Page 89 - Tattnall County

The frst time I ate shopska, a popular salad in parts of Europe, I was blown away by the favor of the tomatoes. This salad of tomato, cucumber, onion, sirene (white brine cheese), and parsley made me wonder if perhaps I had forgotten the real taste of a tomato. The tomatoes were the same in every shopska salad I ate. I had shopska for breakfast, lunch, and supper. That’s the absolute truth. Those tomatoes were not like the ones I bring home from the grocery store bin. I was reminded of one of my favorite memories as a child: Standing in a feld of tomatoes at my friends’ grandparents’ farm in Tifton, Georgia during a hot southern summer, I picked a juicy ripe tomato right off the vine and bit into it. I still remember how the warm juices ran off my chin. What has happened to our food just since I was a child?

I asked my Serbian friend where the tomatoes were grown. “In the villages nearby,” said Radovan. “Without insecticides and herbicides of course. It’s still old-fashioned farming in the

village.” It was actually a little scary to consider what happens to vegetables and fruits today to have so dulled their natural favor. Truth be told, I can hardly grow weeds but I can buy organic food from others who work hard to provide an alternative to the tasteless stuff to which we have become accustomed. Every Saturday from 9:00-12:30, Raven and Janisse take any extra produce they have to the farmers market in Statesboro. They have no desire to be in big business. Whatever is extra from the felds simply goes to market so that neighbors and people from the community can take advantage of their labor. The market brings vendors together in the parking lot of the Sea Island Bank. “On a good week there’ll probably be forty vendors,” said Raven. Debra and Dale Ferguson with Hunter Cattle Company bring their grass fed beef to sell. The cattle raised by this family-owned and managed farm have not received any “added growth hormones, steroids, or antibiotics,

and are not subject to the feedlot. [The] cattle are free to roam and graze just as they were created to” (www. huntercattle.com). Beautiful bouquets of fresh fowers are available from a woman from Vidalia, Georgia. A couple of young people, Arianne and Elliott, come from Hope Grows Farm to sell the eggs laid by their pastured hens. Janisse and Raven work hard to prepare meals that are 100% home grown. A recent meal consisted of steak sautéed with Vidalia onions, new potatoes mixed with rosemary and butter, and stewed yellow squash. Everything came from their farm including the butter. They also hold workshops for the community on a variety of topics such as “organic gardening, cheese-making, fermentation, canning, solar dehydration, backyard chickens, and other sustainability skills.” Costs for the workshops are determined on a “sliding scale” which allows folks to pay according to their individual means. People come to Red