Flavourful Saskatoon, June 24, 2019



Local Happenings 
I’m really enjoying the fresh gooey baklava from Farideh’s Preserves & Pickles at the Saskatoon Farmers' Market. Not to worry - I’m balancing out the sugar with their pickled carrot sticks! They also sell all sorts of unusual pickles and jams.

Our Farm hopes to be back in St. Joseph's parking lot on Broadway Avenue on Saturdays from 8 am to 12 pm, starting June 29. The vegetables were a bit behind schedule, but Dennis hopes the rain will get them moving so he'll have produce to sell on Saturday. Update: Our Farm's first market is now scheduled for July 6.

It’s wonderful to have an organic flower farm just outside of Saskatoon. Joanne and Pat Halter do such a good job of caring for the land and wildlife while also growing fabulous flowers. They’re hosting workshops on Aug. 9 and Aug. 24 to share what they’ve learned about flower farming and flowers. Both workshops will include a garden tour with advice on how to grow flowers on a larger scale.

They’re growing apples and making cider in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.


Food for Thought 
The price tag on a tin of Italian tomatoes is heartbreakingly high. “In the Italian south, the lives of foreign agricultural labourers are so cheap that many NGOs have described their conditions as a modern form of slavery.” . . . “Some people are making money off the backs of the displaced and desperate. Italy’s agricultural sector is booming, with food products making up 8.7% of Italy’s flagging GDP. The tomato industry alone is worth £2.8bn. Mass immigration is chaotic and uncontrolled, but the exploitation of immigrant workers is systematic.”

Supermarkets and consumers are also to blame: “In squeezing their suppliers so hard commercially that they can only make a profit by exploiting workers, supermarkets themselves are driving the conditions that can result in modern slavery in their supply chain.” . . . “The link between the cost of work and the price of the product has broken.”

The tomatoes in the photograph are from Grandora Gardens - a much better option!

Civil Eats puts together a great reading list of books on both food and farming. I’m interested in reading Food Routes: Growing Bananas in Iceland and Other Tales from the Logistics of Eating, a high-tech look at how food moves from the farm to the kitchen. You may prefer one of the Mexican, Palestinian, and Indian cookbooks or the book about growing wool locally.

Flavourful Saskatoon is a weekly Monday feature. I also post articles about food that is good, clean and fair; travel; and books. You may also enjoy EcoFriendly Sask profiling Saskatchewan nature/environmental initiatives and events.

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