Good Food is Everybody's Business
One hundred years ago, the Helena Commercial Club, a local service organization, published a booklet promoting the Helena Valley as a “Land of Opportunity for Real Farmers.” Today the Valley is “growing” 5-, 10-, and 20-acre residential lots instead. We no longer hear the rousing enthusiasm for local food grown just minutes from the city limits.
Bread was truly the “staff of life” for both the peasant and the nobleman for centuries. In the Middle Ages, for example, a majority of the population – mostly peasants – ate 2 to 3 pounds of bread a day. Today, even with government recommendations of 6 to 8 ounces of “grain equivalents” a day, most Americans are eating about half as much bread as they did just 40 years ago.
Mariah Gladstone (Blackfeet/Cherokee Nation) talks about her background in food advocacy and her experience founding the online cooking platform Indigikitchen.
A descendant of generations of Montana ranchers and farmers, Tim Dusenberry, owner and operator of Double X Bar Ranch, is the steward of nearly 600 acres of farmland where he raises 135 head of beef cattle, 40+ pigs, and uncounted laying hens just a few miles from the city limits of Helena.
If you were to eat a dinner consisting only of Montana’s top agricultural products, here’s what you’d have in front of you: steak, a potato (no butter or sour cream, sorry), a big piece of bread, a cold glass of beer, and a piece of black cherry pie. What happened to that salad or side serving of veggies?
Have you noticed lately that all that beautiful produce on the grocery shelves seems to spoil and go bad the day after you get it home? Didn’t it used to last at least a few days longer? What to do?
What do farmers in Montana’s Golden Triangle today and those living in the Fertile Crescent nearly 3000 years ago have in common? Dry climate, grasslands, …
During the height of the Pandemic, we were able to get these gorgeous eggs from Oddfellow Inn and Farm – delivered!! It was such fun to scoop the carton from front porch, open it with great anticipation, and see a rainbow of colors: pale green, khaki green, cream, brown, and white.
