Articole

What follows are my personal impressions. It IS NOT an official summary. It IS an invitation for other participants to add their impressions and reflections as comments to this post. Also I relied on my sometimes incomplete understanding of Romanian with some translation help that was available to me. Things may have gotten lost in understanding and translation.

On September 23rd (2018) we had a first community meeting. We invited producers and members (past and present) from Cluj to come together to an open conversation about Cutia Taranului. My wishes for this meeting were to meet face-to-face and get a direct sense for the members of Cutia Taranului (who we, as organizers, don’t get to meet) and to see if there is potential for connecting with a group of people who would be able to get more involved with the shaping of Cutia Taranului in the future.

The response to our invitation email was weak. Around 10 members showed interest, 7 said they would attend, only 3 showed up. In attendance were also four producer families and a couple of friends of the project. The meetings took up the full three hours we allocated to it.

We did a round of personal introductions and in doing so established „rounds” as a basic method of communications in the meeting. As the meeting progressed, especially when we reached a kind of tipping point in the conversation, it was challenging to hold a conversation in rounds.

We did a round of sharing what each person had on their mind (wishes, concerns, ideas, etc.) regarding Cutia Taranului. I gave, as an example,the subject of packaging (reducing the amount of throw-away plastic used in packaging). I explained that we (the Cutia Taranului administrators) neither have the resources to deal with all the potentially interesting and valuable subjects that come up. I also explained that we do not want Cutia Taranului to be a centralized echo-system: in this case where everyone looks to us to decide on what is important and to provide solutions. The point of this meeting was to see if it would be possible for participants in the echo system look to each-other: members to producers, producers to members, members to members. Despite emphasizing that packaging/plastic was just an example, others seemed to latch on to it.

Some subjects came up, including:

• plastic in packaging
• knowing in advance what is going to be in the box
• allowing members to order customized boxes
• members going away on vacation (especially in the summer time)
• „skip a week” – enabling members to efficiently notify producers about being away.
• including recipes in boxes

The conversation gravitated towards the issue of (lack of) flexibility of box content. This was because:

1. There were so few members.
2. The members that were present were relatively new to Cutia Taranului (a few months / weeks)
3. Two of the three members wanted to talk about the lack of flexibility in selecting contents of boxes and expressed a wish to be able to order whatever they want.

In an attempt to embrace the circle as it was, I felt that  an underlying theme in the subjects that were coming up was relationship and the ripples that our wishes and choices send out into the world. When the circle came back around to me I tried to integrate my thoughts (in a spirit that I usually express also on the Cutia Taranului blog: the cost of choice, lover earth). That seemed to irritate one of the members (= a third of the members preset) and that irritation dominated the last third of the conversation.

We took a short break to ventilate the circle, to drink some water and to allow people to connect informally. When we came back from the break, I asked Andrei (one of the „friends of the project” in attendance, and a permaculture designer) to open the circle. He pointed out that in the previous rounds someone said (and no one contested) that there are three „stakeholders” in Cutia Taranului: producers, members and us (organizers). Andrei pointed out that there is a fourth entity: the larger ecosystem we all partake in. I don’t know how that comment was received by the people present, but for me it was in alignment with the wider subject of relationship I was speaking to: I believe we need to learn to be sensitive to implications that go beyond what directly seems to affect us in the short term.

I was grateful that we tried to make this meeting happen. I was grateful for the producers who made an effort to show up and expressed themselves. I was grateful for the members that showed up. I was disappointed that so few members showed up. I was tired at the end.

Some of my personal echoes from the meeting:

• For now, I am personally not motivated to do this again (though everyone in the room, when asked in the circle, indicated they would like to meet again). For me, without more members, this format is not effective. Maybe producer-only meetings? Maybe member-only meetings?
• I do not have a sense of how it may be possible to get more members involved? I realize people are busy; that food may not be as high a priority it is for them as it is for us; that it is OK for people to want food to be a non-issue in their lives . Maybe it is too soon to get members involved? Maybe we need to wait until an explicit wish appears from members to get involved?
• I feel such a conversation, should it happen again, needs to be re-tuned. I realized that I am not really interested to hear what people want Cutia Taranului to be unless they want to be involved in creating it. There aren’t „free resources” available to respond to „requests” – we really cannot „take requests”. I do believe there is a possibility for more people to get involved and create more things together.
• Learning to be together, to really listen, to speak clearly, to make choices together … this takes time and can only be learned together. That means that if one day we do come together, we need to be ready to give this process plenty of space and time to mature into something valuable and pleasant.

Meeting participants are welcome to add their meeting impressions and thoughts as comments to this post.

„Archaeologists believe that human collecting of honey predates our cultivation of the soil … When by chance or intention honey is mixed with water, fermentation happens. When the honey is pure, it acts as a preservative and inhibits microscopic life. But honey diluted with water becomes a stimulating medium for airborne yeast to land, feast upon, and reproduce exponentially, bubbling and vividly alive. Within a short time, the honey-water will be mead, its sugars having been converted to alcohol and carbon dioxide by the action of tiny beings invisible to the human eye.

… It can be regarded as the ancestor of all fermented drinks. The production of mead does not require fire, and possibly it has been part of human life for even longer than controlled fire. Imagine the wonder and awe our ancestors must have felt as they first encountered fermenting honey-water in the hollow of a tree. Were they scared by the bubbling? Or just curious? Once they tasted it, they must have liked it and drunk more. Then they started to experience a light, giddy feeling. Surely some divine spirit granted them this substance and the state it induced.

… The learning of techniques to ferment alcohol and thus enter sacred states of altered consciousness is a defining characteristic of human culture, made possible by the life-cycles of humble yeast cultures.

… mead-making marks the passage of humanity from nature to culture.”

from Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz

If you learn to recognize it fermentation is everywhere. It is in the ubiquitous Romanian winter pickles and cabbages (sauerkraut), borscht, cheese & kefir & most other milk products, bread, beer, wine, soy sauce & miso, tea, coffee, cocoa, vinegar … so much of our nutrition is a product of fermentation! Today I’d like to share with you all a story about Yoghurt.

A few months ago Iulia heard from Madalin (a Bucharest producer) about his success in making Yoghurt. She then organized a conference call where Madalin shared his process with a few other interested producers. Horvath family, from Cluj were also on the call. For approximately two months their members have been enjoying a surprise of a small bottle of Yoghurt in their packages.

A few days ago Iulia came back from Cluj with a sample of that Yoghurt. It is delicious. It has a nice consistency and a delicate flavor that mixed wonderfully with the fruit salad that Iulia added to it. One bottle of yoghurt was enough for our two servings, but then it was gone … and I wanted more. To be honest we did have another bottle, but when I say I wanted more I really meant to say I want it to be available to us all the time.

The first thought that came to my mind was of my old industrial mentality: „How can Horvath family ramp up production and make more?” Then I realized that thanks to the nature of fermentation they don’t need to. We can make as much Yoghurt as we want!

Disclaimer: The oh-so-simple instructions work oh-so-well with naturally made living products. These instruction may not be applicable for industrially produced, lifeless, store-bought produce.

To make Yoghurt all you need is a little Yoghurt and some fresh milk (the milk that is delivered by the Horvath family is raw). All you need to do is add some Yoghurt to fresh milk, place it in a warm place (~20c, it will still work in a lower temperature but will take longer) and … wait! Within ~24 hours the consistency of the milk will begin to change. It is ready when … no need to look at your watch … it reaches a consistency and flavor you like. When it is ready, set aside a bit of Yoghurt and add it to another batch of milk. You are an independent yoghurt producer.

We don’t need large industrial food production that need strict regulations to provide us with low-quality food. We do need lots of small producers who care deeply about their produce and their customers because their life depends on it. Can there be a better way to embody that view then by every family becoming its own producer.

This also touches on our recent theme of the cost of choice. In an industrial mindset the burden of production automatically falls to the producer. Suppose we all wanted to have more yoghurt. That would mean that Horvath family would need to purchase larger fermentation containers, enough to be able to produce numerous generations of yoghurt for a steady supply. They would need to arrange a warm space to hold them all. They would need to sterilize them between uses. They would need to tend to the new „production line”. They would need to purchase and package many more bottles (creating more waste). They would need to finance all these additional tools, space and effort, and all that would at best yield a marginal difference in their income.

With yoghurt we have a sweet opportunity to experience something we don’t often get to experience as urban creatures. We don’t need to all agree to becoming yoghurt consumers. We can all become producers for whatever we want to consume. That small bottle of yoghurt is, if you want it to be, much more than a product, it is a seed for you to plant and nurture in your home, in your life. It is a teacher, if you want it to be, of a profound meaning of culture.

When we first connected with Crisan family they were in a process of winding-down the farm. They had sold off most of their sheep and were having an increasingly hard time getting their pork meat to market. In addition to the farm they were operating a flower shop in the city to complement their income. They now provide three different types of monthly meat boxes to dozens of families in Cluj.

Yesterday Paul Boros completed his first round of weekly deliveries. Paul is passionate about permaculture and has single-handedly created the most colorful and diverse box we’ve seen in Cutia Taranului. When we spoke to him he shared with us that he was about to leave Romania because he could not find a way to translate his passion into a livelihood. Cutia Taranului was to be his last attempt, before leaving.

We were in touch with a potential new producer with a similar story, she was giving up on staying in Romania and was about to leave for work in another country. A few days later (no a box wasn’t launched) she was gone.

Yesterday Iulia came across this story of Irina Toma who grows organic blackberries and was sharing how she is being pressed by large-scale resellers to sell her top quality produce for dirt-cheap prices (so that they can resell it for 3 times as much to stores who will package it in fancy, organic-labeled boxes and sell it for twice as much, most likely in other countries).

We want you all to know that when you join a box, really join a box – including the commitment and responsibility that comes with receiving a box regularly and staying with a producer for years – when you do that you are reversing those eroding forces which are diminishing our ability to feed ourselves. It may not seem like it to you, as a single individual member. But when we look at you all together, as a whole, that is what is happening.

When you join a box you choose to keep local food production alive.  When you joined the Crisan family boxes, their life and farm was turned around. When you joined Paul’s box you said to Paul „we appreciate your passion and your food, please stay”.

To us this is a vivid reminder that we have so much potential power in our hands to shape our world into the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.