This is perhaps the most terrifying thing I've faced since coming to China. Worse than mountain climbing, worse than the rope bridge between two mountains, worse than sliding down the Great Wall, worse than getting lost (which happens a lot), and way worse than anything I thought to be afraid of before coming.
I know that looks like a really tasty salad (and it was) but in reality it was a terrifying test for me. What you don't see in these pictures are all of the forks, spoons, knives, and little plates surrounding this plate. More utensils than I have ever used in my lifetime! The chicken was similarly frightening; look at the sauce and the potential for a messy disaster!
Jane (my boss at BIOFarm) was working with Kimberly, the woman in charge of the Slow Food Shanghai group, to put together a panel of speakers to talk about how we can affect change within Shanghai's food culture. They were invited to host the event at one of the most famous (and expensive) Western restaurants in Shanghai as a part of a larger series of talks on modern cuisine. Jane and other local leaders of the sustainable food movement were asked to speak about their contributions, discuss the struggles, and foresee the future of Shanghai's food culture. And then there was me.
Jane invited me to come and speak as a part of the panel to represent a slightly younger perspective, and also to talk about the international Slow Food movement. Now, I love Slow Food and I guess I'm okay with the rest of the world, but I am in no way prepared to be a representative of either groups. Slow Food UW is a fantastic organization that does great work for Madison, and I have wanted to join it for over a year, but it has never fit into my schedule. So, I did a lot of studying and reflecting.
I can't say that I represented all of my generation, and I definitely can't make that claim for the rest of the world, but I think I did a fair job of representing myself. Whereas Jane and the representative from Mahota Farms (another organic farm near Shanghai) talked about the movement from a commercial and historical perspective, and Mrs. Lu (pictured above, with her sweetheart of a daughter who was currently pretending to be a seal) represented a local activist who inspired her community to take action and serve only organic produce at their kindergarten, I am a student. I have big dreams, I'm trying to find what I'm passionate about, I don't have a lot of extra time or money, and I am constantly being buffeted by conflicting views about what is or is not going on.
When I am stressed, tired, bored, hungry for change I make food. I can use my hands and let my mind wander for a bit. I can follow the directions others have given me, or simply throw some things together and hope that it works. I can spend two minutes slapping together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or I can spend all day making a batch of bread. Every single time I go into the kitchen, it is different. Sometimes the results are fantastic, sometimes you end up with exploding oatmeal. It's all a part of the process.
Some of my earliest memories with my grandparents involve learning how to cook. Whether I was simply setting the table in anticipation of a great meal, peeling potatoes over the kitchen sink, mixing up batter for blueberry muffins, learning how to properly scramble an egg, or any number of other deeply ingrained memories I spent a good chunk of my childhood in the kitchen with my grandparents.
I tried to talk about what I know, and listen to what others had to say. All in all, it was absolutely fascinating listening to everyone, and the event was a fabulous success!
There are few things more awkward than standing, waiting for your Chinese boss to take a picture of you on a random street corner with a bunch of Chinese business people walking by and looking at you strangely.
Next, on Sunday I got the opportunity to visit one of the other Shanghai local organic farms; Mahota.
This farm was begun by an incredibly wealthy family from Singapore, who were forced to leave the island by the government. So, the facilities are a lot more fancy.
They have ponds, mushrooms that play classical music, a Chinese medicine center, luxury yurts you can stay in, and so much more.
They run their business using a biodynamic model.
Everything starts with the pigs.
They have something like 20,000 pigs that they are raising in an organic manner. This results in a lot of waste.
Ultimately this waste is recycled into compost, which is used to grow a variety of vegetables on the farm.
The vegetable growing part of the business is relatively new; they only added it on three years ago as a way to deal with the increasing amount of pig waste.
Kind of cool how you can turn crap into cash.
This is a big complicated model of how they are planning to set up their closed-loop ecosystem. It involves a lot of complicated chemistry and microbiology that they didn't bother trying to explain to us.
However, in reality most of the process looks like this. Yes, that is a big reservoir of pig shit.
After touring the pig poo transformation, we then got to try the products of this magical process; an organic hot pot lunch. Eveything you see here is made of things produced on this farm.
Needless to say, it was absolutely delicious.
Also, as a part of the pig shit filtering, they have huge rice paddies set up. Yes, their rice plants are soaking in liquid waste, but it honestly doesn't smell that bad and it is fabulous for the plants!
So much rice!
And this is what rice looks like up close... I always imagined it looking... different. A little more exotic or cool looking perhaps? But, who am I to judge, this crop has fed billions of people.
Like BIOFarm they use the poly tunnels to try to combat the extreme heat of summer in Shanghai.
Finally, during the hottest part of the day, we got to take a lovely bike tour out to where they keep a small native wetland reserve.
They use this reserve to help filter the pig waste and attract beneficial birds who will help eat the pests. I also suspect that they use it to attract tourists.
It was an interesting tour, but ultimately it left me feeling a little jaded. Most of our time was spent on phony show rooms and quaint activities, and we saw very little of the actual farming. I personally would have loved to learn more about the science behind their waste recycling program, and I know the others in our group wanted to see more of the pigs. Mahota is a great pig farm, a good model of modern farming and biodynamics, but I'm still more partial to BIOFarm. They are much more honest about they are, and obviously passionate about showing your everything.
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