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Make
the most of Contra Costa County's Bounty
Supporting
local producers can be as simple as shopping at a local farmers' market instead
of the grocery store—and twice as tasty.
Frog Hollow sells at markets in Livermore on Thursdays and Danville
on Saturdays. It posts complete information about crops at its website,
www.froghollow.com.
Dan Marciel sells tomatoes in Livermore on Thursday and Pleasanton on
Saturday. Paul Lamborn brings almonds and peaches, fresh and dried,
to Walnut Creek on Sunday, Pleasant Hill on Saturday, and occasionally
to Orinda on Saturdays.
Peter Wolfe keeps buyers up-to-date with his
Blenheims and
Sun Crests at www.peterwolfe.com
The Brentwood U-pick farms and farm stands offer a brochure containing a map,
names of farms, and approximate harvest dates. Send a stamped, self-addressed
envelope
to Harvest Time in Brentwood, P.O. Box O, Brentwood, CA 94513. Harvest Time's
website, www.harvest4u.com,
is indexed both by product and individual farm.
Patronizing restaurants and shops that feature local
products is another way to support local producers. Spiedini and Lark Creek,
in Walnut Creek, seek out Brentwood and Oakley farmers for their produce,
as do Wente Vineyards in Livermore and Mazzini in Berkeley.
Both Prima, in Walnut Creek, and Andronico's,
in Danville, have large selections of wines made from Contra Costa County-grown
grapes. Prima serves Oakley-grown zinfandels from Rosenblum and John Eppler,
mourvedres from Cline Cellars and Ridge, and a syrah from T-Vine.
Lark Creek sells an Oakley zinfandel by Rosenblum,
and Bridges, in Danville, sells a Rosenblum Oakley zinfandel and an Oakley
mourvedre by Thomas Coyne.
Meanwhile, the customer is always right.
A few polite requests at wineshops or favorite restaurants can't hurt and
just might convince an owner or sommelier to buy local.
For
further information on the Slow Food Movement, visit its website at
www.slowfood.com.
And anyone interested in forming or joining a Contra Costa County Slow Food
convivium should call Jeanne Warren at
(925) 680-4595.
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Sensory
excess is the name of the game when it comes to Slow Food: lingering
pleasures and rich, robust flavors enjoyed three times a day with meals
by Nancy Freeman
/ Photograph by Mitch Tobias
 Early
every morning, workers at Mi Rancho Tortilla Factory in San Leandro
start their day by grinding corn into fresh, moist tortilla masa for
delivery to Jim Maser's Berkeley restaurant, Picante Cocina Mexicana.
In spite of his modest prices, Maser refuses to serve the ready-made
tortillas used by other Mexican restaurants. Not even tortillas made
on-site from masa harina—ground corn flour—satisfy his need for authenticity.
So, all day long, cooks carefully pat and press the freshly ground tortilla
masa into handmade tortillas just as mothers throughout Mexico have
done for centuries. At Mazzini Trattoria, an Italian trattoria also
owned by Maser, the wine list consists exclusively of artisanal Italian
products.
"In the goal of looking for great flavor, you have to look to the age-old
processes," says Maser, a Lafayette resident. He feels that his responsibility
as a restaurateur is not only to please his customers but to support
growers, producers, and manufacturers of fine products. He is one of
many Diablo Country food lovers who have been attracted to an international
trend gaining momentum across the United States. It is the Slow Food
Movement. So exactly what is Slow Food?
The Slow Food Movement started in Italy
14 years ago as a protest against American-style fast food. It advocates
long, drawn-out meals shared with friends and family. But there is a
great deal more to Slow Food than dawdling over dinner.
Slow Food is an appreciation of cuisine
in all its complexities. Its history, origins, seasonality, production,
and the social nexus surrounding it all play a role in understanding
a food product and its true value.
First and foremost, the enjoyment of food
is sensory. It is the slow realization of flavor in a multicourse Chinese
meal as various foods stimulate the different taste buds on the tongue,
moving from tip to sides and back, orchestrating salty, sweet, bitter,
and sour. It is the evocative depth and specificity provided by a heady
aroma like vanilla. It is the unctuous quality of a chocolate mousse
or the sparkle of a brilliant red wine, as exquisite to look at as it
is to sip. It is a triple-crème cheese melting in the mouth or the slow,
succulent feel of an artichoke petal surrendering its flesh as it glides
through the teeth.
In Diablo Country, it is easy to take
for granted Slow Food treasures such as the bursting flesh of a perfectly
ripe fig and the delicate crunch of its tiny seeds; the light tang of
a freshly made goat's-milk cheese; the meaty texture of a portobello
mushroom, with its deep, woodsy flavor; the chewiness of new-baked bread.
Figs grow in our backyards. Goat cheeses, from the mildest youngsters
to rich, runny, lightly gamy varieties, are available at farmers' markets.
Portobellos are on every menu, and the area is dotted with small bakeries.
For the Slow Food Movement, rich as the
abundance of California flavors may be, they are but the tip of a gastronomical
iceberg, and, like other flavors throughout the world, they are under
the threat of destruction from a hurry-up ideology where technology
reigns supreme. Subtleties and varieties of produce, cheese, sausage,
fish, wines, and preparations beyond imagination cling to the soil,
defined by weather, farming conditions, and local tradition in distant
communities to form an international culinary heritage, much of which
has already been lost.
When a group of Italian intellectuals
discovered 14 years ago that McDonald's planned to raise the dreaded
golden arches directly within Rome's cultural heartland, former political
activist and current Slow Food Movement President Carlo Petrini drafted
a manifesto setting forth the fundamental Slow Food demand for "suitable
doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment."
Three years later, delegates from 15 countries and three different continents
met at the Opéra Comique in Paris, endorsing the manifesto—and the Slow
Food Movement was born.
What began half in jest has grown into
an international organization with 60,000 members in 35 countries on
five continents. Its goals have evolved from a simple defense of gustatory
pleasure to a serious effort to preserve artisanal products and traditional
varieties of food. In the firm belief that increased consumption will
encourage traditional artisans and farmers to go on producing, the organization
publicizes and popularizes rare products. To ensure a future consumer
base for quality foods, it runs educational programs to teach children
about the origins of food and flavors.
Most dazzling by far is the Slow Food
biennial food fair or Salone del Gusto, dedicated to highlighting traditional,
regional food and wine. Last November's Salone, a five-day binge held
in Turin, showcased the products of 354 farmers, chefs, and artisans
from more than 20 countries, including Australia, Chile, China, Mexico,
Morocco, and Spain.
A wave of humanity surged through a former
Fiat factory from one taste sensation to the next, attempting, in Slow
language, "to develop the organoleptic faculties." Mountains of rare
cheeses and sausages from all over Europe filled the groaning tables
in one great hall, their mingling aromas and extraordinary flavors justifying
Petrini's rallying cry for "an international movement to defend microbes."
More than 2,500 wines, some of them world-class and extremely rare,
glittered in the tasting glasses. Participants—more than 120,000 of
them—wove from comparative
olive and oyster tastings to vertical wine comparisons,
from whiskeys to chocolates, from beer to marzipan, from truffles to
salt cod. Multicourse meals by two- and three-star chefs featured rarities,
all of them savored slowly with their matching wines.
A
Registry of Endangered Flavors
While the Slow Food Movement remains firmly dedicated to
sensory excess, it is the mission behind the abundance that appeals
to Diablo Country residents. "We do so many food and wine events that
we didn't need to join another organization just to have more activities,"
says Benicia member Linda Hawn. "The mission is far more important to
us."
Part of that mission is the Ark of Good
Taste, a registry of endangered flavors that Slow hopes to save from
oblivion. The registry encourages farmers and artisans to continue producing
by drawing local and international attention to products. The American
Ark recently welcomed a number of California products. These include
hard jack cheese, a nutty-flavored grating cheese made only by the Sonoma
Cheese Factory, and Vella cheese, also made in Sonoma; Gravenstein apples,
orchards of which have been uprooted to make way for wine grapes; red
abalone, in danger of being overfished; Sun Crest peaches, immortalized
in David Mas Masumoto's book Epitaph for a Peach; and traditionally
smoked chipotle chiles produced by Tierra Vegetables, in Healdsburg.
"California is the heart of the Slow Food
membership in the United States," says Patrick Martins, who acts as
director for Slow Food USA from the movement's international headquarters
in Bra, Italy. Comparing California to the East Coast, he adds, "People
in California believe in it and live its principles. In the Bay Area,
life moves a little slower."
Life moves slower, of course, because
California is a major agricultural region, one of the most productive
in the world. Surrounded by farm-fresh produce and locally produced
wine, residents relate to food and farming with their palates and hearts
more directly than inhabitants of the densely urban East.
Recipe concepts bubble up directly from
the soil into the minds of Bay Area chefs with no detours via produce
middlemen. When delicate figs are there for the picking, an irresistible
appetizer of figs stuffed with Gorgonzola and baked in a brick oven
is a stroke of common sense for Charles Downing, of Spiedini. At Maser's
Mazzini, less is more in a pizza with paper-thin slices of newly harvested
potatoes over a layer of fontina cheese enlivened by chopped fresh rosemary.
The
Experience of Eating Together
Marion Cunningham, Walnut Creek-based author of The Fannie
Farmer Cookbook, joined the Slow Food Movement because it "has a strong
sense of community and concern about the shortcuts which we have come
to use when handling food."
Cunningham's mission has been to urge people to return to the family
table. After a series of cooking classes for children, she published
Cooking with Children. More recently, a series of adult classes inspired
Learning to Cook with Marion Cunningham (see Stuff
We Like).
Cunningham shares a profound belief with
the Slow Food Movement that the experience of eating together—particularly
when food is consumed on the site where it is prepared—is the fundamental
civilizing experience. "No other ritual in the life of a community is
as important," she says. "People have done this since prehistoric times.
Man constantly needs to be reminded that he can't take everything off
the plate; he must leave something for the next guy."
"Slow is a combination of sensibilities,"
says Maser. "It doesn't mean stopping. It means understanding how food
is made." Maser is a member of the Berkeley Slow Food convivium. Conviviums
exist also in San Francisco and Napa County, with three in Sonoma County.
A new one is in the formative stages in San Jose. Together, they add
up to a quarter of the Slow Food Movement's United States membership.
A self-confessed "foodaholic," Jeanne
Warren, of Pleasant Hill, joined the Slow Food Movement because she
is attracted to the concept of leading life at a slower pace and "getting
back to flavor instead of just appearance." She would like to help bring
the European concept, "the idea of regionalized foods," to the United
States.
"I have the paperwork sitting on my desk
to open a convivium in Contra Costa County," says Warren. She thinks
she would have little trouble pulling together enough people to get
one started. "I don't have friends who don't like good food," she says.
"But," she asks, "are there enough issues
to sustain a local convivium? Should our convivium run up to Sacramento?
Or east toward the Delta?"
The
Disappearing Vineyards
Oakley vineyard owner Dwight Meadows would argue there are issues aplenty
for a group like the Slow Food Movement right in Contra Costa County.
Meadows farms 60 acres of zinfandel vines in Oakley, of which 15 acres
are 102 years old. The wine from these vines is deep and rich in flavor,
unlike anything from the newer plantings.
During the Oakley housing boom of the
late 1970s to late 1980s, Meadows estimates, more than half of the grapes
in Oakley were lost. "We went from a town of 1,250 people to 25,000—and
it's only slowed down lately," he adds.
Meadows now sells most of his grapes to
Rosenblum Cellars in Alameda, where Allen Flock uses wine jargon to
describe the move from farming to housing. "When we see another farm
going under, we say the farmer decided to T-bud over to condominiums,"
he says.
Not only does Oakley produce outstanding
old-vine zinfandel, but some of the finest mourvedre grapes in the state
still cling to its cracked, sandy soil, growing on their own roots and
immune to phylloxera. The poor, unirrigated soil yields a small quantity
of extremely intense fruit, according to Fred Cline, president of Cline
Cellars.
Seven years ago, Cline estimates the vineyard
acreage in the area had slipped to 700 to 800 acres. Today, farmers
like Meadows have bought back some of the property zoned for housing
and have replanted it to grapes. Janet Caprile, Farm Advisor for the
UC Cooperative Extension, says that today the Oakley acreage has crept
back to between 1,000 and 1,200—about half are old vines.
Still, says Meadows, "What is actually
sad about this county is that you have a hard time finding wine produced
in this area. We [farmers] need more people consuming our wine to give
us a warm and fuzzy feeling, and to convince my neighbors to keep up
what they're doing."
Hungry for the Freshest Fruits
And
it's not just wine grapes that are threatened by Contra Costa County's
modernization. Brentwood, source of some of the finest produce in the
Bay Area, has been the fastest-growing city in the state for the last
three years.
Brentwood's U-picks and farm stands have
long served the needs of Contra Costa County residents hungry for the
freshest fruits and vegetables. More recently, organic farms have sprouted
up, selling, among other things, that member of the American Ark, the
Sun Crest peach.
Frog Hollow Farms sells Sun Crests and
other fruits to the best chefs in the Bay Area. Jim Maser, Charles Downing,
and Kimball Jones, of Wente Vineyards, buy his peaches, as does Alice
Waters at Chez Panisse. Peter Wolfe, owner of a Brentwood U-pick, sells
Sun Crests as well as the honeyed, lightly acidic Blenheim apricot,
now increasingly difficult to find because it is low-yielding and doesn't
ship well.
Other farmers are barely hanging on. Paul
Lamborn now has only 70 Sun Crest trees, down from 500 since he lost
half his land to the Contra Costa County Water District. His Sun Crests
sell out at the Walnut Creek and Pleasant Hill farmers' markets by 10
a.m. every week during the season.
Quong Tom, of Brookside Farm, bit into
a peach Melba made with a Strawberry Peach while visiting Paris years
ago. It was a peach of incredible delicacy. Its white flesh, streaked
with red, melted like sugar on his tongue. So when he started a small
farm as a hobby, he searched high and low and finally came up with 90
trees of Strawberry and Nectar Peaches, pale beauties without a trace
of acid, so rare he has never seen them anyplace else.
Both peaches are fragile and bruise in
the picking. Tom struggles to get them to market in shape good enough
to sell. While rootstock for the Sun Crest is still available at local
nurseries, Tom found only one nursery carrying the Strawberry Peach
and, even then, the variety was not listed in the catalog. Efforts to
expand his plantings mean calling and coaxing nurserymen to locate more.
Tea
and Roasted Melon Seeds
Meanwhile, the circle of potential Contra Costa Slow Food
members extends well beyond Jeanne Warren's circle of food-loving friends.
Food professionals in the area may never have heard of the Slow Food
Movement but share its philosophy.
Faz Poursohi, owner of Faz Restaurant
and Catering in Danville, explains that his most cherished memories
from a childhood in Iran revolve around the sharing of food with family.
Most joyous for him was celebrating the winter solstice, the most important
holiday of the year. "We would start with tea and roasted melon seeds,"
says Poursohi. "Then gradually the fruit would come, and slowly the
bread. Then we would have the pickled garlic—aged a few years and very
strong—and pickled eggplant, pickles of all sorts. Then would come the
main courses, chicken and lamb. After the meal, we would have fruits—pomegranates
and very sweet grapes. The highlight was when my father would cut the
melons, the very best ones kept from the previous summer and still bursting
with juice."
Cooking and eating with friends and family
are still all-important to Poursohi. Speaking of baking at home in his
wood-burning oven, he adds, "How festive it is to cook with! You make
a little dough with your friends and you cook with it. Not a big deal,
but it's a great experience."
Charles Downing is another advocate of
the Slow style though he has
no involvement with the organization. "Coming to the table is truly
a rapturous time," he says. "That which is honest and pure is sitting
on the dish, coupled with what is honest and pure that is being shared.
It is a time of enrichment that we can look back on with fond memories—even
if it is only yesterday's lunch."
Like Downing, Kimball Jones, executive
chef at Wente Vineyards, believes in supporting local growers. He buys
produce from Brentwood farmers who sell goods at farmers' markets, U-picks,
and roadside stands. Squash and beans, those elemental American vegetables,
come from Farmer's Daughter and Dwelley Farms. And the brilliant tomatoes
that appear on his tables in summer are grown right there in Livermore.
On the menu, he labels them simply "Dan Marciel's Tomatoes."
Farmers like Quong Tom and Dwight Meadows are obvious beneficiaries
of an organization aimed at promoting local products and urging their
consumption within Contra Costa County. In turn, the Slow Food Movement
can assist the citizens of Diablo Country in turning back the tide of
blandness and uniformity sweeping over grocery store foodstuffs.
But flavor is still alive and well in
Contra Costa County, produced by farmers, some of whom hang on by a
thread to a lifestyle they love: thick, jammy wines produced by irreplaceable
century-old vines, fields of vegetables a customer can wade into and
pick to the heart's content.
Foods like these are always best shared
with friends and family and savored slowly. And these foods will have
to be protected if the next generation is to enjoy them—or our children
will grow up eating sterile nonflavors grown for shipping rather than
taste. The Contra Costa County convivium-to-be has its task laid out
for it.
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