It’s the first Slow Food meeting of the fall, and members arrive carrying the first order of business: food.

 A soup pot full of chowder made with striped bass, potatoes, and leeks is placed on a burner to keep warm. The table at the West Tisbury home of Nora and Tony Nevin begins to fill up with dishes: mini diced beets, glistening with dressing and nestled with baby arugula from North Tabor Farm in Chilmark; a salad of fresh corn, tomatoes, basil, and Cajun-spiced shrimp from Morning Glory Farm in Edgartown; and a large bowl filled with Sue Silva’s home-grown cantaloupe, watermelon, and raspberries, among other offerings.

The term Slow Food is used primarily to respond to the industrial-food supply – meaning fast food – that is creating a world of homogenized or standardized food. In answer, Slow Food works to celebrate and preserve traditional and local fare around the world, which is in danger of being wiped out.

It’s been more than a year since the Slow Food Martha’s Vineyard group formed, and each monthly meeting starts with a potluck featuring Island foods. The variety is surprising – and fun. It gives a glimpse into not only what people can pick up from farms, fishing, and foraging, but what’s growing in people’s backyards (kiwis and figs) and being created in their kitchens (homemade sausage, cheese, vinegar, and brewed beer).

“I find it to be a wonderful collection of people and food,” says Sumner Silverman, who has hosted Slow Food at his Tisbury home. During meetings, Silverman, a licensed psychologist and part-time jewelry maker, often takes others out to look at walnut trees, gooseberries, currants, and other edibles growing in his yard. “It’s a great way to tie into the community, and the potlucks are some of the best food I have been privileged to experience in a potluck.”

Members of the Martha’s Vineyard convivium, as groups are referred to, are among 80,000 members in a worldwide movement promoting “taste, tradition, and the honest pleasures of food.” Anyone can start a group (there are 140 in the United States, from Slow Food Anchorage to Slow Food Washington, D.C.), and the one on the Island formed after West Tisbury resident Rick Karney returned from a Slow Food world meeting in 2004 in Turin, Italy, which drew 5,000 food producers from all around the globe.

“I was very impressed with the international organization and was very aware of the fact there were a lot of Slow Food–type activities occurring on the Vineyard,” says Karney, who directs the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, which works to spawn and protect scallops, oysters, and the like. “I thought it would be neat to have a local chapter to share what we’re doing and also learn what people are doing elsewhere in the world.”

The Slow Food movement champions good food, safe food, and fair food, Karney says, “meaning good food that is of quality; safe food means safe for human consumption and for the environment in the way it’s produced; and fair to farmers and everyone along the production cycle in that they are fairly compensated for their role in food production.”

Slow Food Martha’s Vineyard has grown to thirty-five members, and everyone who finds their way to this diverse group shares an interest in (and usually a love of) food. Christiantown farmer Sam Hopkins produces goat’s milk cheese, including a blue and a Brie, and has brought up to five varieties to taste at several potlucks. Thalia Scanlan, who is the president of the Community Solar Greenhouse, grew forty-three varieties of heirloom tomatoes in her backyard this year in shades of red, orange, green, mahogany, and yellow. She coordinated an heirloom-tomato tasting with grower Caitlin Jones of Chilmark that drew more than two hundred people in September at the Polly Hill Arboretum in West Tisbury.

Many members affiliate with other Island educational or environmental groups, such as the Vineyard’s Island Grown Initiative, the FARM Institute in Katama, the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society, and the Vineyard Conservation Society, which all work on issues Slow Food groups embrace.
“Being a member keys you into what’s happening locally but also keeps you informed of what’s happening nationally,” says Chilmark resident Elizabeth Germain, a personal chef and food writer. “I am so happy to be connected to a group of people who are passionate about encouraging and supporting the connection between the land and table. This enables people to be part of the most important global movement in the world right now.”

Betty Haynes of West Tisbury, a former restaurant owner who attends with her husband Bill, owner of Haynes Plumbing and Caretaking and a member of the Agricultural Society, says she had never heard about Slow Food before joining last year. “Bill and I both enjoy cooking, and I like the concept of Slow Food. It’s a fun organization to belong to.” Their daughter Janice is also a member.

Nationally, Slow Food groups host farm dinners, artisan-cheese tastings, schoolyard projects, and more. On the Island, Slow Food Martha’s Vineyard hosted a community Slow Food potluck in July featuring Chilmark summer resident Joan Nathan as guest speaker; she explores traditional cooking in her books such as The New American Cooking (Random House, 2005) and Jewish Cooking in America (Random House, 1998). The group had an information booth at the Taste of the Vineyard in Edgartown in June, a display at the Agricultural Fair in West Tisbury in August, and has co-sponsored several events, including the Slow Food potluck at the Agricultural Society’s Harvest Festival in September and the heirloom-tomato tasting.

This winter, the group wants to work with Vineyard restaurants to host a series of dinners featuring Island seafood and other ingredients. “One of our goals,” says Karney, “is to get more involved with local restaurants and support any efforts by them to use local products. We’ve been in existence for one year and we have thirty-five members, which is pretty exciting. I’m looking forward to becoming larger – if we have a larger membership, we can do more things.”
 
Slow Food meetings are held on the third Thursday of each month. For information on membership, contact Melinda DeFeo at msdefeo@adelphia.net or Rick Karney at mvsg@capecod.net.

Striped bass chowder

Slow Food member Melinda DeFeo says she and husband Mark usually make a “monster pot” of this chowder and freeze some. She likes lots of potatoes, but Mark doesn’t, so proportions can be adjusted to taste.

Serves 6

• 2 ounces salt pork or bacon, diced
• Olive oil and butter for sautéing
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 leeks, halved and sliced
• 4 cups chicken broth or stock
• 4 cups water
• 6 medium potatoes, cubed
• 2 to 3 pounds striped bass fillets (whole)

In a soup pot, brown the salt pork or bacon in a bit of olive oil. Add some butter and sauté onions and leeks. Add chicken broth, water, and potatoes, and cook until potatoes are almost soft. Add fish – do not break up fish (it will break up on its own) – and simmer on low until fish is cooked. Remove from heat and serve.

Mashed carrots and rutabaga

This humble dish, provided by Slow Food member and personal chef Elizabeth Germain, is easy to prepare and praised for its sweet earthy flavor, comforting texture, and brilliant orange color. Elizabeth’s great-aunt passed down this recipe, and her family continues the tradition of using rutabagas. Often called yellow turnips or waxed turnips, rutabagas are related to turnips but are sweet instead of peppery.

Serves 4

• 1 medium rutabaga (about 1 1/4 pounds), peeled, cut into 1-inch chunks
• 8 medium carrots (about 1 1/4 pounds), peeled, cut into 1-inch chunks
• Salt
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened and cut into 4 pieces
• Freshly ground black pepper

1. Place the rutabaga and carrots in a large saucepan and add water to cover by 2 inches. Add a generous amount of salt and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium and cook until vegetables are very tender, about 20 to 25 minutes. Drain the carrots and rutabaga.

2. Return the vegetables to the empty saucepan and place over low heat. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon to remove excess moisture, about 1 to 2 minutes.

3. Remove the pan from the heat and add the butter. Use a potato masher to turn the carrots and rutabaga into a chunky mash. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve immediately.

Grilled Thai chicken

This recipe is one of Slow Food member Wendy Weldon’s favorite ways to prepare chicken. “It comes from a conversation around 1987 with a young Thai woman who owned a small Thai-Asian grocery store with her husband in Santa Rosa, California,” Wendy says. The recipe can also be used as a marinade for a whole chicken before roasting it in the oven. Island chickens can be obtained from a number of sources, including the FARM Institute in Katama, Northern Pines Farm in Tisbury, Allen Farm in Chilmark, and Thompson Farm in Tisbury.

chicken

1 whole chicken, either cut up or halved for grilling, or pre-cut thighs, legs, breasts. (You can remove skin if you prefer.)

marinade

• 1/3 cup Thai fish sauce (nam pla)
• 4 cloves crushed garlic
• Juice from 2 lemons (saving squeezed lemons for marinade as well)
• 1/2 teaspoon Vietnamese hot sauce (sriracha), or substitute chopped, fresh chiles
• 3 tablespoons fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped

1. Combine marinade ingredients and marinate chicken all day if possible, or at least one hour. It marinates well in a Ziploc bag.

2. Grill chicken on a hot fire, taking care not to burn, turning frequently and basting often.

Kale crunchies

Who knew that kale could make a tasty snack? Joanie Ames’s crispy kale has been a hit at several Slow Food gatherings, and the recipe is frequently e-mailed among members.

Serves 10 to 12 as a snack

• 1 bunch of kale
• Olive oil
• Salt
1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees.

2. Tear bite-sized pieces of kale off stalks and place in a large mixing bowl. Drizzle olive oil over leaves and knead oil in with hands. Place leaves on an
ungreased cookie sheet, one layer only, and sprinkle with salt. Bake for 10 minutes, or until crunchy and crispy but not browned.

The crispy kale can be served immediately or stored and reheated in a toaster oven.    

Pumpkin crème brûlée

Serves 6

Chef and food writer Tina Miller used fresh pumpkins from Morning Glory Farm to create this pumpkin crème brûlée, a recipe in her cookbook Vineyard Harvest: A Year of Good Food on Martha’s Vineyard (Broadway Books, 2005). You can use fresh pumpkin or the purée that comes in a can.

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 3/4 cup pumpkin purée
• 5 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup sugar, plus 6 teaspoons for
    topping custards

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Heat the cream with the spices in a heavy saucepan. When the cream begins to form small bubbles, turn off the heat and gently whisk in the pumpkin purée.
 
3. In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks and 1/2 cup sugar until the mixture is light yellow. Mix in about half the cream mixture. This will temper the eggs so they will not cook. Slowly whisk in the rest of the cream mixture. Do not whisk too vigorously, or you will create bubbles. Strain the custard mixture through a fine strainer, and ladle into six 4-ounce ramekins. (If you use shallow ramekins, note that they take half the time to bake.)

4. Set the ramekins in a metal baking dish and add enough warm water to the baking dish to reach halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for about 1 hour, until the center is almost set. Remove the ramekins from the water bath and refrigerate, uncovered, for 4 hours. You can leave them in the refrigerator overnight, but cover them after 4 hours.

5. Preheat the broiler (if you don’t have a chef’s blowtorch), and place an oven rack at the second highest setting. Evenly sprinkle 1 teaspoon sugar over the top of each custard, and broil for about 4 minutes, until golden.