alexandra’s kitchen: Tamales at the Carlsbad Farmers' Market

Friday, January 18, 2008

Tamales at the Carlsbad Farmers' Market

So, not much to report over here in sunny San Clemente other than I've now been to two more farmers' markets, one in Carlsbad and one in Oceanside. The picture above shows the goodies Ben and I picked up on Wednesday in Carlsbad, minus the four tamales (pictured below) we picked up from Juanita Fukuda's stand. Mrs. Fukudu sells an array of both sweet and savory handmade tamales 6 days a week at various farmers' markets in the area — I spotted her in Oceanside yesterday as well.

Wednesday evening, Cousin Jay joined Ben and me for a small farmers'-market-bounty feast, featuring microwaved (we could not devise a steamer with our limited kitchen equipment) tamales, sautéed Swiss chard, and a salad of greens and tomatoes. I think we all agreed that the tamales, while fun to eat, were not the best we'd ever tasted, though a good dousing of the salsa verde, also purchased at the market, made them far tastier. The Swiss chard and the greens, however, fresh and delectable, inspired me to buy several more bags of each yesterday in Oceanside, enough, I hope, to last through the weekend.

The Eggmobile

The eggmobile houses laying hens. It follows the herd of cattle, arriving to grass they've grazed on four days earlier.The hens peck at the four-day-old cow pies, eating various insects, larvae and parasites - rich sources of protein - and accomplishing a whole lot more along the way: By eating the fly larvae and parasites, they rid the land of potential pathogens and disease; by scratching through the droppings and spreading them across the grass, they enable the manure to sink into the ground and fertilize the soil; and by eating the pesky insects, they reduce the presence of one of the cows' biggest irritants.

The Barn

Joel Salatin stands in the open-sided shelter where his cows spends a portion of the winter. During the winter, the cows eat hay (dried grass accumulated throughout the growing season), and live on a bedding consisting of woodchips, sawdust and old hay to absorb the cows' excrement. When the heavy cows tread on their nitrogen-rich manure and on the carbon-rich bedding, packing it together, they allow the mixture to ferment (anaerobic composting). By adding corn to the bedding, Salatin entices his pigs to turn the bedding into compost: When the cows return to pasture in March, the pigs dig through the densely packed bedding, searching for the tasty fermented corn, aerating the pile and turning it into compost for the spring.

Corn Pudding