Home Is
WHERE THE
Food Is
ating locally year-round can be intimidating,
even to people who are adventurous cooks.
Though we have an abundance of farms and
produce here in the Northwest, sometimes it
can be hard to know what to eat in February
when the potatoes have run out. Author Elin England is
trying to make that easier. Her fi rst book, Eating Close to
Home, is a seasonal guide to what’s available in the Pacifi c
Northwest and what to do with it. Her newest book, Further
Adventures in Eating Close to Home, covers beans, grains,
nuts and seeds.
“The fi rst book I started writing in 2004,” England
recalls. “It was back when people were just starting
to become interested in local eating and they hadn’t
even coined the phrase ‘locavore’ yet.” At that time, the
Willamette Farm and Food Coalition was studying if it
would be possible for our region to feed itself with only
local food, and England’s husband, Don Schneider, was
helping with that research. “The answer was yes, we
could feed ourselves year-round, but
people would have to give up cooking
zucchini 12 months of the year,” she
says. “I said somebody would have
to write a cookbook and Don said,
‘Yeah, somebody should!’”
England took on the cookbook
project as a personal challenge,
and she envisioned it as a gift to
the community. Many local people
contributed their personal recipes,
and a portion of the proceeds of each
book support the Willamette Farm
and Food Coalition, which facilitates
and supports the development of a
secure and sustainable food system in
Lane County.
A few years ago, WFFC received
a rural business enterprise grant
from the Oregon Department of
Agriculture. The grant was to promote
farms that were growing beans and
grains. WFFC executive director Lynn Fessenden says
that in 2010 she and her staff hosted a farmers market
booth where they sold products from area farms that were
experimenting with growing beans, grains, nuts and seeds.
Local beans and grains feed you all year round BY VANESSA SALVIA
E
“We were constantly being asked for recipes,” Fessenden
says. “The farmers were waking up the community that
these products were here.” Fessenden says there are
four local farms that are growing
large amounts of beans and grains
and several smaller farms that are
experimenting with heirloom beans
and grains for fl ours.
England realized that farmers
were growing these products that
consumers could store all year round
and wanted to help create a market
for them. “Farmers are growing
them but we need to have people
buying them,” England says. “I was
interested in writing the second book
because that was the gap. It wasn’t
part of the conversation yet, but in
the interim since the last book a lot
of the grass growers were fi nding
that people didn’t want to plant lawns
quite so much so they experimented
with growing different things.”
Further Adventures provides 133
simple, family-friendly recipes. She
also packs in contact information for farms and regional
suppliers. Within each topic England includes appetizers,
main dishes, salads and soups and, in the case of the grains
chapter, breakfast dishes. Her son, Kory, and her husband
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have been the prime taste testers for these dishes. “Kory
has probably eaten more beans and grains this year that any
teenager in America!” England jokes. “They’ve been good
sports about it.”
That’s not hard to imagine. England began learning to
speak Italian during the development of this book, so many
traditional Italian recipes made their way in. Recipes such
as “Ceci Fritta” (fried garbanzo bean fritters), or “Polenta
Pasticciata Di Mama Elin” (“Baked Polenta in the Style of
Mama Elin”) are not only easy but also delicious. Because
heirloom beans and grains are eaten the world over, many
of her recipes have an international fl avor. A crab and kale
fi lling for crepes is delicious during crab season, while a
lemony garbanzo bean soup can be enjoyed year-round.
The impetus behind England’s book was to not only
encourage people to experiment but also to support the
farmers. Sometimes, the weather makes these ventures
diffi cult. “There will be good years and bad years,” England
explains. “This past year was diffi cult for the dry beans but
there was a lot of grains. In the book’s introduction I tried
to communicate that it’s really important to cultivate our
farmers so that they can cultivate our food. You have to
take the long view.”
If you can’t fi nd the dry beans you want this year, try
something else, she says. Many of the heirloom beans are
adaptable and interchangeable. “And the grains are the
same way,” England says. “If you don’t happen to like
barley then substitute wheat berries. If you like regular
golden barley then try the black barley too.”
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