In "Mad Flavor," the author describes his occasional forays from the farm in search of exceptional culinary experiences from small artisanal producers. Mad Flavor is currently reporting from location in Austin, the author's hometown.
The first thing to say about Austin's Boggy Creek Farm is that its vegetables have mad flavor. Russian-red kale so bursting with flavor that you almost want to eat it raw, though it's terrific sauteed with garlic, chile pepper, and olive oil. Peppery arugula. Impossibly sweet tomatoes, available out of season in transcendent smoke-dried form (more on these below). And so on.
The second thing to say about Boggy Creek -- which runs three acres right in the middle of Austin and another 10 or so just outside -- is that it provides a model for how urban areas can sustainably feed themselves.
Boggy Creek runs biweekly market stands outside of its pretty old farmhouse right in the middle of Austin's densely populated East Side. They're social events. Dozens of people attend. Chefs grab armfuls of some pristine veggie; enthusiastic home cooks swap recipes with the farmers. Kids of all ages gape at the dramas playing out in the henhouse, source of Austin's most flavorful eggs and its juiciest gossip column.
At my farm, we find ourselves hauling vegetables around at least three times a week during the growing season -- sometimes at unspeakable hours of the morning. Boggy Creek sells the great bulk of its produce with 20 feet of its backdoor. (It also sells some veggies to Whole Foods' flagship Austin store). Its customers come to it. Makes my tired farmer's heart flutter.
About those smoke-dried tomatoes. Austin's climate is so hot, it has two major tomato harvests: early summer and early fall. (In between, it's too damned hot even for tomatoes.)
Boggy Creek's fresh tomatoes are revered for their full, sweet flavor, and they get snapped up at market. But Farmer Larry always pulls a bunch back and smokes them, creating an impossibly sweet dried tomato with a robust lashing of smoke. Available year-round, this delicacy combines two of humanity's greatest inventions: sun-dried tomatoes and chipotle peppers. Italy meets Mexico.
Their flavor is so strong that I usually use them sparingly, tucking two or three into a dish as a secret ingredient, a blast of sweetness and smoke. When I'm feeling decadent, I'll slice up a whole bag, sauté them with olive oil, garlic, and crushed chile, and use it to sauce pasta.
Every city should have at least 10 Boggy Creeks.
Comments
View as Flat
mihan Posted 4:58 am
02 Nov 2006
Tom,
This is amazing! The most exciting food find since a friend pointed me towards Anson Mills' grits.
God, I miss being near a good farmers' market.
I think I know what some people will be getting for the holidays...
Permalink
Tom Philpott Posted 5:27 am
02 Nov 2006
Anson Mill grits...
...now that's some spectacular stuff. And I know for a fact that that company works withy micro-scale farmers and gives them a good price.
Permalink
David Roberts Posted 5:57 am
02 Nov 2006
I love grits!
Are Anson Mill grist available way up here in Seattle? Anybody know?
(I'm a southern boy at heart, I guess.)
www.grist.org
Permalink
Tom Philpott Posted 6:16 am
02 Nov 2006
Life-changing grits
I don't know if anyone retails Anson Mills products out there, but you can get them through the company's Web site. The prices are damned high for grits, but when you reflect that most corn is GMO and grown in environmentally hideous ways, and that farmers get a pittance for it, and that Anson pays a good price to its suppliers, then it starts to make sense. That, plus the fact that the grits have wonderful flavor--they taste of corn. Their suppliers use heirloom varieties bred for flavor, not yield.
I know AM is committed to small farmers because a few years ago, they approached my own Maverick Farms--a 3 acre operation--about growing for them. They were looking to diversify their growers geographically; we're in the mountains, and most of their growers are in the lowlands of South Carolina. A flood washed out the test plot of heirloom field corn we were growing for them; and then we never got certified organic, which is what they require. But i was damned impressed by the attention they gave us--and even more so by the quality of the grits. Try 'em out.
Permalink
kmp Posted 6:44 am
02 Nov 2006
Now I'm hungry
although not for grits - blech. Guess I'm a Yankee through and through.
Glad to hear the local food scene is alive & well in Austin. I just spent four days in San Antonio, which I have decided to rename "Food Hell, TX."
As a person who generally eats pretty healthfully and one who is also trying to shave off a few pounds for an upcoming mountaineering trip, I can tell you that it is damn near impossible to eat healthily in downtown, touristy San Antonio.
I would guess there are some farmer's markets and health food stores somewhere in SA, but they certainly are not within a stone's throw of the Riverwalk, and without a car I was subjected to bad TexMex restaurants are far as the eye could see, occassionally interspersed with a rib joint, steakhouse or Italian restaurant.
Endless salads of iceberg lettuce, four shaved pieces of carrot, two pink wedges of tasteless tomato, and about 700 storebought croutons. No fresh fruit to be found, anywhere, except the Starbucks at the airport (which I generally refuse to patronize); I might have compromised my standards this once had it not been for the cloud of fruit flies hovering over the blackening bananas. Nary a fresh vegetable either - generally the "vegetable of the day" was some form of potato. Even my old standby, soup, was impossible: baked potato soup, chili, steak(?!) soup. Breakfast was equally impossible; plenty of maple walnut sticky buns, danishes, frosted pound cake posing as breakfast, but no fruit, yogurt, bagels, plain old toast.
I know that the Riverwalk area is strictly for tourists, and I have actually enjoyed extremely good, authentic Mexican food in years past in SA... but is this how people really want to eat? Who can eat filet mignon and mashed potatoes for lunch and stay awake all afternoon? Who can eat 16 oz of chicken at a sitting along with a full platter of fettucine alfredo?
I realize that I am likely on the healthier end of the food spectrum here in the US but I'm just baffled by the options (or lack thereof) available to me in San Antonio.
I'm so happy to be home. God bless the Hudson Valley and it's bounty.
Permalink