Category: The Edible Articles

Embracing the Wild

Berry hunting has always been one of my favourite summer activities: exploring roadsides matted with wild alpine strawberry, the burnt-off slopes of the Westbank fire scar resplendent with Oregon grape, or the rotting stumps of the big firs and hemlocks in Campbell Valley covered in a riot of wild huckleberries. In June the banks of the salmon-bearing stream that flows across our property is dotted with salmonberries, which thrive along drainage ditches and stream-beds. Later there will be the huckleberries and thimbleberries in the low lands. On higher ground there are the less celebrated Oregon grape, salal berries and choke cherries that were staples for jams and jellies on the homesteads of early European settlers. I’m pretty busy most of […]

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Eat Local, Save the World

I’m fortunate enough to live on Fraser Common Farm Cooperative in the heart of the Fraser Valley. Founded forty years ago by an idealistic group of urban planners, do-it-yourselfers, community activists and back-to-the landers, the initial vision for the farm was to grow food for ourselves and our community. Today the farm services around 40 restaurants, 60 CSA customers, three farmers markets, provides gleaning opportunities for our community, and still grows food to feed ourselves. We grow over 40 different leafy greens, 6 varieties of garlic, beautiful market vegetables and fruits, nuts and berries from 160 trees and bushes. People are always delighted to visit our farm. Some are excited by all the different kinds of kale we grow, some […]

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Keep Farmland For Farming

Spring 2009 Last summer a few hundred people sat down for a 100-mile dinner at the Semiahmoo Fish and Game Club to celebrate the 35th birthday of the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR). While there was singing and a cake, the party had a poignant and somber note as well. Harold Steves, often referred to as the grandfather of the ALR, related the story of the Steves’ family farm. “Our farm was in the dairy business from 1877 to 1962. In 1958 the City of Richmond quietly rezoned about 1200 acres of farmland in Richmond from agricultural to residential. There were new milk industry requirements brought in that year and our barn didn’t qualify—the ceilings where too low, the aisles not […]

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The Return of the Salmon

IT’S 1200 KILOMETRES FROM THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA River, just north of Portland, to Osoyoos Lake in southern BC. Travelling by canoe or kayak would be an inspiring, though arduous, journey—heading east through Port- land, then twisting south and north through glacial valleys, farms laid out in squares along the river, and small towns with names like Sunnyslope and Longview, Pateros and Tonasket. Equally inspiring is that the Okanagan sockeye salmon make this trip every year, swimming the entire distance in as little as thirty days. Most of us probably think of grapevines and fruit trees when we think of the Okanagan, but the salmon have played an important role in the history of the valley, stretching back millennia. […]

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A Fresh Look at Pork

By Michael Marrapese – Photo by Carole Topalian In my mother’s kitchen there used to be a soup tin of grease left over from frying bacon on Sunday mornings. The fat got reused for cooking, adding flavour to many dishes. I have never had a similar can in my own kitchen, however; the trend for a while was to move away from animal fat, toward margarine and vegetable oils. Jump ahead 35 years and a number of big thinkers about food are accusing margarine of crimes against health and flavour. Many chefs are embracing butter and bacon with enthusiasm. Humans have been eating pork for a long time, and today it accounts for over a third of the meat consumed […]

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Cows, Milk and Marketing Boards

By Michael Marrapese During a recent trip to France, I stopped at a small agricultural store that sold not only tools, farm clothing, and fencing wire to farmers, but also local cheeses, wines, vinegars, jams, and cured meats. What surprised me the most were the clearly labelled containers of raw milk. In BC, only the BC Milk Marketing Board is allowed to distribute raw milk. It essentially manages the milk supply, buying milk from farmers across the province at a fixed price, transporting milk to producers and bottlers, testing for quality and microbial content, and ensuring a consistent product to secondary processors. Supply management, as the name implies, involves regulating, controlling, and manipulating the supply of a product in order […]

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Back to the Garden

By Michael Marrapese Photo by Brian Harris I grew up on the East Coast. Almost every kid had friends, aunts, uncles, or grandparents who lived on a farm. I remember playing in the corncribs, climbing trees in the orchards, picking baby corn, harvesting tomatoes in the summer, and binning potatoes in the fall. The smell of green peppers on a hot day and the taste of freshly pulled young carrots are still vivid memories forty years later. But a lot has changed. The children from family farms have moved into towns, and cities have sprawled to consume farmland. About eighty per cent of Canada’s population now lives concentrated in urban areas, on what was once productive farmland. In rural parts […]

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The Persephone Season

By Michael Marrapese, January 2010 In Greek mythology, beautiful Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, was kidnapped by Hades and taken to the underworld. Demeter, goddess of the harvest, was despondent. Zeus demanded their daughter’s release, but because Persephone had eaten a pomegranate given to her by Hades, she was bound to return to the underworld for a part of each year. During that time Demeter refused to let anything grow. The concept of winter began. Today, in defiance of the myth, many backyard gardeners and commercial farmers are pushing their harvests into the winter months. At West Coast Seeds, Mark Macdonald reports a burgeoning interest in winter gardening. This last summer he’s seen seed sales continue right through to […]

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