You'd think a community kitchen would be enabling for any community. After all couldnt we all use access to equipment that is too expensive to own ourselves, a health approved kitchen to make products for resale in retail, a place for classes and demonstrations? You'd think!
Truth or Consequences' umbrella 501C org, The Bountiful Alliance, put great effort into raising funds, remodeling a building and setting in motion a community kitchen for these very purposes. The problem is that by taking state money the kitchen must follow state laws and the laws are impossible and they divide community.
Truth or Consequences' umbrella 501C org, The Bountiful Alliance, put great effort into raising funds, remodeling a building and setting in motion a community kitchen for these very purposes. The problem is that by taking state money the kitchen must follow state laws and the laws are impossible and they divide community.
To cook in the community kitchen one must bring in all the ingredients hermetically sealed. If I were to bring kombucha to brew or a kimche culture, I would have to have the culture shipped to the community kitchen by a lab that could guarantee the sample's chemistry. Then it could only be opened on site, could never leave and for every moment of it's storage and fermentation I'd pay for space on a shelf. The same would be true for ingredients to make brownies, everything sealed until inside and then it can not leave. Meanwhile the kitchen can only afford to be open a couple days a week so if one were cooking something that required a couple of visits back to back, they'd likely get locked out. With all packaging required to be done on site (and while paying by the hour) the hope of profit on "homemade" goods quickly shrinks away.
Pasteurizing and other processes that are considered industrial practices are also required at the kitchen even though the equipment is not offered to carry out such tasks. Some buyers (like me) loose interest when products are over processed, I prefer active enzymes in my food even if they're illegal. But more offensive is the favoring of industry over mom n pop.
Pasteurizing and other processes that are considered industrial practices are also required at the kitchen even though the equipment is not offered to carry out such tasks. Some buyers (like me) loose interest when products are over processed, I prefer active enzymes in my food even if they're illegal. But more offensive is the favoring of industry over mom n pop.
Our local farmers market is suffering from the new kitchen too. Our market is run by the same NGO, The Bountiful Alliance. Since the state has mandated that all food (baked goods and prepared food) sold at the farmers market be cooked in the community kitchen, this year more than half our vendors split. They opened up their own alternative market, one that is not 'state approved,' and there they sell what they wish. In T or C you can know your farmer. For many it is an insult too large to bear to place the state between intimacy, friendship, history and common sense.
The worst of it is that these rules require people within a single community to police one another. Our community has split along familiar lines: rural folks who've been here 'longer' set up a new market while the new folks from cities who've shown up in the past 10 years are trying to make the kitchen work out.
The state ought to police their rules themselves. I would like to see our NGO post the state's rules in the community kitchen and then let people make their own decision; keep the market together and let the state come down and pluck out who's following the rules and who is not.
Are folks who create cottage industry going to be forced to sell the goods from their homes or from hidden baskets under tables at the market? Will the alternative market get shut down or just starved of money for not being willing to play by outlandish rules. We're not dealing heroin, we're selling chicken eggs and brownies! Get real NM!
Are folks who create cottage industry going to be forced to sell the goods from their homes or from hidden baskets under tables at the market? Will the alternative market get shut down or just starved of money for not being willing to play by outlandish rules. We're not dealing heroin, we're selling chicken eggs and brownies! Get real NM!
4 comments:
The "law" of unintended consequences. The regulations intended to protect people grow to the point of absurdity. Until recently the EU had definitions of "legal" fruits and vegetables e.g. a banana could only have a certain amount of curve. A Brussel Sprout had a minimum and a maximum diameter. They started with simple sensible rules and the morphed into the ridiculous. I guess its all about the sale of an item. If you give me a bag of cookies at the farmer's market as a gift I do not believe that they can say a damn thing about it...if I happen to send you five bucks later who would know.
The most dis-empowering thing is that it insults my ability to make judgments for myself. I have bought from many of the same vendors for years and I trust their products. There used to be some sense of letting people use their own judgment. This is a place where people on both the left and the right see government intervention as bureaucratic horseshit and insultingly paternalistic.
I fail to see the paternalistic aspect. I don't think any of these current enforcements of food laws favoring big-ag are rooted in anything but greed, graft and corruption.
We are working on opening a community kitchen here in the DC area. Would love to know about more of the troubles you are having.
I will continue to report Eric. It seems that I unknowingly named an elephant in the room by writing the post. The community around our kitchen was not yet addressing some of this but there was tension around it. I think there is movement now.
I have since learned that some communities ask shoppers (in their store or at the farmers market) to sign release forms so they can sell items that don't meet the state standards.
Even if a group chooses not to follow all the rules, or chooses to bend them, you wont hear about it. It would be something one would subtly notice as a member of the community. It's like blacklists in Hollywood around the depression, there are secrets.
My guess on my own community is that they'll play it safe and stick to the regs. Each community must decide for itself.
In the end the state calls the shots. And it seems ours favors industry. Just recently a town called Magdelana took a hard hit when the state mandated stainless steel hoods for restaurants. The town virtually lost all their restaurants and tourism because no one could afford the required hoods.
In my view no community should police it's own people for the state and no one should be ostracized from participation in community events for noncompliance with regs that are not mom n pop friendly. Let the state come down and explain itself using it's own people. They should hear from the community directly so that local communities are not divided as one part explains the regs and the other bitches about them. I'd like to see both sides stand together and present a united front.
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