Relearning Food Traditions

In a day and age when people are working long hours away from their homes and convenient, good quality food and drinks are just a phone call or click away, the idea of producing any of this on your own seems daunting. I had a roommate in college who was completely taken aback when he came home to find me baking bread. He was so used to going to the grocery store to buy bread that came from a factory that it never even occurred to him that it was possible to do in a normal household kitchen.

I, along with many others in my generation, was very disconnected from the food system for most of my life. Growing up my family regularly baked Syrian bread (which is nearly impossible to find in a store) and my mom always cooked delicious dinners with complicated recipes. Unfortunately, I didn’t always find cooking that interesting, so I rarely payed attention to anything other than the finished product. Now that I am older and have matured (slightly), I am a lot more curious about how things are made and I find it very rewarding to produce something that I would normally buy at a store.

In the past week Silvan and I have made pickled turnips and beets, started a batch of beer (a brown ale), and bottled some strawberry wine that we started last month. A few years ago I would have been completely stumped if you asked me how to make any of those things, but now that I have developed this hobby I am discovering that making most of them is about as easy as baking bread.

Finally, I would like to add that after 1 day of apprenticing under the man who tried for years to teach me how to make proper Syrian bread, Silvan mastered it on her first batch. Check it out below and expect some in your CSA box in the coming weeks! Visit our Recipes page to learn how to make turnip and beet pickles.