So, Just What IS a “C.S.A”?
Community-supported agriculture, more commonly referred to as a “CSA,” offer a local option for ‘members’ to own a share of the crops the farm grows and harvests. By purchasing a share early in the year, the money collected upfront creates a resource for the farmer allowing him or her to invest in seeds and equipment. In return, each CSA member takes home weekly batches of freshly harvested fruits and vegetables throughout the growing season. Services and items included in a CSA vary from one farm to the next. Some memberships include herbs, flower gardens, honey, orchard fruit, pick-your-own berries, pumpkin patches, hayrides, eggs, or homemade bread. The downside to a CSA is the shared risk. If unseasonal weather takes down a berry or legume crop, all CSA members are affected, yet if there is a bounty of tomatoes or beans, everyone reaps the reward.
The first year my brother and his family joined, they followed through with meticulous comparisons that I only wish I had the patience to do. Each week quantities of spinach, bok choy, cilantro, scallions, or whatever was included in the distribution were noted, and the price for similar grocery store produce was found. At the end of the season, the totals were close, but CSA was slightly cheaper. What was rousing was the comparison was done between the local CSA organic share to grocery store conventional produce. I think he was just looking to see the difference in cost, not expecting to find the organic to be lower in price at the end of the season.
There are many variables in this home experiment, such as the abundance of the shares, of Mother Nature’s shorter or longer rainy season, to the way a farm decides upon distribution, and it only covered one year. Nevertheless, this was a personal quest from MIT graduates and those I know to be analytical, and impartial and had no motivation to slant the study. Now with more incentive than ever, it was time to sign up my family.
Once I had a share, each Tuesday from late May to early November, our family would head down to the farm to pick up the weekly offering. In many CSA formats, members take what is placed in their shares, versus a farm stand, where you can select and purchase what you want. When the season was at its peak, our share easily required one full-size cooler and a couple of reusable shopping bags to bring home the treasure. The first lesson learned was that locally grown produce is vastly different from the food we used to bring home from the grocery store. The limited varieties of produce grown for large-scale markets are bred for uniform shapes, color, and the ability to handle long-distance shipping, limiting the consumer experience. Alida Cantor, from the CSA down the road, explained how biodiversity in our food sources has been lost in our move towards an industrialized food system.
“One of the most important things that was lost is flavor. Nothing compares to the taste of a freshly picked garden tomato. The ones available in the grocery store have been bred to hold their shape and resist bruising during cross-country trips, not because they taste good. Heirloom tomatoes garner the most attention, but there are heirloom varieties of just about every plant, from peppers to squash to turnips to corn. Heirloom varieties often have a specific attractive quality that led generations of gardeners to save them: they are great for canning or pickling; they are cold hardy and withstand a light frost; or they have excellent flavor. The torpedo shaped Speckled Roman tomato for example, is great for sauces, while the giant Striped Germans are best to slice and eat fresh.”
My kids, who didn’t and still don’t like tomatoes at home, would line up along the climbing vines of cherry tomatoes in the heat of a summer afternoon to tickle the orbs, and watch them fall into the quart container. Moving down the rows surrounded in wafts of deep herb fragrance, blazing red-orange tomatoes dangled. Heavy with juice and swelling with heat, some of the tomatoes can’t stand the engorgement any longer and split down the side, right there on the vine. Gold, carmine, lemon yellow, and tomatoes shaped like Christmas tree lights, they sparkled. They were selected by my kids with more deliberation than treasures at a taffy store, and rarely made it back into the kitchen.
After we’d arrive home with our CSA bounty, I’d spread the items out on the kitchen island. We would gather around to smell, touch, talk, admire, and praise the leafy greens, funny-shaped tomatoes, or gnarly brussel sprouts on a branch. Sometimes I would pull a bouquet of leafy greens up to my nose, give them a deep yoga inhale, and just live within the scent of cilantro or scallions. The squash can be so robust and voluptuous that I would pick them up and kiss their gnarly barnacled rinds out of admiration. The berries—blue, black, or straw—we don’t’ discuss because they never make it further than the parking lot before they are evenly counted out and devoured. It makes you want to say grace right then and there.
Unloading new varieties of food—and quite possibly ones you thought you didn’t like— is a drawback for some first-time CSA members. But for me, this was the best part. We were ‘forced’ to learn, taste, and explore foods I wouldn’t normally have purchased. It has encouraged me to seek new cooking methods and to try new recipes as I figured out how to cook garlic scapes or prepare celeriac. Slowly, I too had to learn and not complain about the abundance. I’ve gotten into the habit of preserving food for later use. I thought I would have to learn the almost forgotten art of canning, but have found freezing is simple and easy so as not to waste buckets of tomatoes or bouquets of fresh herbs.
The best advantage of all is by being a CSA member; I am no longer the vegetable villain. Since kale was provided in our share (it wasn’t me choosing it), my children no longer complain about being forced to try it. We looked at it as an adventure, all members of the same team. We moved from “Here is your kale, go eat your dinner,” to “We have kale today. What should we do with it? How do you like the kale compared to the chard?” Food became a family discussion, a bonus not quantifiable in a membership fee.
Depending on your farm and CSA expectations, your family may have to contribute two or three summer mornings assisting the land. Our first assignment was ninety minutes on hands and knees cat position, harvesting potatoes. It was a steamy August morning, and it was tough with young kids, who reached their attention span limits after twelve minutes. Working the land was much different from household chores of feeding the dog or putting away dishes. Slowly the grumbling gave way to immense pride and squeals of delight as tiny hands rummaged through soft dirt unearthing treasures of potatoes. Call me crazy, but placing vegetables in a plastic sack from store shelves doesn’t quite hold the same nostalgia as rooting around for your own dinner in the dirt. The best part of dinner that evening was listening to their pride within as they later retold the day’s adventure from their own perspective.
Lessons I learned from the CSA season have carried over to organic grocery shopping. There is a rhythm in the seasons and saving money on organic foods follows calendar. For optimum prices as well as flavor, the mantra to remember is to buy in season, buy in bulk, and buy local. Just like my previous shopping habits, if I find a deal, and it can be frozen or stored, then I bulk up. I have found organic whole carrots cheaper than conventional prepared carrots. I frequently purchase five-pound bags and peel them while assisting in homework hour. Some I slice in the food processer and freeze in two-cup quantities for future soups and side dishes. Others I slice and put into cold water to supplement weekly lunches and ready-made snacks. I use my frozen corn, bell peppers, tomatoes, and fruit from the CSA season in soups and smoothies all winter.
One season as a CSA member revolutionized the way my family ate and approached food. From a mom who reluctantly went on a quest to simply find pesticide free veggies, I came away with more benefits than I could have ever imagined. I know I am providing more than safe, nutritious food for my children and family, I have planted seeds in their heads about food and its value and place in our lives. Salads don’t just appear on our plates; veggies don’t form on grocery store shelves overnight. The process to growing food responsibly takes a lot of hard work and effort. Our experiences discussing what we eat and working to put it on the table have moved food from the idea food exists simply to fill us up and make us happy, to see it as part of an intertwined system of respect for the land and the future. It wasn’t always easy, but it is possible. I am quite hopeful when my children become adults they will crave genuine food. Well, as I said, the seeds are planted. I can’t guarantee they will sprout, but all factors considered, success is on my side.
- This is an excerpt from my book Little Changes, and from my life.