Home Grown Indiana

Hungry Hoosier on TV: Mint Condition

The most recent Across Indiana "Hungry Hoosier" segment is now available to view online here. In it we visit Wappel Mint Farm and the North Judson Mint Festival, both od which are in Home Grown Indiana. We also learn how to make the perfect Mint Julep. In case you have not heard, Across Indiana is going off the air after 19 seasons. This will be the last Hungry Hoosier story although other TV projects are in the works. 

National Maple Syrup Festival adds Bake-off for 2009

2008 marked the first year of the nation's only National Maple Syrup Festival. This new event is held in tiny Medora, Indiana (Jackson County) on the first two weekends of March. This year's festival is adding a baking contest (with both youth and adult divisions) sponsored by Clabber Girl. For more information about the festival go here and details about the bake-off can be found here. 

Mint Condition on WFYI Tonight (Jan 19, 2008)

If you are interested, I'll have a Hungry Hoosier story on WFYI Public Television in Indianapolis tonight at 7:30 pm. The story is called "Mint Condition" and I visit a mint farm, the North Judson Mint Festival, and learn to make a Mint Julep at The Upper Room Martini Bar. My wife and two sons make an appearance in the story as well.

Food, Family, & Community in a Connected World

This evening I am a panelist at one of the Spirit & Place Festival events in Indianapolis. The event is called, Imagining Creation: Exploring the Spiritual Mandate for Creation Care. My fellow panelists and I were asked to address the question, "Is there a moral obligation to care for the environment?" Each of us was also asked to prepare a five minute Personal Statement. The following is mine. After the event, an online discussion will continue here.

Next month my wife Lisa and will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. When I think back to the early weeks of our relationship, I remember the countless hours of conversation, sharing with one another the details of our lives up to that point. Like many new couples, no matter how much time we spent together, it was never enough. Even after dropping her off at her dorm and returning to my own, after a whole day together, we would get on the phone and talk until the wee hours of the morning. After our first few years together, I figured I had told her all my stories.

On a recent trip to see my parents, we found ourselves all alone in the living room at 8:30 at night – the bedtime for our two young sons as well as my aging parents. I decided an evening snack was in order so I headed to the pantry. My quest got sidetracked by another discovery – my mom’s recipe collection. 

I brought it back to the living room where my wife and I went through them. The memories came flooding back as vividly as if we were thumbing through old snapshots. I started telling stories. The beef stew that that would simmer on the stove until all of my siblings and I got home from our after-school activities, the Texas sheet cake that mom made for get-togethers because it would feed a crowd. Some of the recipes were from friends and relatives and their names were noted on the cards. Many are no longer living.

We stayed up until way past midnight and I was amazed that after nearly 20 years of marriage, after I thought I had told all my stories, there was more to say. A significant part of my life’s narrative was documented in a collection of recipes stashed away in my mother’s pantry.

Food has this amazing power to connect us to other places, other times, and other people. For most of us, most of the time, that connection is so impersonal and so far removed that we give it little thought - an apple from the grocery store or a burger handed to us through a drive-through window. 
But connectedness is something we long for and it is the main theme of my writing. When I tell people I write about food, they automatically think of stuffy restaurant reviews critiquing everything from the meal to the service. Those are usually not the kinds of gigs I take. I think of myself as a story teller. I tell stories about family and community and food just so happens to be a literary device that helps organize my narrative.

During much of 2007 I traveled all over Indiana talking with farmers, chefs, and consumers as my co-author, Christine Barbour and I did the research for our book Home Grown Indiana: a Food Lover’s Guide to Good Eating in the Hoosier State. In the book we profile 270 people about not just what they do with food, but why they do it. This idea of connectedness kept coming up over and over.  We heard from consumers who shop at farmers’ markets not just because of the great food they find there but because of the sense of community that results. Author Brian Halweil estimates that on a typical visit to the farmers’ market you’ll have ten times the number of conversations as you will have at the local supermarket. Talk about connectedness.

We met farmers who decided to farm a different way because of the sense of connection they have to the land and to the animals they raise. Rebekah Fiedler from down in Southern Indiana told us “my animals have a great life. They live in the open air, they eat what nature designed them to eat. They can run and play to their hearts’ content. At the end, they have just one really bad day!”  We met chefs and shopkeepers committed to minimizing their ecological footprint by purchasing locally whenever possible and even when procuring fish and seafood, researching the most environmentally sustainable choices.

The question of the day is whether or not we have a moral obligation to care for the environment. I’m sure that most of us here this evening would answer in the affirmative or we wouldn’t be here. What is interesting to me is how this notion plays out in the lives of the wide variety of people who share this commitment regardless of their political leanings, or anything else that governs their behaviors.
Virginia farmer Joel Salatin is one of the pioneers of modern-day methods of raising pastured-poultry. In a recent interview with the New York Times he said that 40 years ago his typical customer was a tree-hugging liberal. Today just as many of his customers are Christian fundamentalist home-schooling moms.

It seems that a wide range of people, in increasing numbers, are recognizing these aspects of connectedness when making their choices about food, consumer goods, housing, transportation, and the other things we’re talking about tonight. We’re living right in the middle of the development of new constructs and new codes of behavior. Conversations like this help shape them and I’m grateful to be a part of it.

Local Fest at Carmel and Indy Whole Foods on Saturday, September 27

Scott will be signing books at both Indy area Whole Foods Markets this Saturday, September 27, 2008 to help celebrate Local Fest. Here's their blurb about the event:

Want to meet local farmers AND taste some fantastic local food? We’re celebrating our local producers and artisans and serving local beer and wine! They’ll be telling you their story and sampling their food. You can also enter our Pie Eating Competition for a chance to win $50 in FREE groceries! You can get more involved by meeting local organic gardeners & Slow Food Indy. You can also pick up a copy of Home Grown Indiana and meet the author, Scott Hutcheson. Bring the whole family to Local Fest!

I'll be at the 86th Street store (info here) from 12 noon - 2 pm and at the Carmel store (info here) from 4-6 pm.

Local Fest at Carmel and Indy Whole Foods on Saturday, September 27

I'll be signing books at both Indy area Whole Foods Markets this Saturday, September 27, 2008 to help celebrate Local Fest. Here's their blurb about the event:

Want to meet local farmers AND taste some fantastic local food? We’re celebrating our local producers and artisans and serving local beer and wine! They’ll be telling you their story and sampling their food. You can also enter our Pie Eating Competition for a chance to win $50 in FREE groceries! You can get more involved by meeting local organic gardeners & Slow Food Indy. You can also pick up a copy of Home Grown Indiana and meet the author, Scott Hutcheson. Bring the whole family to Local Fest!

I'll be at the 86th Street store (info here) from 12 noon - 2 pm and at the Carmel store (info here) from 4-6 pm.

Book Signing on Saturday

Scott willl be signing copies of Home Grown Indiana Saturday at Parky's Smokehouse in Lebanon. Parky's will be also offering a special Home Grown Indiana dessert - an apple "slab" pie made with Stuckey Farm apples. click on the image for more details.

Words of Praise from an Amazon Customer

We've received our first "Customer Review" from someone who bought the book on Amazon.com. Here is what they had to say.

I have been eagerly awaiting the release of this book for a few months. My copy arrived this morning and I can enthusiastically say, "The wait was worth it and the book is even more than I had hoped it would be!" Unlike many of the books published today, the quality of the book far exceeds the price in terms of both the quality of the book itself and the content.

The book is divided into seven regions. For each region Christine Barbour and Scott Hutcheson introduce the reader to Indiana places where food is produced with a personal and local touch. They go far beyond the basic facts (e.g., address, website URL, hours, etc.) and introduce the reader to the people that put heart and soul into their product and the places that make that food homegrown.

This personalization and connection is sometimes accomplished through stories and biographical snippets. For example, the entry for Cook's Bison Ranch begins, "In 1939,Everett Cook invested %5,000 in 83 acres with a house and a barn." Sometimes the entries are made personal through the inclusion of a recipe such as that for "Wild American Persimmon Pudding" which brings back childhood memories for Duane Smith of Walnut Grove Spring Water Persimmon Valley Farm. In other cases it is the observations of the authors that add spice to the entries. The combined effect is the feeling you might have at the end of an evening that included an excellent meal and even better conversation and laughter shared with good friends.

In some books the extra stories and observations might come at the cost of depth or breadth in covering the subject matter. This is NOT the case in Home Grown Indiana. Along with sharing the specifics about the producers of everything from caviar to cheese and popcorn to bison, Scott Hutcheson and Christine Barbour offer additional information on topics such as: ideas for eating local year round, the meaning of the label "organic," what is meant by a CSA, and some of the issues surrounding raw milk. They also include lists of farmer's markets, wineries, microbreweries/brewpubs, places to eat local while dining out, and food festivals that can be found in each region.

The book feels polished and complete in large part because of the way it is indexed. The book closes with a list of recipes, a index by county, and an index by product.

I was pleased to see several producers I know and rely on listed for Northwest Indiana but I found several new places to explore here in Northwest Indiana. The book's size is small enough to carry easily or keep in the car for unexpected foodie adventures and making the most of local foods when I find myself in other parts of the state. I expect that like my nature field guides this book will soon be well-loved and personalized through notes and much use.

While the content of the book would have been reason to celebrate in any form, I appreciate the actual quality of printing as well. The paper is crisp and the clarity of the typeface is clear and easy to read. The text fills the pages but with adequate space in the margins for making notes. The page edges are coded to make it easy to locate the section pertaining to a specific region of the state. Within each region the main entries are arranged alphabetically making it easy to look up the hours of a favorite producer.

Thank you Scott and Christine for creating this wonderful resource. Now if someone would just do the same for Southwest Michigan.

This review came from S Keeton in NW Indiana

Book Signing Scheduled for Saturday, October 4

Christine and Scott will be signing books from 11 am to 2 pm on Saturday, October 4 at Goose The Market located at 2503 N. Delaware in Indianapolis. For more information, contact Goose at 317-924-4944.

Now Available from IU Press

Home Grown Indiana has arrived in the Indiana University Press warehouse and it is available to order here. Within the next few days it will also be available from Amazon and in Indiana bookstores. We're told it will hit the shelves of Barnes & Noble first.