Subject: MACSAC Food Book

From: marcy ostrom <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 15:32:08 -0600

>New Resource
>
>	The Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition (MACSAC)
>announces our new cookbook, //From Asparagus to Zucchini:  A Guide to
>Farm-Fresh Seasonal Produce//.  The cookbook, written by members of MACSAC,
>contains 200 pages of recipes, essays, and local and regional resources.  The
>recipe portion features 46 different vegetable and herb sections and
>includes nutritional, historical, and storage information as well as cooking
>tips and over 370 recipes.  Restaurants from Madison, Wisconsin contributed
>recipes as did MACSAC members.  Choice recipes were also selected from
>quality food journals and cookbooks.  The essays focus on how our food
>choices fit into our economy, environment, communities and quality of life.
>The food pages of the cookbook are illustrated by a local artist. We are
>finding that many different groups of people are interested in the cookbook
>in addition to CSA members, including: food and Farmers' Market enthusiasts,
>gardeners, and people interested in local economies.
>
>	From Asparagus to Zucchini is available for mail-order through the
>Michael
>Fields Agricultural Institute, W2493 County Road ES, East Troy, WI 53210,
>(414) 642-3303.  Please send a check made payable to MFAI for $18.50 to
>cover the cost of the book plus shipping and handling.  Wisconsin residents
>please include an additional 5.5% tax.  For wholesale orders of 10 or more
>books, at the cost of $12.00 plus shipping an handling, please contact Lauri
>McKean at (608) 251-8049.  We also encourage other CSA groups to consider
>purchasing an electronic copy of the book, enabling you to add your own
>information and regional resources and print copies locally.  Please contact
>Lauri at the above phone number if you are interested in this option.
>Income from the book will be used for MACSAC activities, including education
>and outreach on agricultural and community issues.  MACSAC is a
>not-for-profit organization that works to build a coalition of support for
>CSA farms, to promote cooperation and information sharing among CSA farms,
>to help new or struggling CSA farms, and to ensure the availability of CSA
>produce to people of all incomes.
>

---

From: marcy ostrom <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 18:35:11 -0600

Dear BRateaver (sorry, don't have your name here),

In response to your message about the MACSAC Food Book:

>The trouble is, there are already so many people who think almost entirely in
>terms of destroying the most valuable part--the enzymes---by cooking.
>
>Doesn't anyone have a superduper book on how to eat foods RAW to get the
>enzymes?

>I know of one, by a woman who is already whitehaired but eats everything, yes
>everything, 100 % raw. It is called the Uncook book. by Elizabeth Baker. That
>is what you should maybe be promoting.

Don't know of any really great raw food books, but I'd be willing to bet
they're out there somewhere.  We tried to include as many raw food recipes
as possible.  This was a participatory project - we asked CSA farmers and
members to send in their favorite ways of using vegetables and this book
reflects what we gathered.  This isn't your normal sort of cookbook as it
includes information on CSA, on each of our CSA farms, on our farm
coalition, facts on each particular vegetable, information on eating
seasonally, and information on preserving the nutritional qualities of
vegetables, etc.  We're pretty excited about it. However, I'm sure that
there will always be room for improvement on the next go round.

Personally, I find the best way to get a dose of raw vegetables is to spend
a harvest day working on a CSA farm.  The winter gets a lot more
challenging - do you have any secrets for getting down a quantity of raw
rutabega?

Marcy