On a Sunday morning in late Fall, I arrive at a gathering. It’s the first day of the fourth season of the La Merenda Bean CSA. As I enter the house from the brisk of early autumn, the warmth of a few familiar faces and some new people greet me. There’s someone I met at one of last year’s pick-ups, and she’s sitting in the corner pouring over a book of recipes, presumably dreaming about what she’ll make with this year’s bean haul. I pour myself a cup of coffee, grab a plate of homemade breakfast treats, and wait my turn to have my beans measured out like precious gems on a jewel scale.
Read MoreEATEN No. 21
EATEN No. 21: Baked comes straight out of the oven with a batch of the hottest stories from baking history, from the colonial crumbs of bánh mì to the evolution of the communion wafer and the unending debates over how to properly weigh and measure your bake. (Autumn 2024)
Contributors include:
Adrian J.S. Hale on the Natufians and the origins of agriculture
Sanchia Lovell on the gilded life of Anontin Carême
Sharmistha Chaudhuri on Christmas cakes in India
Olga Koutseridi on the meat pies of Crimea
Read MoreHow a Local Mill’s Summer Camp Is Changing Our Relationship with Bread
PORTLAND MONTHLY
A look inside Camp Camas, an invite-only gathering for advocates of local grain.
EARLY ONE SUMMER MORNING, I dropped my kids off at day camp in Portland and drove the couple of hours to a one-room schoolhouse on the edge of Junction City, to a camp of my own.
As I pulled up, the sun was just far enough over the horizon to make the dew glisten. Sunflowers swayed in the field, and baskets of bread already graced long tables. Campers were ambling up from tents scattering the property, ready for some pastries prepared for them, for a change, rather than by them.
More than 45 bakers had gathered on this day in 2019 for the first-ever Camp Camas, an event packed with demos, field walks, and classes led by many of the best in a growing grain revival. And it felt like a revival of sorts, people gathering under big tents in a field outside a schoolhouse to tout the virtues of all things local grain. The lessons learned at this now-regular happening are part of a wider regenerative food movement that is helping to shape the way America thinks about great bread.
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