Field Trip to the WSU Creamery and What's Going On With Local

We made our long anticipated trek to WSU yesterday to visit the creamery, our source of cheddar cheese. We took the kids out of school for the day and had a beautiful sunny drive along the Palouse. We missed the "cheddaring", where they turn the hardened whey into flat loaves but we did get to see them mill the curd, which was like putting the cheese into a big paper shredder.

The creamery manager explained that it's the proprietary bacterial culture they use that makes their cheese unique. Because they use a metal container, they had to develop a bacteria for the cheese that produces less gas to keep the cans from swelling. In the process they stumbled upon a culture that not only produces less gas, it keeps the cheese sweet as it ages. For over 60 years they have been using this same microorganism in the cheese making process, going daily into the well marked "culture room" to add it to a new medium to keep it going. Todays cheese contains the great, great, great, great, great...great grandchildren of the cheese from 60 years ago.

We also learned that the cheese making process begins at 4:00 am every morning when they pick up the milk from the WSU dairy farm. We stocked up on the over sized tuna cans of cheese because it's $5 less per can on campus than it is in Spokane at the Bookie. We also bought a 3 gallon container of their ice cream. That's our first non-homemade ice cream in three months. Insert Homer Simpson drooling sounds here.

In a fun turn of events we ended up meeting with two classes of undergrad and grad students; "Agriculture, Environment, and Community", taught by Jessica Goldberger, and "Local Impacts of Global Commodity Systems" taught by Ray Jussaume. I felt a little bit like Leo DiCaprio in the movie "Catch Me if You Can", where he goes around pretending to be a doctor and a pilot, and people inexplicably believe him. I am far from an authority on commodity systems and agriculture, but we were able to have a good conversation around our experience. Thanks Jessica, Ray and the students for your generous hospitality.

Jessica and I were reflecting after the class on what is going on with the current interest in local foods and neither one of us had a good authoritative answer. Is it health concerns or economic concerns or social justice concerns? Is it nostalgia for a lost way of life or is it a hunger for a new way of life? I told her that she and her sociologist friends need to help us understand what's going on here. Let us know when you figure it out Jessica.

The same question came up when I visited Behm's Valley Creamery yesterday. Apparently Behm's has had a noticeable increase in business since we started our conversation here on the blog about sourcing local milk. I stopped by yesterday to talk to Mrs. Behm's and she had some great questions about why people are all of the sudden interested in local food. She is someone who has lived through the great transition from when they processed and delivered milk door to door, to the emergence of global and regional commodity systems that essentially put them out of business, to a sudden resurgence in concerns about where food comes from. We talked about how for many years the only thing people cared about was cheap milk, but that now there are other considerations. Ironically they have the cheapest milk in town - $2.91 yesterday. They set their price based on the wholesale market at the beginning of each month. She wondered aloud why milk prices are skyrocketing at other stores.

So what do you think? What's driving this interest in local stuff? Is it nostalgia? Is it health concerns? Is it a longing for connection in community? Is it a global marketing conspiracy in local clothing? What do you think? 

Comments

[Hillary]

Sounds like a fun trip guys. Were you tempted to visit the apartment we lived in when dad was in school?

On another topic, when you are looking for locally-made goods, you might want to check out etsy.com and then push the "shop local" button on the left. Etsy has become an international forum for individuals to sell their(mostly handmade) wares. I buy baby gifts and kid presents all the time off this website.

Look forward to seeing you guys soon.

[Aaron Kangas]

I the interest in locally-made goods/locally grown foods is partly a response to our increasingly mechanistic and isolated society. We weren't created to enjoy such a world and it's a lash out against the way things are going.

Also, I think it has something to do with being more environmentally friendly, since people are getting more aware of it - shipping food across oceans, or trucking it across continents just isn't as "green" as getting it from down the road.

[David Blaine]

The pessimist in me thinks that as in most matters here in the United States, society reacts out of fear. I think that the interest in local is just the continuation of the decades old mistrust that the industrial food complex has bred in the population. I think that there is also fear that we are losing the quaint, arcane aspects of "the olden days".

[Keith]

Maybe it is a rejection of the rule of the corporation. Maybe living in the consequences of Reaganomics. Maybe a rejection of the war.

Maybe it is the influence of the internet culture - the success of networking.

I don't think I have nostalgiac notions. The 50's seem stupid to me. The 30's remind me of Depression and Hitler. 40's - War. 20's - decadence and big cigars. 60's - rock and MLK. 70's - Charlie's Angels. 80's - buff guys and money. 90's - Kurt Cobain and killing himself. 1800's - Killing Indians. 1700's - Fighting England. ~30 - 300 - Everybody killing Christians. 300 - 1600 - Christians killing everybody and each other. Prior to 0; everybody killing each other, with Rome kicking people's butts and making big marble naked people.

There's also a creative aspect to it. Once you create or produce something, however simple, you want to be involved with somebody else's work, no matter how inefficient and stupid it may seem.

Goat milk!

[Craig Sr.]

Judy and I visited the Pike Place Market this weekend after running Green Lake and getting some new running shoes for J at Super Jock and Jill. Enjoyed it all, especially great expertise re running shoes at SJJ but conclude that we have better local than going to Seattle. Better appreciation for what we have here in Black Diamond and the local people who make it fun, like Baker Street Books. Wonderful inspiration for us. Looking forward to finding a time that we can visit the Millwood Farmer's Market - will beat Pike Place any day. Gearing up for Bloomsday.

[Melissa]

A feeling of satisfaction that comes from trust. Knowing that my hamburger is fresh instead of wondering if it has been rotting in a government inspected meat packing plant before it is cry-o-vacced and shipped to the nearest grocery store. It also tastes so much better! Local is powerful. Even the bees know how to make honey that is most beneficial to our immune systems based on where we live. The closer the honey is produced to where you live, the better it will boost your immunity and have exactly what you need. There are small bits of pollen in the honey. Eating honey is like taking a whole series of allergy immunology injections. It is much easier to eat honey than get injections and it is a whole lot cheaper.

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