100-Mile Diet and Locavore Intensive
| When: | Sept. 5th, 9:00am - |
Where: |
Aprovecho Education Center |
| How Much: | $1,250 - 1,450 Sliding Scale (includes all organic meals, lodging, instruction, and course materials). |
Have you ever wondered how far the food on your plate traveled in order to provide you nourishment? Would you like to learn more about how to eat locally? Join us at Aprovecho as we discover the joys and challenges of creating a local food system. During the workshop, we will be learning about the importance of a foodshed—from your homegarden, to local farms and ranches, wild edibles and food foraging. The seminars offered will combine hands-on skills as well as theoretical investigations into the nature of the mainstream and more localized food systems. Most of our meals will be spent eating only from within 100 miles of Aprovecho, so we can learn more about the true sustainability of the endeavor. The workshop will also incude field trips to local purveyors of various foods, and areas where we can harvest or glean from natural systems. We are very excited about continuing this timely research, and look forward to sharing the experience with you.
Contact: Rosie for questions or to enroll. (541) 942-8198 or email apro@aprovecho.net
Classes include:
Nutrition and Whole Foods Cooking – In this seminar we will learn how to create a nutritionally sound diet using only foods from our local food shed. The seminar will focus on learning to structure meals out of seasonally available produce while covering basic cooking techniques. Handouts will be provided to act as guide for constructing meals throughout the internship. The seminar will be divided between lecture/discussion and hands on work.
Local Starches –Transcending our dependence on distant supplies of carbohydrates is without question one of the great challenges in the development of a local food economy. Be it amaranth, quinoa, tritikale, wapato, or oca we will explore possibilities for a local and sane supply of starch.
Bread Baking – Learn the basics of bread. Learn about bread nutrition and explore the various limitations and possibilities of baking with local grains. Even the yeast will come from within 100 miles!
Political Economy of Food I, II --
I : Outline the structure of the international food industry. Where does people’s food come from? What distribution mechanisms are used? What regulatory institutions mediate these markets? How does these markets function?
II: What is the nature of agricultural research and development? Who and how it is controlled? What are some examples of research of, by, and for the people? Political resistance to the economics of food.
Fermentation 101 - Learn the science and joy of making your own fermented foods. We will cover the techniques and chemistry behind fermented vegetables, dairy, bread, alcohol and a variety of other tasty home made ferments. The class will include some samples, hands on demonstrations and recipes to inspire you on the road to fermentation.
Food Preservation - Learn different food preservation techniques such as drying, canning and fermenting. We will explore the pros and cons of each technique as well as doing some hands on work to familiarize ourselves with the methods and tools used to preserve the harvest.
Native Plant Ecology / Ethno botany -- Before European colonization, the people of the Northwest met their food needs locally for at least ten thousand years. This will be a discussion on the crops and methods of cultivation that existed within the Willamette valley during this time period as well as a field based experiment in gathering, cultivating, and processing these native foods.
Medicinal Herbs -- In this seminar we will learn to identify and use a variety of medicinal herbs in the garden and forest while discovering why using plants as medicine is both safe and effective. The seminar will cover basic terms and preparations to lay some foundation principals of herbalism. We will also be making some plant medicines to take home.
Wild Edibles and Food Foraging - Learn to identify, harvest, prepare and locate an abundance of wild foods in both urban and woodland settings. We will explore the woods and gardens of Aprovecho searching out edible leaves, roots and berries learning some simple botany terms and plant identification skills. We will also focus on seasonality and how to incorporate wild foods in our diet throughout the year as well as the indigenous use of some of our native edibles.
Mushrooms -- Join our resident fungophyles in an exploration of the mushroom kingdom. After an introduction to mushroom lifecycles and culture, we will gather mushrooms in our surrounding forest. In order to ensure an enhanced cuisine, we will also propagate some well-known edible mushrooms using oak and alder logs.
Honey our local sugar – Learn the basics of beekeeping, its historical import, its contemporary industry, and the bee’s impact of the human imagination. Our research will conjecture the changes in apiculture necessary for a local sugar source.
Perennial Crops -- Perennial crops are great season extenders, soil conservers, energy savers, and all around ecosystem enhancers. From ramps to rhubarb, from sea kale to sunchoke learn about, taste, and cultivate the many perennial crops offered up by our temperate climate.
Edible Landscaping – Yards of any size can help to fill the belly and nurture the soul while wooing neighbors with their scents, colors, and flavors. Learn how to turn your yard into an incredible edible oasis, tour local edible landscapes, and help to plant an urban jungle in Cottage Grove. Hardhats required on garden field trips given the grave danger of falling food.
Animal Husbandry -- This extensive subject will focus on poultry, goats, and cows. In addition to the care of these creatures, their use in agricultural systems will be explained in order to place them in a wider ecological context.