The New Year

It is mind-blowing that Sourced Material has only been around for half a year. We emerged out of this summer while Jake Levin sat anxiously surrounded by raw wool in a dirty metal shop at the MFA program at Bard College. Since then so much has happened. We have launched a gorgeous website developed and designed by Sourced Material co founder Silka Glanzman (along with diving head on into the world of social-media/web 2.0). We have exhibited Sourced Material: Wool at Bard and in Brooklyn at Flatbreadaffair, for their inaugural show. We have hosted several lamb-based feasts (with the help of Flatbreadaffair partner/chef Leah Rinaldi). Jake was interviewed about Sourced Material by Sierra Radio and by David Horvitz for 127Prince. We have successfully exchanged all of our wool products thanks to the overwhelmingly eager response from participants from all over the US. Jake apprenticed at Fleishers Meats for three months learning the craft of whole animal butchery from some master butchers. Now he and Sourced Material are ready to explore the whole animal! And now it is almost a new year.

Here are some of our thoughts, plans, and resolutions for the new year. We are definitely going to do some whole animal butchery demos/feasts this year! We are going to have a small show of all the objects made through the Wool exchange program. We want to explore making paper. KNIVES! We want to start looking into the possibilities of pop-up stores. We are always looking for new people to participate and explore with. We are interested in the idea of Sourced Material exploring a region rather than  a specific material- maybe the Southern Berkshire Hills. We are excited to see what surprises 2011 brings for us!
Mostly we want to wish you a happy New Years and thank everyone for supporting us!!!

Steer Slaughter

We attended our second slaughter this weekend. This time we came to witness a steer be slaughtered. It was less shockling to watch this time. For one I knew, more or less, what to expect. Als,o Hans Sebold (the one who did the killing and dressing and a master butcher) had us stand much further back when he shot it. It was also freezing out, so we were already uncomfortable and slightly distracted.

But there were some real differences in the process that had their own effect. One, maybe obviously, is that steer are much larger (1500 lbs vs 300 lbs.).  Another difference is that the steer must be skinned after it has bled out and before evisceration. Due to the large size- once the cow is shot in the brain, falls to the ground, and has bled out of the cuts made in its neck- the steer is propped up on its back (using large cement blocks) to start skinning process. Hans began removing the hide at the legs,  and then he slit the hide down the middle of the belly, from the hind-legs to the base of the skull. He then carefully removed the hide, in on large piece, by lightly cutting the layer of fat that connects the hide to the body. It is a surreal sight. There is little blood as it has led out and the heart is no longer pumping. Te hide is removed like a jacket. With confident movements Hans slowly had the hide removed fro the bottom half of the steer, and it was beginning to resemble what we see in the walk in of the shop.

It was, then, time to hang it from the gantry and remove the rest of the hide as well as the head, and guts. Hans removed the rest of the hide from the steers body and then removed its head. It was at this point that we were looking at beef and not a steer. Hans went on to split its gut open letting the them spill out on pasture below it. We still can not get used to how abstractly beautiful the guts are when they spill out. 

Hans cut the steer into manageable quarters (front and hind), so that they could hang for at least a week before being further broken-down into cook-friendly cuts and proportions. It was once again a profound experience and we are grateful for the opportunity to have participated in it.

For more photos click here:

steer slaughter

Wool Exchange

We are so excited that all of our wool material-objects  have been exchanged. Now we wait and see what people make. Hopefully we can organize a show of it!!
Thank you to everyone who participated!!!!!!

Interview about Sourced Material

Read David Horvitz's interview of Jake Levin about Sourced Material in 127Prince.org:
http://127prince.org/2010/11/26/interview-with-jake-levin-of-sourced-material/

Pig to Pork

This weekend, thanks to Fleisher's, we had a profound experience. We participated in our first slaughter. There is no real way to prepare for such an event. So, we arrived- anxious and excited- on a perfect autumn day, at a gorgeous small family farm. After some coffee and muffins, we walked through an idyllic Hudson Valley pasture to get to the pig and to start the slaughter process.

Leading us through the process were the Smother Bros. of butchery- Joshua Applestone and Tom Schneller. As we stood at the edge of the pasture one couldn't help thinking- "this is how every slaughter should be conducted." The temperature was cool enough so that one didn't have to worry about spoilage, the sun was bathing us in warm light so no one was uncomfortable, and Tom (the one doing the acutall killing) stood there confidently (a twinge of apprehension on his face) talking us through the process, while Josh threw in jokes here and there, easing the tension we all held.

The first two steps were, one- to make sure the cauldron of water was hot enough to scald the hair of the animal but not hot enough to par-boil it. And, two-  to get the pulley and gantry ready- the metal bar from which the pig is lifted off the ground and hung upside down, making the bleeding-out and eviscerating easier and quicker. As the water reached the correct temperature we all walked over, apprehensively, to where the pig lazily lay. Tom walked over to it, .22 in hand, gave it some food, held the rifle to its forehead and pulled the trigger. Knocked out- the pig rolled over, and with precision Tom stuck his 5" blade into the jugular allowing the animal to bleed out as quickly as possible. The animal's unconscious body spasmed for a few minutes and then stopped. Four of us picked up the still warm body of the pig, put it in the pack of ATV and brought it over to the cauldron and tree where it would be scalded, hung and eviscerated.

 For us, that was the most intense moment. The actually killing was not as upsetting as we thought it might be. This was due to Tom's skill and poise as well, as the evidence that surrounded us attesting the wonderful life that this pig had led. But during the journey from the kill spot to the gantry we watched the pig go from being an animal to being a large piece of meat.

Once the pig had been scalded in the 150˚ f water  we all took turn scraping off the hair. Scraped clean, we raised the gantry, a metal bar which is hooked into the tendons in the pigs feet, and Tom eviscerated it. As he slit the underside of the belly steam poured out and the organs easily slipped into the bucket below. We saw evidence of how humade the kill was as the bladder of the pig was full (under stress the pig would have expelled it bowels).

The 300 lbs pig was now about 270 lbs of pork.

For more images go here:

Pig Slaughter

Consumer Edu.

Wednesday is one of our favorite days for the NYTimes because it has the Dining section. Our favorite food related article today was about celebrating the butcher and offal.  It was particulalry fun to read as Jake was breaking down and lamb and pig and working on some head cheese!

But the aricle that made us start talking was about  candy and a Samira Kawash, PhD aka the Candy Professor. Its not just that we love chocolate and candy corn, but it was the ways in which the article and  Kawash talk about the strange contradictions, misconceptions, dogmatic rule people have about food. Somehow somewhere we got it our mind that sugar is bad for us, especially children, and thus candy is bad. While it is true too much sugar is and for anyone, candy is not inherently bad.

What is even more interesting to us is that people will vehemently oppose candy for their children and then feed their children Tyson chicken, Gatorade, and Nature Valley Organic Granola bars with out blinking an eye. These things have as much if not more chemicals and sugars as most candies. People now are insisting more and more on organically labeled products, which is a good impulse. But few people really ask what that means, and whether it is what they think it is.

The Sheep and Wool Festival

Last Sunday we attended the the Sheep and Wool Festival at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds, in Rhinebeck, NY. We have been looking forward to this event since we first took a hand-spinning class at The Yarn Tree last spring. The Festival is one the largest in country, and the largest on the east coast. We were overwhelmed by how many vendors and attractions there were.
Some of our high-lights were the sheep shearing demonstrations, learning about new natural dye methods, and seeing and touching many of the breeds we had read about. The whole thing was pretty exciting, so many people from everywhere all there for one reason- the love of wool. And here you could see the whole operation, from sheep to wool to roasted lamb. Also exposed were all sides of the wool operation- Blue Seal (one of the largest American producers of animal feed) sponsoring a building dedicated to showcasing heritage breed sheep. We cam away most excited at the prospect of someday having a flock of sheep (maybe some Jacob (pictured below) or Icelandic). We also have some new ideas for what to put in our weavers garden- like Osage Orange trees. A project we want to start this spring!

A pound of flesh.

Being a doctor must be strange. One must look at the people differently. Butchers are no doctors. They have the relief of knowing they are cutting dead flesh and the worst that can happen is you fuck up the tenderloin. But after just two weeks of separating muscles and cutting meat off of bones- slowly learning the basic skeletal muscular structure of mammals- we are looking at all four legged creatures and bi-pedals differently. We see how meaty the shanks are. Where the atlas bone is- making it easy to separate the head in one quick cut. Where one would remove the loin from the ham. It's strange how the daily abstraction of the animal form- into parts, sections, and commodities- trains one to objectify and systematize all bodies. We can only imagine how a doctor must begin to see people. 

Contradictions in Meat

One of things that we have found ourselves thinking and talking about a lot recently is the relationship people have to meat (flesh). Because of the diverse crowd of consumers at Fleisher's we are exposed many different conceptions and receptions of meat. People want, expect, or believe strange and often contradictory things in terms of the meat products they consume.

Here are just some of the things we have seen:
-People think they want 100% grass-fed meat but they would be outraged at the idea of buying an animal that has been frozen four eight-months. 100% grass-fed animals have a three month period when those animals are ready to slaughter, right after summer, when they have been eating fresh grass all day and gaining wight. The animals eat hay, which has no real nutritional value, all winter and don't put on weight, which means the meat wont be as good. If you want to have grass-fed meat all year long that means the animals must be slaughtered Sept, Oct, and Nov, and be frozen for the year.
-People want to buy high-quality meat- full of flavor, fresh, and tender. But people are freaked out by the fleshiness of meat and cook it till there is no remnants of life, and thus no flavor. Than they are angry that they paid good money for what they think is bad quality meat.
-People want pasture-raised meat, but they expect to see heavy marbling. The kind of marbling we are used to seeing comes from inactive muscles, the result of a penned in animal in factory farming.
-People want to buy sustainably but they expect that every cut of meat should be available to them at all of times. Nose-to-tail butchering is sustainable butchering. It means no parts are wasted, what can't be sold as a cut of meat (for whatever reason) is in to sausage or dog food. It also means that every animal you breakdown that week must sold that week, meat does not ahve a long shelf life. Yet, every animal only has so much of each cut (you must choose between your tenderloins and porterhouses and there is only one skirt per steer).

Nothing is kosher!

Watch artist Christien Meindertsma breakdown how every part of a pig is used as a material: Christien Meindertsma: How pig parts make the world turn | Video on TED.com



We just learned about her and we look forward to exploring her work more. She has also done a wool project similar to ours, go to her website to learn more.

NYTimes Magazine Food Issue(s)

There is a great article, by Christine Muhlke, in this last Sunday's NYTimes Magazine (the annual food issue), titled "Growing Together". The article is all about the way in which food and the current food movement in particular have created different kinds of communities, it is also very honest about the limits of those communities. Everyone should read it, really, it is worth reading the whole issue. Rob Walker describes 'kitchen incubators' in his column 'Consumed'. Michael Pollan, a hero of ours, has a great piece about a 36 hour local food party, we wish we could have been there. Pollan describes the building, the use of, and the symbolic meaning of the communal hearth, an idea that we think and talk about a lot (probably a future SM project). Another short little piece of interest is 'The Cow-munity' about a community of people who buy shares in a pasture raised local steer. It is an example of a good option for those who don't have a Fleisher's nearby, and also of how food can create unusual communities.  Also read Pie + Design = Change an article about food, community, art and social intervention!!! It describes a design collective, very much like us, called Project M, we look forward to learning more about them. Finally, is the the west coast that much cooler than us? Certainly the Bay Area seems to be a few steps ahead of us North Easterners: Food Groups.

Many Meats

The first week of training at Fleisher's Grass-fed and Organic Meats is over. The week really flew by. Fleishers is a unique place for a lot of reasons: the personalities that work there and shop there, the love of food (meat in particular) and the dedication to sustainability. There is a lot to talk about and a lot more time (at least 7 more weeks) to experience and learn new tings.

Obviously, when in a butcher shop that has distinguished itself by its dedication to both sustainability and high quality, it brings lots of different kinds of consumers. Customers come to Fleisher's because it is the best butcher-shop in the area, both in quality of meat and also range in product. Some come because of its cult status in the food world. Some come because of its distinctive and marked political position. Some come and buy that rare and luxurious dry aged porterhouse as a celebration, others come on an almost daily basis and buy hamburger meat or chicken wings. Hipsters, bubbies, New Yorkers, Hedge-funders, Woodstockers who never left, and locals all shop here (as well as many of the most trendy restaurants in NYC). All of this is remarkable, the diversity of consumers and there needs are astounding. This diversity is due to Josh and Jess's commitment to high quality product, sustainability, health, and local economy. It is rare to see all this balanced and the success of that balance is what opens itself up to such a wide range of consumers.

Sierra Club Radio - October 2, 2010

Listen to a radio interview about Sourced Material: Sierra Club Radio - October 2, 2010

Butchering

 
Today Sourced Material chef and artist Jake Levin began his eight-week training at Fleisher's Grass-Fed and Organic Meats in Kingston, New York- just across the Hudson River from Bard where the foundation was set for Sourced Material. At Bard Jake spit roasted a whole twelve-pound leg of lamb sourced from Fleisher's during the Wool installation on 07/07/10 (shown above) He also roasted two six-pound legs of Lamb for the Wool opening at flatbreadaffair on 09/23/10, and at the flatbreadaffair artists fete on 09/29/10 we braised three seven pound lamb necks for ten-hours (seen in curator Rebecca Pristoop's hands), all sourced from Fleisher's.

Today he learned how to keep a sharp blade, cut himself, and clean the meat off of bones. It was surprising how much of the hand work of a butcher is reminiscent of being a sculptor- it was comforting. There was also lots of talk about good food and the kind of business necessitated by sustainability and a dedication to local economy. It is going to be a exciting experience and we will be sure to post more about it soon.

Web 2.O

Sourced Material loves exploring the marketing and community-building possibilities of Web 2.0 - as does any social organization that wants to remain relevant. We have our website, our blog, and a Facebook page- and we're about to start tweeting.  Web 2.0 and the internet provide a platform for public exposure, but more importantly they provide a forum for communication and community-building that can span international borders. While on the ground level Sourced Material is a part of a face-to-face community of producers, processors,  and consumers- via the web we have formed a global community of supporters and participants. The web also allows us to exist beyond the traditional gallery or retail system. Through our website we are able to have a gallery, an e-store, and a bartering system that anyone can participate in anywhere. A lot of the power of the internet has to do with its formlessness (a concept first described by Georges Bataille and one which is dear to our hearts).

It is the formlessness of  the internet that makes the Web 2.0's instant mass-communication and sharing abilities, a powerful social and political phenomenon. The ability to communicate, via text, image, or sound- anywhere, anytime, with anybody is an invaluable tool- one of the first truly anarchic and democratic communication devices. There is a really interesting article in this week's New Yorker, by Malcolm Gladwell, titled "Twitter, Facebook, and social activism". As always Gladwell's essay is intelligent, insightful and well researched. But he misses the point about the power of internet and Web 2.0. While the analogy to the American Civil Rights movement of the 60's is interesting and brings up some good points, overall it is not a useful analogy. That was a different era and needed a different form of social organization. he relationship between vertically integrated, hierarchical organizations and laterally sprawling networks of citizen activists is not a zero-sum game. Twitter/FB are tools that that traditional organizations can use to disseminate information and organize followers cheaply and in real time. Many forms of social activism do work by large numbers of "small" acts--get out the vote, letter writing campaigns, legistlative referendums. These are not trivial mechanisms for social change.

Web 2.0 offers is the anonymous and instant organizing of people for  things like flashmobs. Flashmobs have their own unique political power- the lack of hierarchy and the anonymity has an anarchic power that leaves the repressive powers dazed and confused. People arrive they do something and they vanish, there is no one accountable person or specific organization, it is people coming together because they share a point of view and want it to known. The civil rights movement made great strides under MLK's leadership, but his assassination was a major blow for the movement from which it never totally recovered; heirarchical groups have a human body, one bullet can cripple the whole body. Lateral organizations are more like a cell, constantly dividing into discreet bodies working together.

Besides social organizing and protesting, Web 2.O allows other kinds of politcal action and participation which was not available before. My favorite example, and one that Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker colleague Evan Osnos wrote about in May the artist Ai Weiwei. He is a fascinating contemporary artists and he uses twitter to allow anyone to follow his daily thoughts and moves. He has also used it to keep himself and others from being arrested and brutalized by the Chinese government as well as forcing the Chinese government to release information. His cult like status and use of twitter has kept him one step head of the Chinese government in ways that would be impossible with out twitter. There is a lot more to say about this and a lot more to read. These are just some of our reactions. We recommend that you read more about Ai Weiwei as well as reading The Coming Insurrection.

Last Night's Dinner

Last night was the Sourced Material: Wool Artist's Fete at flatbreadaffair. The dinner was amazing. All of the food was prepared by flatbreadaffair's chef Leah Rinaldi (except for the lamb's neck which was braised for 10 hrs by Sourced Material chef Jake Levin). Leah combined raw food techniques, traditional North-east American recipes, and haute cuisine, to turn all locally sourced food products into a gorgeous and delicious 8-course meal.

The conversation was rich and exciting- touching on topics like: farming, urban gardening, the relationship between curator and artist, the local artist community and of course food. It was a wonderful salon atmosphere and we can't imagine it having gone any better. We were particularly excited to have the artist Anne Lise Jensen there. We instantly hit it off. She told us about her practice and the difficulties she has experience doing social intervention art here in NYC (as opposed to the West Coast or Europe). Again we want to thank flatbreadaffair for an amazing job and for all of there support and of course we want to thank all of you who came to eat and talk with us!

What were your thoughts?

We would love to hear feedback from you about the opening and the exhibition, in general, at flatbreadaffair. Hold nothing back!

Sourced Material: Wool opening at flatbreadaffair

 
Thursday night was the opening of the Sourced Material: Wool exhibition at flatbreadaffair. It was a wonderful night filled with leg of lamb (roasted by Sourced Material artist Jake Levin), Sixpoint Sweet Action beer, and flatbread (made by flatbreadaffair chef Leah Rinaldi). There were over sixty people in attendance and the night was filled with good food and excited conversation.

We want to thank flatbreadaffair for hosting and organizing the exhibition and thank all of you who came. We really appreciate your thoughts, reactions, and support. For those of you who could not make it- we are sorry you missed the event- but we hope you can take the time to go visit the exhibition at flatbreadaffair, up through Nov. 1st.

Knives

We love knives. Whether it's for cooking, carving, hunting, or foraging we cant' have enough sharp blades with beautiful handles. Some of our personal favorites are our Japanese Shun chef's knife for carving meat (it will be wielded by Jake Levin at the Sourced Material: Wool opening at flatbreadaffair) and our Swedish made mushroom knife. We often make fun of (Sourced Material artist and blade fanatic) Will Levin for always having at least three knives in his pick-up truck, not to mention the scores of sharp blades he has in his Wood-shop.

In today's  NY Times Men's Fashion magazine there was a cool piece, Blade Runners, about a series of knives that had been made by different European designers all based on the traditional Sammi (the nomadic people of the Nordic) knife, the leuku. These knives are beautiful and we appreciate the designers' combination of veneration and innovation. There was also an interesting article recently about professional cutlery sharpeners in New York City, Venerable Craft, Modern Practitioner. It is an important reminder of the overlooked ancient crafts that are still alive today in such cyber-tech obsessed urban areas.

Sourced Material/flatbreadaffair: an evening at the chef’s table

Special Engagement Artist’s Fete

Wednesday September 29, 2010
Join Sourced Material artist Jake Levin
for an intimate evening at the chef’s table

Enjoy a plated meal of local, seasonal foods prepared by Jake Levin and chef Leah Rinaldi. This 8 course meal will include raw and cooked specialties inspired by the beginning of Autumn. Expect plenty of beets, sweet potatoes, hand made sheep’s milk delights, greens, lamb, apples and much more. Seats are $85 each. Space is limited. Please email flatbreadaffair@gmail.com by September 25th to reserve your spot and for more information.

Exhibition Opening 9/23 and Artist's Fete 9/29: flatbreadaffair // Sourced Material

flatbreadaffair

celebrates its inaugural exhibition with
Sourced Material
September 24 – November 1, 2010

Sourced Material is an artist cooperative formed by Jake Levin which explores the nature and physical transformation of raw materials. A growing awareness for the economic and environmental repercussions of Levin’s chosen media - wool, hemp, latex, wax - prompted Levin to establish Sourced Material to explore the industry and ecology of material production.

More info here: http://www.sourcedmaterial.com
_____________________________

Special Engagement Artist’s Fete

Wednesday September 29, 2010
Join Sourced Material artist Jake Levin
for an intimate evening at the chef’s table

More info here: http://flatbreadaffair.wordpress.com

_____________________________

flatbreadaffair explores ideas through art and food
Look. Experience. Digest.

Visit: Sundays 3 - 6 or by appointment

180 Nevins Street #2
Brooklyn, NY 11217
flatbreadaffair@gmail.com

Living Museums!!

We love going to open-air, or living, museums. One our favorites is Hancock Shaker Village in the Berkshires. We love being able to see and walk through the actual buildings that people have lived in, touch the actual tools people used, and see trained crafts-people employing the techniques and tools people used so long ago. We're always struck by the ways things haven't changed, and by the many ways in which we can learn from traditional techniques and technologies. Here in Sweden we had the pleasure of going to two open-air museums- one in Stockholm, called Skansen, the other here in Gotland, called Bunge Museum.

Skansen is by far the best and largest open-air museum we have ever visited. One of our favoirte cottages found in Skansen is pictured at the beginning of this post. The Bunge museum had an impressive array of old tools which, of course, we were very exicted about. We wanted to show some of the amazing old spinning tools we saw at Bunge Museum (seen both above and below), many of them not so different from the ones used for Sourced Material: Wool.

Gotland's Crafts

As we talked to Gunilla about our interest in craft traditions and our current Sourced Material: Wool project she got excited. She immediately listed a name of people and places we could go visit and talk to around Gotland. We were excited to see what things we could learn here. Soon Gunilla, along with her sister-in-law Anna had planned a day of crafting and learning for us.

Gotland's economy used to be based on agriculture- root vegetables and Gotland sheep- but now its economy is built mainly on tourism. While there is still a lot of agriculture- like Frans' farm, as well as limestone mining and processing- it's tourism that creates the most money here. Gotland's tourism industry has allowed for a revival of crafts and cultural traditions. Tourist come here wanting to find 'authentic' Gotlandish products, which means the people living here have to produce them.

We see this happening in lots of rural areas that see lots of tourism, like Jake Levin's home, the Berkshires. This creates a complicated situation for the people who produce these objects. On the one hand it's wonderful that there is once again an economy for these local products and traditions, but on the other hand it can have an alienating effect- a feeling that one is producing these for an outside market. The touristic-fetishizing of these objects also drives up their prices. On one hand it's good, as it means more income for the local producer, but on the other hand it often means the community can not afford their own local products.

Not surprisingly, the majority of crafts in Gotland have there source in the agriculture here: wool and food (jams, honey, breads). Most of these craft-objects can be bought in the small shops that accompany many of the farms. They can also be found in tourist centers, boutiques in larger towns like Visby, and in small ateliers throughout the island where products- ceramics, candles, textiles, etc- are made and sold.

Our first stop with Gunilla and Anna was in Vallstena, at Ullverkstan Vallstena(Vallstena Wool-workshop), a beautiful wool crafts store and felting studio run by Annika Grandelius. Annika's shop was really exciting, we were immediately inspired. We told her a little bit about Sourced Material: Wool, and she went on to teach us some new techniques in her light-filled and airy studio. Annika has traveled all over Europe and a little in North Africa, learning about different felting techniques and making connections with different felters (she is particularly involved with a group of crafts-people in Estonia). But she is dedicated to using her own wool, from Gotland sheep, and cleaning and dying it herself.

Next we went to southern Gotland, to the town of Hemse. There we visited Gotlands Spinneri where the bulk of Gotland's wool is spun. The Gotland Spinneri has a fascinating history. In 2001 it was announced that the old Hablingbo Spinneri was to be closed and thus the machines, most dating to the 1920's, were going to be broken up and sold leaving Gotland without a wool mill. People in the local textile community were extremely upset at this news and immediately jumped to action. A group of woman organized and wrote letters to people asking to purchase a share of the mill (at 1000 kronors) and become a supporting member of the Hablingbo Wool-mill Economic Union. Their efforts were successful. After organizing a governing board and finding a home for the machinery they started to process wool again for Gotland. Anna is a member of co the-op and spins the wool from Frans' sheep here, which she then sells in her shop. The whole scene is quite beautiful- a bustling site of machinery and grey Gotland wool.

Frans' Ekolgisk Farm

Staying with Frans and Gunilla has been a wonderful way to experience Gotland. Between traveling to Frans' farm, in Dalhem (from the small island of Fårö where they live)- to baking and eating in Gunilla's kitchen, and exploring their friends shops throughout Gotland- we feel we have gotten a sense of Gotland's rich traditions and culture- or at least as much as one could get in three weeks.

Frans (pictured above) is one of the leading organic (ekologisk) farmers in Gotland, and in all of Sweden. He farms on about 100 acres of land mostly growing root vegetables- potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, and Jerusalem artichokes- and a little dill (a standard crop in Sweden). He also experiments with crops, some years trying chard, others dinkel (or old wheat). He also raises about 4 dozen Gotland sheep and 15-20 heads of beef cattle a year.

Frans is devoted to ekolgoisk farming and comes from a long (hundred's of years) line of Gotland farmers. He and his father turned the farm into an organic farm (a process that takes quite a few years) in the late 1980's, since 1994 everything, including the animals has been organic. Since then he has risen to the forefront of the organic farming movement in Sweden- he is the president of the organic farming organization/co-op SAM Odlarna Sverige, and an active member of Ekolgiska Lantbrukarna.

He is passionate, knowledgeable, and practical about the subject. It makes him angry that even though it only costs grocery stores a few more cents to buy organic produce wholesale, they double the price at retail- discouraging consumers from buying organic and turning it into a rarefied privilege. He also realizes that without a large semi-industrial farm like his, farmers must find a niche to be profitable- he thinks this is especially true in America.

Here that need for a niche is supplemented by tourists and their fetishization of Gotland's sheep. Most farms have small annexed stores that sell local produce and wool handicrafts. Frans' sister Anna and her husband have one such store a few kilometers from his farm where they sell Frans' vegetables, the spun wool and sheep skins from their small flock, hand-knit socks and hats (made by their aunt). Anna still needs an answer to niche marketing- she finds it in her amazing home pressed and bottled cider made from apples both grown on their land and supplied by neighboring farms. Waste not want not, they sell beautiful glass goblets that are, of course, locally made and re-processed from the used cider-bottles.

Gotland's Sheep

Everywhere you look on Gotland you see small black and grayish sheep wandering around munching on grass and bleating. Often it is hard to tell to if there is even a shepherd attached to these sheep. Every farm seems to have at least a handful of these small woolly sheep. Attached to most of these farms are little shops that sell some of these goods produced on the farm or on the neighboring farms. Two things you can invariably find in these shops are lammskinns (exactly what they sound like) and beautiful spun grey wool, still oozing the smell of lanolin.

Frans' farm has about 4 dozen Gotland sheep (some are seen above eating the "bad" carrots he harvested earlier in the summer) and a few Leicester (which have finer and whiter wool, but are not native). The Gotland sheep are not the original native breed- that is the Gute- but since the Gute's genetic characteristics made it less desirable than other European breeds, it was cross bred with the with Karakuls and Romanovs during the early 1900's.

The Gotlands are raised primarily for meat, but the skins, and more and more the spun wool is being sold to tourists and being sued by local crafts people. Because of the EU's progressive agricultural politics many people have been able to hold on to there flocks even when they are not able to support themselves from it. The EU recognizes the important of the keeping these smaller breeds and genetics alive, and also the ecological use of the Gotlands, nothing keeps the land clear (and therefor more desirable for tourism) as economically and sustainably as the Gotland. You can read more about the EU's agricultural policies on there website.

Bread!

We don't know if we have ever had as much and many different kinds of bread as we have in Sweden. The organic farmer we are staying with, Frans Brozén, grows dinkel (old wheat or spelt). Dinkel (seen above) is used for various things here- from ground flour for cakes and bread, to whole grains for hearty dishes made with ground-meat and cabbage. They use rye flour for knäckebrod, buckwheat for gallete, and on and on. Right now Silka is getting a demonstration in traditional Swedish baking from Gunilla, Frans' wife.

Jake's parents always joke that when they first moved up to New Marlborough, you could only get sliced white bread. Now, because the Bekrhsires is such a local-food rich place, there are an amazing variety of breads to chose from, like Richard Bourdon's (who you can see pouring flour above) Berkshire Mountain Bakery. But in most places there no such choices. This morning in the NYTimes there was another exciting local-food article- this one about bread baking and grains- titled Their Daily Bread Is a Local Call Away