NorthWest Palate
September/October 1998  

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Pastured Poultry
Beef and Lamb
Fleece & Wool
Rare Breeds
Breeding Stock
Navajo-Churro Sheep
Irish Dexter Cattle
San Clemente Goats

Contact Information:

E-mail: 
Lyle & Fiona Young
 
Telephone: 250-746-7884
Fax: 250-746-8912

1560 Cowichan Bay Rd,
Cowichan Bay, BC
V0R 1N1

Lyle out standing in his field

pastured poultry chicks

While the ancient Persians, for example, extolled the mysteriously musky, moanful sweetness and haunting rose-like perfume of perfectly ripe and juicy apricots ( which they called "eggs of the sun"), we seem to have become accustomed to tasteless, cottony, year-round globally jetted-in facsimiles. Recently, however, consumers have begun to relive the excitement and anticipation of the brief season of ripeness of every fruit and vegetable.  

      And suddenly heirloom vegetables and fruits are a hot commodity. Martha Stewart lavishes them across her glossy pages. The Herbfarm in Seattle and the Garden Path in Victoria propagate them; Petty's Antique Apple Orchard in Melbourne, Australia, and the Apple Press Farm closer to home are preserving history; and new-style grocery stores, such as Circling Dawn in Vancouver, are selling them. Whether it is a homely, old-world Pomme de Gris apple, aromatic and heavenly for eating out eating out of hand; a new-world Pike's Peak squash "discovered" in Mexico in 1840; or a prized Brillbury Hall Farm Light Sussex cockerel, as coveted in Britain as the Poulet de Bresse is in France, pedigree has become everything. Not only has where and how a particular food grown become of paramount importance in the search for true flavors, but so has the breed or variety from which it originates.

       Toward that end, Chef Sean Brennan of Cafe Brio in Victoria and Tina Fraser of the 18-acre Lynburn Farm on the outskirts of the city have developed a unique and symbiotic relationship. Fraser agrees to grow what the Cafe  wants and Sean agrees to buy all her produce. Each winter, in front of a roaring fire and a bottle wine, farmer and chef browse organic seed catalogues and decide which heirloom vegetables diners at Cafe Brio will find atop their spot-prawn risottos the following summer.

       "Often heirloom vegetables are the ones with big taste," Fraser says. "They haven't been genetically altered for performance." Among the rows of Raggedy Jack kales, Manitoba pea tendrils,60-odd fig trees (what could be more heirloom than a fig?) and Nosebag blue potatoes, Tina coaxes the best from her tasty brood, saves the seeds for next year's menu, and delivers each week her peak-of-ripeness charges to Brennan. "In the kitchen," explains Brennan, "there is constant excitement for our cooks. Whenever a basket of Tina's goodies comes in everyone rushes to pick out items for their specials. It helps beat the creative blahs of the 'anything you want anytime of the year' cooking mentality prevalent today." 

FROM GOOD STOCK                                        

When we think of rare animals, we usually think of leopards or elephants-cows and pigs seem too ordinary to be in danger of extinction. Yet more than half of our breeds of farm animals exist in such small numbers that they will soon be gone forever. While they may not produce as much as their modern counterparts, old breed farm animals raised organically without dependence on expensive imported grains and questionable pharmaceuticals offer clean and fine-tasting meat. In the old days, breeds such as Dutch Belted cows were known for their good dispositions and high butterfat content (excellent for making cheese and butter), and Gloucester Old Spots pigs, relentless scavengers that could keep a cider orchard clean as a whistle by eating all the windfalls, were cherished. Today a few farms still maintain those sentiments by continuing to raise only purebred animals. 

    One of these authentic but contemporary farms is run by Lyle and Fiona Young. In a bucolic Vancouver Island valley where cows graze and vineyards slice through the thick forests, the Young's tend 40 acres of organic pastureland dotted with whole gaggles, flocks, and herds of heritage-breed farm animals. These breeds are not your typical supermarket variety; many of them are near extinction, forgotten in the modern rush for uniformity and productivity. Some say that the Youngs' farm is the ideal for all that is new and good in agriculture today and hopefully tomorrow, a sort of Beatrix Potter dream of happy chickens, pear trees, and restored historic barns. As soon as you step foot on their property, you are struck by how perfectly the old and new combine in a way that is pure Vancouver Island. A basket of farm-fresh, mottled brown eggs sits atop an old-fashioned, enamelled wood-fire stove; a modern tractor rests beside a still-serviceable tiller waiting to be pulled by a plough horse; and talk of entropy control, bioregionalism, and alternative feeding systems salts the conversation, for Cowichan Bay Farm is all about providing consumers with a seemingly new choice.

     In the east pasture, odd-looking pint size Dexter cattle, which originated in the rough and tumble agricultural world of Ireland, are lean, compact protein machines. In another pasture, majestic Navajo-Churro sheep, prized as much for their wool as they are for good eating, skittishly roam. And in yet another field are to be found some of the last remaining San Clemente goats, which Young rescued from a California island where long ago these goats had been set ashore from a Spanish galleon. Chickens in curious looking wire pens with wheel appendages can be seen on the south side of the farm. "We call them happy chickens," says Young. "They live in large, open enclosures which are moved to a fresh piece of pasture every day. We want to recapture some of the people who have been turned off to meat by bad press or for reasons of health or sustainability. We feed our animals grass, instead of more costly grains. In reality, ruminating animals animals have historically eaten grass, not grains with higher cholesterol and fat. Cows that eat grains are like humans who eat chips in front of a TV all day," he adds.

     Mara Jernigan, a chef who lives just an egg throw away on her own Engeler Farm, love to braise the Youngs' pastured chickens over an open fire and serve them family style. Jernigan, who is helping to organize the ultimate Vancouver Island grazing event called "Feast of Fields," explains. "It will be an event like no other seen here. Local island chefs will do their cooking in an open farm field using heirloom fruits and vegetables wherever possible."

     Across the Juan de Fuca Strait in Washington, city-dwellers are flocking to the University Farmer's Market in Seattle. Instead of tomatoes bred for their long shelf life and perfect complexion, shoppers are more likely to find a misshapen, juicy Prudence Purple tomato at this market, one of the more than 60 small community farmer's markets that have sprung up around the region. Here, some farmers have come all the way from the Okanogan Valley in eastern Washington to bring their champion eggplants or heritage tomatoes directly to the sophisticated urbanites who cherish them.

     Take Johnathan Sundstrom of Full Circle Farm, for instance. He's smart, savvy, and knows how to market what he grows. "Johnathan is one of the new breed of farmers," says Chris Curtis, organizer and founder of the market. These individuals are "younger, very serious people who want to pursue farming and are smart to the ways of the city-to what people want, growing little heirloom lettuces, making connections with the chefs. The other day I was walking by Dahlia Lounge and stopped to read the menu. It makes me proud to see Full Circle Farm given credit on a menu for their excellent produce," says Curtis.

     Bruce Naftely, owner and chef of Le Gourmand restaurant in Seattle's Ballard district, also loves to work with local farmers and heirloom produce. "What I'm after is flavour, not convenience," he says. "And it seems the old varieties have it in spades." One of his specialties is a pumpkin soup that is made from an old French variety called Rouge d'Etampes, it's dark-coloured, looks like a Cinderella pumpkin, and tastes superb. Think pumpkin; then turn up the volume! Naftely says he is also in love with quince and old cider apple varieties. As for meats, he raves about an Aracana chicken from South America. "You might have heard of it," he says. "Martha Stewart named one of her paint colours after the poor bird. They have great flavour, probably because they feed on bugs. I've tried pristinely organic chicken just fed grain, but they have no flavour.   You need bugs!"

    Mostly, Naftely buys from locals with small backyard plots who grow specifically for him. "I get all kinds of interesting things, like white peaches, which are making a comeback ( they were in vogue back in the 1930s at upscale hotels) and delicate, fragrant old-fashioned roses, which I use to infuse sorbets. There's great enthusiasm. It's like the 1970s all over," he recalls. "Everyone's talking about prana (Sanskrit for lifeforce), back to the land, and permaculture again.

     The idea of returning to fruits of flavor has also been occupying Seattle food consultant Jon Rowley for quite some time. Rowley is working on a book entitled Good Brix- Flavour and Agriculture, which he hopes will redress the attenuation of flavor over the last 50 years. "I've logged about 2,000 miles through the peach orchards of eastern Washington, picking packing, and eating peaches. What I wanted to know was whether peaches develop sugar after they are picked."

    By measuring fruit sugar content, Rowley was able to determine what makes a peach flavourful. "I went through cases of peaches, testing three peaches from each case, each day, until the case was gone. I found no more sugar was developed after picking- although the peaches tasted sweeter, softer, and riper, they didn't measure any sweeter. [It seems it's the acid that declines, making the peaches seem sweeter.] But, I found that among peaches picked from different orchards, the same varieties, picked at the same time, were all very different in their sugar levels. I was intrigued and I had to find out why," says Rowley.

   "All the best-tasting peaches came from orchards that were composted, and the poorest-tasting ones were from orchard managed with fertilizers and pesticides. I looked at thousands of fruits. In terms of flavour, what I found was you need a peach with a sugar content [ known as its brix], of at least 13 or 14 degrees to taste good; at a level of 15-16, peaches start to develop incredible, seductive aromas; and at 17-18, they almost exceed the human threshold for pleasure." It makes sense that the old peach varieties are the best-tasting, as new peach hybrids are bred for transport, not sweetness. From there Rowley began testing the brix of beets, lettuces, berries-basically everything edible- and found the brix scale worked as well for predetermining which had the best flavours in foods.

      Later Rowley did a promotion for Queen Anne Thrifyway called Peach-A-Rama where each pallet of peaches that came into then its reading posted. "Customers would come into the store and if the brix was high that day they'd say I'd better buy a case of peaches today,"' claims Rowley. envision the day when chefs are at their back doors, refractometers at the ready, measuring the brix levels of incoming produce. God help the supplier who has low-brix produce!

     Who among dedicated foodies does not have a story to tell that recalls some memorable gustatory experience? Perhaps it was sneaking into a surly farmer's field under threat of buckshot-in-the-behind to pluck an irresistible, sun-warmed tomato? "We nearly lost the best-tasting tomato in the world," notes Ron Zimmerman, owner of The Herbfarm in Seattle. "Brandywine tomatoes were near extinction, with only one old fellow keeping the plant going, until it recently rediscovered." Thanks to that faithful farmer, our children will have the opportunity to taste a delicious part of our heritage and build their own fond memories of childhood pleasures.

 Gary Hynes is a Victoria, B.C. based food and wine photojournalist who has been published in Western Living, Cityfood, Westcoast and the Times Colonist.

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