Southern AND Sustainable?!

I first heard of Dan Barber's book The Third Plate on NPR the other day. The fact that Southern food was singled out as the only truly sustainable American way of farming and eating was exciting. No, not the Foodtopia and epicenter of sustainable everything in the Pacific Northwest. Yes, The South. I have yet to see Hoppin' John on a menu west of the Mississippi.

In the American South, it was beans, collards and some ham. "In a dish, you had everything that supported that ecology," he says.

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A view of Dan Barber's Stone Barns Center field and barns in Pocantico Hills, N.Y.

Nicole Franzen/Courtesy of Blue Hill Farm

But American tradition has fallen out of touch with the land. "There's no cuisine you can point to that has a 12-ounce center cut protein for dinner. ... That is an American phenomenon," Barber says

From an article in The Atlantic, I read Dan Barber's explanation of how farm-to-table practices in America aren't enough to be truly sustainable. The only place within the United States that has actually had a cuisine that fit the ecology of place was in the South.

That meat-centric plate is a great disservice to our soil, and to our ecology. It’s also a disservice to the rest of the world—because we’re exporting that model in a way that, in the truest sense of the word, is unsustainable. But we can find an alternative—what I came to call the Third Plate.

You find that in Southern cuisine, too. Hoppin’ John—a quintessential southern dish—is rice, but it’s also cowpeas. That leguminous crop was so important in the south, because it allowed the southerners to preserve their soil well enough to get them rice. Then, they mixed in collard greens, because collards helped desalinate the soil. (And some bacon, because pigs were also part of the agriculture.)

Last weekend I read a review of the book in the WSJ in Eugenia Bone's article "The Future of American Eating." Of course, it being a newspaper based in New York (damn Yankees), it doesn't mention this Southern connection. But what he does mention relates to my life in wine country. In the first of four sections in the book, "Soil"

Explores how some farming practices deplete the soil of nutrients by killing microbes and how others build healthy soil by feeding microbes. He compares industrial versus organic approaches to weed control and explains the role of grazing animals in soil health. 'How soil is managed,' writes Mr. Barber, 'and how a farmer negotiates weeds and pests, is the single best predictor of how food will taste.'

I've recently started a new job at Omero Cellar's in Carlton, Oregon, and I interviewed our new winemaker, Mr. Chad Stock about his winemaking philosophy in order to write a press release. What he said deeply related to what Mr. Barber is saying.

Stock explains that transparent winemaking, “allows wines to speak for themselves in a pure and true fashion. Pinot noir is all about nuance and it’s extremely adept at showing the subtleties of place.  Personal style preferences and winemaking additives blur the natural expression of the vineyard.“

Organic, and more importantly, biodynamic principles are important to Stock and the trajectory of Omero wines. He clarifies the joint importance of farming organically and implementing biodynamic principles in the vineyard and winery: “A vineyard is above and below the earth, so we want to farm the soil. We seek to show the significance in soil types and express the soil differences in the Willamette Valley. I’ll show you what your vineyard tastes like.”

By working without additives, using organic and biodynamic principles, Stock and Omero seek to create wines with distinctive character, authenticity and aromatic complexity.

While I am relatively new to the biodynamic farming and winemaking philosophy, I'm really eager to learn more. Like the John Muir quote that originally inspired Barber,  I find that everything is connected, from ideas to dirt:

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

Southern Courtesy

You catch more fruit flies with honey.

It's fruit fly season in the Willamette Valley. We get so many visitors into the two winery tasting rooms (Domaine Serene and Amity Vineyards) from all over the state, country and world. I can always count on my Southern folks to be polite, courteous and convivial. I rarely feel as if I'm "serving" them; instead, I feel as if I'm welcoming friends into my own home and we're catching up on old times. That's not to say folks from other areas of the country or world aren't the same way; it's just to say I can depend on them to always be positive interactions.

I can count on them to say "please" and "thank you." I can count on them to treat me like a human being and not like a wine-pouring automaton. I can count on Southerners to gush about Oregon's beauty and what a spectacular trip they're having. Even when I know they didn't particularly like a wine, I count on Southerners to sing the praises of the wines they DO like. The worst I've heard is, "Oh, that one's not my favorite." Read Guy Martin's explanation on how to Mind Your Manners in the "Southern Handbook" from Garden and Gun Magazine.

I can also count on Southerners to tell (and listen) to good stories. They talk to me and include me in their conversations as I pour their Pinot Noir. Usually by the time they leave, they know a few of my choice yarns and I know some of theirs. Read Roy Blunt Jr.s account of how to tell a good story from the same Handbook

I salute you Southern courtesy and company!