At one of the farmers’ markets we worked last week, I was on the receiving end of a couple of questions and comments that came from a place of irritability, misunderstanding, and perhaps frustration. I’ll briefly recount them here:
“Do you have any pâté today?”
“No, sir. We are sold out. It goes fast, but try us in a couple of weeks!”
“Last time, you didn’t have it. If you don’t have it now, why would you have it then?”
“Is there a real farmers’ market somewhere with actual farmers or is this supposed to be it?”
“Ma’am, this is a real farmers’ market, and everyone here is an actual farmer.”
Certainly, when we shop often at the supermarkets, we tend to bookmark in our minds particular stores that have particular items we want at a particular location within that store, and we expect to be able to find what we’re after 99% of the time.
The supermarket is truly a modern marvel, but, by design, it does not contain fresh goods that are truly local - that is, goods that come from the farms and businesses that exist in the more-or-less immediate vicinity of a supermarket.
Why? Because the supermarket operates with complete dependency on the convenience that it can provide its shoppers, and the more convenience, the more sales.
The supermarket model, by necessity, competes with historically normal food suppliers.
There’s not even one chance in a million that the person who raises cows at a commodity dairy farm is even remotely involved with the various cheese products under various brand names that contain his milk. He’s abdicated responsibility to the end consumer (and transparency along with it).
The convenience of the supermarket - the marvelous, multi-colored aisles full of every kind of edible (if we can indeed use the word) - is dependent upon an extremely expansive catalogue of factories - not local kitchens, not local butcher shops - that do one thing and one thing only, like an infomercial brownie pan. These factories buy a few commodities as cheaply as possible (necessitating a commodity market, of course) and stamp out one ore two items that are somewhat digestible and market the living hell out of them until the stockholders are happy.
And so the commodification of nutrition, at the end of the day, does not serve the needs of the consumer. It’s not even designed with nutrition in mind.
On the other hand, what are some of the motivations for starting a small farm that only serves one or two local communities?
Not extreme wealth (We still know we deserve a BMW. We’re just not expecting it.)
Satisfaction in one’s labor.
Changing the food system from the grassroots.
Care for Creation/nature/the environment.
And certainly not least of all, care for the health and well-being of one’s neighbors.
Food, especially animal protein, is slow by nature (hence the “Slow Food Movement”). Unlike the industrial food system, small artisanal farms aren’t interested in artificially accelerating the production process. We just want to do it well.
We only want to do it if we can do it well.
It takes 4 weeks to make duck prosciutto, but it takes 15 weeks to make a duck that will give us the best duck prosciutto possible.
Enfin, we love our customers and we love that they love our artisanal goods! That love and appreciation is a significant reason for our work. If we don’t have pâté one day, I promise it’s not because we’ve been lazy. Most likely, we had to put on one of our many hats and prioritize a certain task based on the ever-attendant, always-numerous variables of raising ducks from one-day-old to 15-weeks-old to 8-week-dry-aged saucisson sec!
We will never abdicate our responsibility to generate ethical, wholesome food in favor of a quick profit. We’d rather a peeved customer than an unhealthy one!
But ask, and you shall receive! We’re really good about special orders and providing timelines. We’ll see you at the next farmers’ market!
Avec beaucoup d’amour,
Ross