What there is to eat

In our culture, we tend to view eating as a recreational rather than a utilitarian experience—to ask, "What do I want to eat?" rather than "What is there to eat?"

For us, this has changed this year as we embarked upon a learn-as-you-go crash course in feeding ourselves from our smallholding. The process was complicated by the fact that we had no farm infrastructure to start with. Before we could plant anything we had to create planting beds out of hayfield, without the assistance of mechanized equipment. And bringing in livestock required fencing pastures and building shelters for chickens, goats, and sheep. Further complications arose from the need to finish the exterior cordwood walls of our house before frost.

And then there were the rats.
We were prepared for deer, and protected plantings that they might like with 7-foot-high netting. We kept an eye out for woodchucks and raccoons. But no one prepared us for rats. Rats, as far as I can tell, can go anywhere they please. They ate half of our carrots, a third of our potatoes, half of our green beans, all of our dry beans, half of our cauliflower, half of our corn (they climbed right up the stalks), and nearly all of our fall kale and broccoli. They didn't care much for tomatoes, leeks, peppers, cucumbers, winter squash, or zucchini. (Why they heck couldn't they have eaten some zucchini?) Joe established a routine of setting traps—big traps—every night, and nearly every morning there were rats—big rats—in the traps. We caught close to four dozen extremely well-nourished rats until we finally knocked back the population a bit. What were they eating before we planted a garden for them, I wonder?

This has been a long way of saying that we ended up producing far less food than we'd planned. In addition, we have neither a freezer nor a root cellar, so preservation options were limited. Nevertheless, we managed to put some food by, and, combined with some staples purchased from the local food co-op, it has been enough. At mid-winter, here is what we still have on hand:

>In the garden, mulched heavily with straw and now snow-covered, we still have leeks, Brussels sprouts, and a few carrots. Up until a few weeks ago, the big Brussels sprout leaves, sweetened by frost, were still green and good for salads and cooking.
> In buckets buried in our sand pile and covered with hay bales, we have cabbage, celeriac, and potatoes. They are holding so far, but a root cellar has moved higher on next year's project list.
> In the house, we have squash, more potatoes, and apples—holding okay so far. We also had tomatoes wrapped in newspaper, which kept fairly well until early December.
> In jars in the cupboard, we have lacto-fermented salsa, sauerkraut, and other vegetables, as well as a small assortment of dried vegetables (tomatoes, corn, peppers, scallions).
> Outside of our kitchen door, our nonworking propane refrigerator is full of lamb: chops, roasts, stew meat, sausage. This was stored "on the hoof" until we could predictably keep it frozen outside.
> In the chicken coop, we still find a few eggs every day, even now during the hens' unproductive season.
> Pots inside of sunny windows contain cress and greens.
> In the pantry we have rice, dry beans and peas, lentils, barley, flour, and oats from the co-op, as well as a small backup supply of canned goods. Oh, and lovely honey from our bee-keeping daughter.
> Our neighbors share homemade yogurt with us, as thanks for dog-sitting.
> If I'd get off my duff and start some sprouts, we'd have those, too.

I was feeling a bit deprived, as if "what there is to eat" isn't much, until I began cataloguing what has been on our plates recently. Lamb shanks stewed with potatoes, carrots, and squash. Stir-fried cabbage, leeks, and greens over rice. Leg of lamb and potato salad with (our own) sun-dried tomatoes and scallions. Squash soup with homemade bread. Lamb burgers with carrot salad. Rice sautéed with eggs and greens. Lamb sausage and home fries. Oatmeal with apples and yogurt. Sunnyside eggs with homemade toast and apple crisp. Potato and veggie frittata. "Sunshine" (squash) muffins with honey. Baked potatoes topped with yogurt and homemade salsa. Lamb chops, roasted potatoes, and homemade sauerkraut. Rice and beans with pickled snap peas and homemade salsa. Vegetable soup with bone-marrow stock. Lentils and corn with lamb. Oh, and homemade honey wine, slightly fizzy and reminiscent of a wine cooler.

I got to thinking about what it would cost to procure the ingredients for these meals off-farm: local grass-fed lamb; local, naturally produced vegetables, lacto-fermented to perfection; local, naturally produced storage crops; fresh local greens; local, free-range eggs. And I began to feel very well-fed, indeed.