for them, and in fact anxious for us all.

How can we make the essential-to-life work of farming a rewarding and rewarded part of our community?  How to keep this thing called sustainable local agriculture on track?

The local markets are one element.  And we need to get in the habit of relying on the markets.  But relying in what way?

In North America we are generally rushed and have the habit of doing "one-stop shopping", getting it all over with at one large comprehensive grocery store.  Most of us don't have the luxury of a European-style set of small specialty shops: the butcher, the fish monger, the cheese-seller, all within easy walking or driving distance.  The large grocery store is the substitute for that.  And so for us "reliance" on a market means we feel confident that we will find all the food we need to shop for all at the one location.

Very few of the farmers' markets can provide that.  There is meat, and vegetables, and fruit, but no dairy apart from a little cheese.  The only exception is the St Lawrence Farmers' market in the north building.  And what buyers can't find there they can get in the permanent south building market.  So the larger better established markets will, I hope, continue to function reasonably well for farmers and for consumers, but the very small ones will probably fade away, as the cost of bringing in food for an uncertain result becomes too expensive and discouraging an equation.  

Getting locally-grown and -produced food into grocery stores is the other important piece of the puzzle.  (I'm leaving aside for the moment the CSA (community-supported agricuture) movement, which is hugely important way of ensuring reliable markets for farmers; and also the resurgence of urban gardening (urban farming is the new buzzword)).  

It is happening.  Independent grocery stores like wonderful Fiesta Farms here in Toronto, are developing long-term relationships with farmers and stocking their shelves, especially in the produce section, with locally and sustainably grown food.  Hurrah!

All this is not just about Toronto, or other cities in North America.  Most industrialising countries face the conflicting pressures of on the one hand feeding people affordably in the short term (the most food at the cheapest price), and on the other protecting local food resources and local agriculture for the long-term future (emphasis on local and sustainable).

 

So the question remains:  How do we keep the local food scene vibrant?  How do we discourage the importing of foods that are displacing the locally grown versions ?  (Garlic from China, which floods the market in Thailand and Vietnam as well as in North America, undercutting the better-quality locally grown garlic, is the quickest example, but there are many others.)  This is the real "health issue"...

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It's still raining.  There was a heavy downpour and now we are back to drizzle.  I went out for several hours (a few paragraphs ago) to have dim sum with my friend Dina.  We found ourselves eating three-layer pork and other rich and hearty fare, as we sat in our sweaters - on June 20!  Bring on the hot weather, say I!!

And once it comes, the summer heat, I promise to be a little more light-hearted here.  Something about the chilly damp brought on this serious questing tone today.  Hope you stick with me nonetheless.

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A final note, that brings me back to the garden and the rain:  The garlic and shallots that are planted in odd spots around the edge of the garden have strong aromatic leaves that I harvest in handfuls, then chop and stir-fry.  Now their lovely curling scapes have formed, and those too I snap off, chop and stir-fry.  Other green candidates in the garden include arugula and tat soi. The fresh gathered greens are all part of a mid-morning addiction that starts with leftover rice put into in my favorite bowl of the moment and then set aside.  Into a hot wok goes olive oil, then a little mustard seed until it pops, then a fresh egg, which is fried and flipped over before being lifted out onto the rice.  The wok goes back on the heat and the chopped gathered green stuff goes in to get a quick hard dose of heat.  I turn it out onto the egg and rice, then squeeze on some lime juice and drizzle on some nam pla prik (fish sauce with hot chiles chopped into it).  Sometimes some torn fresh herbs (shiso, parsely, arugula...whatever!) go on top.  There's nothing better!

I have a feeling I may have written about this earlier.  Sorry if I'm repeating myself!