All of the food was local and locally purchased through the Community Garden Market in downtown Philippi. The Community Garden Market is operated by Heart and Hand House, inc. a local non-profit organization. The wonderful thing about the garden market that worked well for this workshop was the role of the market as a local food aggregator. Most of the food used was locally-based, including the bread. Only a few ingredients such as sugar, milk and butter were not able to be sourced locally, but they were purchased through the local grocery store. The presence of the garden market made purchasing very simple in that there was only one bill for food purchased from several producers.
WesMonTy provided a pressure canner, which was available for the participants to learn from. There was also a water bath canner there for the high-acid foods. The pressure canner will be available for residents to borrow throughout the seasons.
The workshop was a great success, with each participant learning a vegetable soup recipe, an apple crisp recipe and an apple pie filling recipe. Both the Vegetable soup and the apple pie filling were canned. Each participant was able to take home one can of each along with a copy of the book 'So Easy to Preserve'. All the recipes came from the book, so that participants will easily be able to return to the recipes they used.
This event was created with families in mind, so children were given activities to do as well. Thanks to the beautiful weather on Saturday, the children first washed vegetables outside then went inside to make a delicious pumpkin dip, which was served with sliced apples. They were also able to make crafts, paint a pumpkin, make spice packets for the soup, and watch A Charley Brown Thanksgiving. It was important that the children take part in the food preparation within their own capacity. New research suggests that kids that participate in food preparation are more likely to try a new food. Some were hesitant to eat the pumpkin dip, but they soon learned that they really liked it!
Meanwhile the adult session went well. Without having to worry about what their children were up to, the participants were free to focus on the class. Mary Beth went over food cleaning, the basics of canning and the agenda for the day.
The participants were divided into several groups, and each group had a cooking station. Thanks to mobile kitchen supplies provided by Healthy Families Initiative, each station had a portable gas stove, utensils, knives and cutting boards. This allowed participants to cook right at the tables they worked at! First they chopped the veggies which had been cleaned by the children, and then began to cook. After the soup was made up, and the jars sanitized, they began to can. They learned all aspects of canning and how to do it safe and clean.
After everything was canned, everyone sat down to eat a great lunch of vegetable soup, bread and apple crisp! It was a great event in that parents were able to eat with their children and their community.
The event was concluded with a visit to the high tunnel project on Chestnut Ridge. At the high tunnel, Jeff Sickler accompanied by Dr. Lewis Jett of WVU made a presentation on the high tunnel. They spoke of benefits of the high tunnel, and gave first-hand examples of the success of it. They also spent some time talking about low-tunnel technologies, a new venture in the area. Low-tunnels are a potentially cost-effective means of season extension. They are a fraction of the price of a low-tunnel, and create many of the same benefits.
Overall it was a great day! WesMonTy has been fortunate to have so many good collaborators and resources in the community. We also look forward to doing an activity like this in the future with other communities.
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