Benedict Arnold your eggs benedict

Vocally Sourced: Baked acorn squash and Maine food politics

This will be your standard “Welcome to Fall Foods and Flavors” recipe. I love fall; I buy tiny gourds to decorate my room, and I take pictures of leaves changing because they are pretty.
Equally important to the practice of fall rituals in my book is the baking of acorn squash.
The hardest part of acorn squash is getting it cut open, which requires either a really sharp knife, or a pretty crummy dull one and a lot of determination, which is how I did it. A mix of sawing, poking and stabbing eventually leaves you with two halves of a delicious squash ready to be doused in butter and sugar.
This rather simple recipe leaves me space to talk about an issue that is near and dear to my heart, but I have found difficult to crack into (similarly, you might say, to an acorn squash). I want to talk about food politics, especially in Maine.
Ready for stats? According to the USDA, between one and 16 percent of people in Maine are food insecure, or they lack access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. Along with Vermont and Rhode Island, Maine has one of the highest levels in the Northeast. The adult obesity rate in Maine is much higher than any other state in New England, and most of the highest rates happen in northern Maine. This makes sense, to some degree, because northern Maine also has more fast food restaurants per person, less access to grocery stores and fewer farmers’ markets. What doesn’t make sense is that the northern counties are also the ones with more acreage used for farming by a huge degree. Food is produced and shipped away, with the profit going mostly to large distribution companies and not to the farmers.
Meanwhile, cheap, unhealthy food is brought in to feed the people who grow fresh food for a living. Food from the ground has stopped being thought of as food, and so people living in farming communities are finding it hard to eat. It doesn’t make sense.
I would love to have the authority to insert a suggestion on what we can do to fix this. I have some partial fixes: buy local foods, study where your foods come from, pay the extra money for local and organic, knowing that it is helping farmers get what they deserve. But the issue is more complex than that, and will require policy changes, and discussions where the health of rural, agricultural communities is of top importance. It will require some sawing, poking and stabbing with a crummy dull knife to crack this one open (hit-you-over-the-head metaphor, but I’m pretty proud of it).
You will need:Acorn squashes, however many you want to feed you and your “clique” (Hannaford’s sources them from local farms! Spear’s Farm, Waldoboro, ME)Butter (I like to buy Kate’s, which is based out of Saco, Maine, and uses all New England milk to make slow churned, yummy butter)Honey or Maple Syrup (I used honey from Fairwinds Farm in Topsham)Salt & PepperNutmeg and/or cinnamon if desired
Instructions:1. Preheat oven to 450°.2. Saw, poke, and stab open your squashes, or cut them if you have an appropriate knife.3. Scoop out the seeds (these roasted with some olive oil and salt are really yummy).4. Place the squashes open-face up on a baking sheet covered in tinfoil.5. Place pats of butter in the hollow of the squash, and drizzle with selected sugary item.6. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes, until the flesh is tender.7. Eat.

Vocally Sourced

Benedict Arnold your eggs benedict

A meaty twist on an old favorite

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Eliza Huber-Weiss

Columnist

September 25, 2015

Eggs benedict is a theme in my life. As much as I hate myself for that last sentence and the assumptions that can be made about me because of it, it is a truth that I have learned to embrace.

One summer when I was in high school, there was a week when I made eggs benedict for my family every morning until my mother begged me to stop for the sake of my father’s cholesterol levels. This past Ivies, I woke up Saturday morning and decided to power through the process of making eggs benedict, knowing the result would be just what the doctor ordered.

I have spent many mornings experimenting with different combinations, ranging from a miso beet green base to a smoked salmon to a thick cut of Canadian bacon from the winter farmer’s market in Brunswick. People have started to associate the dish with me so much, in fact, that the other day I got a text from a friend saying, “I just ate eggs benedict.” That’s it.

One of the reasons I love eggs benedict: you can find farm-fresh eggs almost anywhere in the world. And there are a lot of eggs in eggs benedict. Hollandaise sauce is basically egg yolk and butter beaten into a frenzy, with some lemon juice thrown in there (yes, I know, it is quite hard to find lemons on a Maine farm, so I’ll get back to you—maybe—with a possible local substitute for lemon juice. This sauce is then poured, you guessed it, over more eggs. Eggs have a significantly lower carbon footprint than meat (although this recipe includes meat as well as eggs) and pretty much every farmers market, food hub or plain old farm has them. You can also often find locally sourced eggs in a regular supermarket, as they are a pretty reliable product from farms.

I opted for eggs (and most other ingredients) from The Portland Food Co-Op, a local food hub located at 290 Congress Street, to which I highly recommend a pilgrimage. Owned by Portland residents through a membership system, the co-op houses a beautiful and well-stocked 96 percent organic produce section with 115 local items from 20 Maine farms. They also sell meats, cheeses, pre-made meals, soups, spices, pickles, snacks and anything else local they can get their hands on.

Food hubs, for this reason, are becoming a ray of hope in the otherwise murky and complex food system of the United States. They provide both a reliable market and a marketing service for farmers, as well as a one-stop shop for all things local for consumers. The Portland Food Co-Op also offers cooking and nutrition classes, programs for people living under a certain income level and SNAP benefit acceptance so as to make local, healthy food a reality for as many people as possible.

Choosing ingredients was soo easy it was hard. There were so many beautiful veggies and fruits and greens and meats to choose from, so immediately a million ideas for different eggs benedict combinations occurred to me. However, my friend that I had promised eggs benedict to that morning had suggested lamb, so I started there.

From then on, this recipe became an amorphous, ever-changing idea, from the buying of the ingredients to the final blistered cherry tomato. I even broke the cardinal rule of eggs benedict and decided not to make hollandaise sauce, which led to somewhat of an existential crisis. I had willingly chosen not to smother my food in eggs and butter, and that is quite out of character for me, but I think I am happy with that decision, ultimately. For those that would like to make hollandaise sauce, however, I egg you on, friends.

Poached Eggs over Lamb Hash and Lemony Arugula with Blistered Cherry Tomatoes

Makes 6 eggs benedict

Ingredients:

6 Eggs (Portland Food Co-Op)

Ciabatta Bread (Forage Bakery, Lewiston)

Roughly 3 cups arugula (Portland Food Co-Op)

1 lemon, juiced (Portland Food Co-Op)

1 lb. ground lamb (Portland Food Co-Op)

1 yellow onion, minced (Portland Food Co-Op)

2 cloves garlic, minced (Portland Food Co-Op)

Cherry tomatoes (Portland Food Co-Op)

Fresh thyme, finely chopped (Portland Food Co-Op)

1 inch peeled and chopped fresh ginger root

2 tsp. turmeric

2 tsp. cumin

Olive Oil

A dash of vinegar

Salt & Pepper

Preparation:

This is a great recipe to make with friends, as there are many parts and each of you can be in charge of something. Make all the components and assemble on top of ciabatta toast like eggs benedict.

Lamb Hash:

1. On medium heat, heat about 2 Tbsp. olive oil in large cast iron pan. Sauté onion until slightly translucent and soft.

2. Add garlic and ginger to pan and sauté about 2 minutes, until fragrant.

3. Add lamb, and mix well. Cook until lamb starts to lose its pink color, then add turmeric, cumin, salt, and pepper. Cook for about 5 more minutes.

4. Once the lamb is cooked and starting to brown, add the fresh thyme and cook for about 1 more minute. Remove pan from heat.

Arugula and Ciabatta:

1. While lamb is cooking, take care of the little stuff. Toss the arugula with about 1 Tbsp. olive oil and the juice from the lemon. Slice ciabatta and toast slightly. These steps can be done really whenever in the process, but the more everything can be finished at the same time, the better.

Eggs:

1. Put a pot of water on to boil. You want it to be rather large in diameter and fit at least 5 inches of water.

2. Once water has boiled, reduce the heat to keep the water at a steady simmer.

3. Add about 1 Tbsp. vinegar, to help the eggs keep their shape.

4. Carefully break the eggs into the water. Do this in batches, depending on this size of your pot. I would not recommend trying to poach 6 eggs at once.

5. Cook eggs for about three minutes each, until whites have hardened and yolks are still pretty runny.

Blistered Cherry Tomatoes:

1. Heat a pan pretty hot with olive oil. Throw tomatoes in there until they blister, rolling them around sometimes.

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