The Fate of Farmers

A fine wine memory. A memorable meal. And crackers with attitude.

Food and Country, the film I made during Covid, focuses on the conversations I had with American farmers during that extremely stressful time. I came away from the project with an entirely new understanding of how America’s farm economy works. (If you want to see the film, you can stream it here. )

Farming is never easy, but over the past month, the plight of America’s farmers has become even more difficult. Immigrants make up 70% of all farmworkers, and 40% of them are undocumented; if they are all deported it is going to be very difficult for farms to survive. As farmer Bob Jones told me, “Americans won’t do this work.”

But that’s just the beginning of the nightmare now facing those who raise our food. The cancellation of USAID contracts means that billions of dollars have been lost to farmers. American farmers were also the leading supplier of food assistance through the United Nations, and they must now find new markets for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crops. Equally painful is the pausing of the Inflation Reduction Act funds: that has left tens of thousands of farmers with debts the government encouraged them to incur and promised to help pay. Many now face bankruptcy.

Almost fifty years ago I was searching for a way to write about the pressures facing farmers when a friend told me that her family, who had been growing flowers for generations in what was about to become Silicon Valley, had just sold their land. “There’s too much pollution now,” she said. “The flowers don’t like it. The land has become so valuable. And imports are undercutting us.”

At the time it struck me that flower growers were facing many of the same pressures as those who farmed food: rising land prices, higher energy costs, a changing landscape and increased foreign competition. It seemed to me that this was an opportunity to explore those problems from a different perspective.

Last week, when I was in California, I thought about all that and went looking for this old article. Sadly, most of the growers I spoke with back then no longer raise flowers and 80% of the flowers now sold in America come from abroad.

I hope that fifty years down the road the same will not be true of our food.

This isn’t a menu - but I’ve just found a stack of old wine brochures and this one from Kermit Lynch has special meaning for me. In those days Kermit had many bottles of good wine selling in the $2 range, and I spent a fair amount of time haunting his shop. One day he told me he was heading to Burgundy on a wine-buying trip and I asked if I could tag along.

So I was with him when he tried to find a Beaujolais Nouveau that was up to his standards. (As he points out in this brochure, he did not.) I was also lucky enough to be there when he visited Robert Ampeau for the first time. How I would love to have that ‘71 Puligny Montrachet Combettes again!

I was intrigued when I found these Black Squares in a local cheese shop, and even more intrigued when I learned they are an old English recipe dating back a couple hundred years. The label reads, “Britain’s most historic crackers. Reborn, refined and re-imagined.” How could I not buy them?

The crackers were originally considered a digestive aid. The new version, which are made by the Fine Cheese Company of Bath, are far too seductive to be good for you. Tender, crumbly, buttery and a tiny bit sweet, they have a slight whisper of cocoa. They’re really lovely with Cheddar cheese.

The crackers are sold in many cheese and gourmet shops, but here’s an online source.

When I walked into Dave Beran’s new Seline in Santa Monica last week I could feel myself instantly relax. The room is gracious, quiet, beautifully lit and completely comfortable. I would have been happy to be there if the food had been terrible. Which it definitely was not.

I loved that meal, and as the week has worn on I’ve found myself thinking about each dish and enjoying the dinner all over again. Which is, in my opinion, the mark of a very fine meal.

Crisp, icy, refreshing: Dave calls this “apple pond.”

A bit of leek topped with a borage blossom.

Hiding shyly beneath that thin sheet of celery root is a tartar of venison mingled with crunchy savory granola.

Grilled bass and broccolini have rarely been so happily married.

Beneath that tiny heap of spring herbs lurks a softly delicious nugget of sweetbread.

Smoked ribeye, grilled fennel, a big puff of brioche and a bowl of maitake mushrooms tossed with short rib.

Caviar. Of course.

Looks like salad; tastes like dessert.

Sorrel and rhubarb - an utterly refreshing finish.