The State Of Food Now

It's been a little over three months that our lives, and our eating habits have been changed. Not only that our shopping has also been altered. Have we adapted? It's an interesting question.

The Corona virus has  upset everything and definitely changed the whole modern food chain, from how our food is grown and caught to how we eat.  The New York Times Food section this past Wednesday ran an article about the salmon industry and how the virus impacted it. Julia O'Malley wrote about how out of staters come to the Naknek area for the work. They either work fishing or processing. The businesses have to be shut down meaning there's no work and no products going out to the stories and buyers. It has hit hard for Brian Nicolson, a Brooklyn winemaker who returns to his family business in this Alaskan outback. Farms across the country are also affected.Some will prosper. Some will not. Thanks to the restaurants closing down or limiting their services, many farms have suffered. Many crops have had to be destroyed. Now with bans being lifted, the farms can make a comeback. It's just a matter of keeping the workers safe, despite the bad workplace conditions and the lack of medical benefits for them.

Thankfully the shortages have more or less stopped. It was bad, with farmers killing off livestock because they couldn't sell the meat. It seemed they were more catering to the restaurants because home chefs were stockpiling every kind from frozen nuggets to fresh hams.The flour shortage due to people going wild for home baking is also over. We realize that we have the capacity to be hoarders, especially when it comes to such essentials as milk , bread, eggs and cold cuts. Yet we also have the hidden capacity to be fearless home chefs and bakers. Being quarantined has retaught us to read through cookbooks that have been collecting dust for years and use such gadgets as corers and ravioli cutters that have been sitting idle in kitchen drawers. There has also a down side. As people binged watched their favorite shows and movies they also binged ate. Snack sales went up tremendously. People wanted comfort foods, from Oreos, and their counterparts (try the Acme's Tuxedo brand of sandwich cookies) to potato chips and pork rinds. Home bakers indulged on frosting rich cakes and butter laden cookies. Hopefully this is over and we can appreciate the fresh fruit and veggies of the season for a quick bite.

How have we adapted? How has our country adapted? The answer varies depending on who you talk to or what you read. We did relearn to cook and bake which is always good. Yet we also discovered our dark side when it came to hoarding and binging.

Salmon And Climate Change

Undoubtedly climate change has affected the way we eat. Droughts and flood have brought prices up on many fruit and vegetables . Now the disaster is spreading to our oceans. Not only will our seas be filled with algae blooms, certain species will be disappearing.

Julia O'Malley, a famed freelance writer who writes primarily about Alaska covered this in today's New York Times Food section. The red salmon is disappearing thanks to the waters heating up in one of the coldest rivers on the planet.It wasn't that long ago that fishermen would reel in seventy or eighty salmon during one fishing trip.Neighbors and friends would benefit from these, with fridges being filled with ZipLoc bags full of the fish. Grills worked overtime, with filet after filet being served at cookouts. Not anymore.Now hours pass before anyone catches even just one.The Copper River which yields the popular red salmon has had its' smallest salmon run in thirty-eight years according to Garrett Evridge, an economist  with McDowell Group. This Anchorage research and consulting group has been following  fishing trends. They also found that other rivers have had the same problem.State wildlife managers have closed rivers to sportsmen so enough salmon could reach their spawning grounds.

How has this affected the state's economy? Tremendously. In one rural Aleut fishing town, Chignik on the Aleutian Peninsula,the fishing fleet has sat idle as have locals who freeze and smoke the fish caught. Lack of fish means they'll have to buy super expensive groceries instead of eating the fish along with needing food aid during the colder months.Home cooks , such as Christine Taylor of Anchorage, will have to calculate the cost of buying ingredients and wonder if they can afford them, instead of relying on weekend fishing.Also most recipes center around the red salmon, a fish with raspberry colored flesh and a taste saltier than the regular kind. There's also the experience of catching them, and the whole process of unloading their four wheelers and setting up the fishing poles. Concerned scientists, like Bill Templin, the state's chief scientist for the state's  commercial salmon fisheries know that it comes from the ocean warming which creates a toxic algae. This can create starvation and  illness in not just salmon but other  species such as whales and shellfish.

Luckily locals are hopeful that the salmon will return. That depends on how we treat the oceans ans work furiously and non-stop to halt climate change. Then the rivers' bounties will be plentiful.

An Alaskan Chef's Dilemma

Imagine not being able to buy certain veggies and fruits during the winter. Menus would change. Cooks would have to come up with substitutions or worse - just cross out certain dishes. It's a problem right now in Alaska, They're going through an annual food drought right now.

Julia O'Malley, an Alaskan herself, wrote this informative piece in today's New York Times Food section.Ms O'Malley is also the creator of a blog centering on life in the country's most northernmost state where she provides recipes and tips.As she knows,fresh fruit and vegetables are rare . Even a tomato is a rarity . Unlike grocery stores in the Lower 48, Alaskan stores are not restocked on a daily basis There's no nearby greenhouses or even an app to help them.They have to wait til the summer with days that last well into the night. Farmers markets then appear and explode with zucchini the size of small dogs and a wide variety of greens.It's a bountiful time where recipes call for fresh produce and meals have the added flavor of a garden. Right now, Alaskans are living off last year's harvest of gnarled carrots and dry skinned beets. This may be a thing of the past thanks to indoor farming happening on the frozen tundras.Alaska Natural Organics and Vertical Harvest Hydroponics are bringing fruits and vegetables to chefs and home chefs during the long cold winters.

It still isn't easy. Until the farms start mass producing Alaskan home chefs, especially, will be challenged. Many grocery stores still get their products by sea, shipped from Seattle.after it's traveled from Mexico and California. It spends about a week in a container on a boat. The end product is not palatable. Tomatoes are not an appealing red, but rather pinkish and watery  Avocados are hard on the outside but rotten on the inside. Prewashed lettuces don't have a bright ,springy aroma, they smell like decay. Fruits and vegetables come only three times a week to the chain grocery , Fred Meyer.There are problems of keeping foods fresh while trying to keep their costs down. Delays are regular occurrences. Some chefs are lucky in the sense that they  know a "peach guy" someone who cana get them fresh fruit at seventy dollars a pop. Some bring back fruit and veggies from trips.Many such as blogster and cook, Kim Sunee, make do with what they have. The answer is creativity. Use what you have in new recipes that make the most of the limited ingredients.Many other chefs are following this, Carlyle Watt of the Fire Island Rustic Bakeshop  in Anchorage knows this all too well. He masters what's left in the root cellar like blackening carrots  and finding the perfect potato.

Give Alaskan chefs credit . They can take what they have and turn it into an exciting and delicious dish. It's hard work but the results are worth it.