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Why is it called “Stone Soup”?

Stone Soup is the name of a legendary story, told by many around the world, about travelers who come to a new town carrying only a stone. Hungry, and with the help of the townspeople, they make a meal together. It’s a story about community and food. That’s what this project is about: community and food.

What will the group do?

When?

Participants will meet every other week. We will be meeting every other Monday from 4:00 to 6:00 pm. Check often for updates on special presentations. You can email us at: beagle-books@comcast.net or call us at: 218-237-BOOK (2665).

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Hang on for the ride: With characteristic poetry and pluck, Barbara Kingsolver and her family sweep readers along on their journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Their good-humored search yields surprising discoveries about turkey sex life and overly zealous zucchini plants, en route to a food culture that's better for the neighborhood and also better on the table. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet.

"This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew . . . and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."

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The roadside vegetable stand of a few decades ago evolved into locally grown retail, U-pick and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operations.

Farmers markets have become the latest venue for consumers looking for fresh food, but all play a role in the trend to “buy fresh and buy local.”

Local growers have set a splendid table of choices.

The Pike family still sells sweet corn from the back of a pickup truck and others market produce along our highways and byways. Russell Carter of Carter’s Red Wagon Farm and Anne and Dewane Morgan, who started a local CSA garden, were pioneers. Consumers also can go to the Park Rapids Farmers Market.

Now, to make it even easier to buy “local,” shoppers will find tags at J&B Foods, Coborn’s and Pamida, marking food produced within a 100-mile radius of Park Rapids.

Eva Fritz, co-manager of the Park Rapids Farmers Market, said she was surprised at how large that circle is. “We have every kind of meat that’s available raised within 100 miles,” Fritz said.

Food as diverse as buffalo meat products from Northland Bison Ranch near Nevis, yogurt and whipping cream from Blackstar Dairy at Solway and Dakota Maid flour is being tagged.

“People are busy so rather than expecting them to choose while they’re standing in the aisles, we want to make it easy for them,” Fritz said.

Jennifer Geraedts, manager of Beagle Books in Park Rapids, is pitching in to help raise awareness, too.

One activity she is planning is a book study of Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” coming out in paperback April 29. The book club at Beagle Books will delve into other books promoting the same idea this summer, Geraedts said.
She’s also planning a series titled the Stone Soup project with presenters coming to talk about local foods, from homemade cheese to wine.
“At the end of the summer, we’ll have a feast,” Geraedts said. Local growers and producers will be invited to bring food to share at a community get-together.

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Demand is growing

Alternative venues and promotion of food produced close to home help meet a growing demand for local products. Health-conscious consumers and national food contamination scares have heightened the popularity of community gardens and farmers’ markets, says Linda Ulland, director of the University of Minnesota (U of M) Central Region’s Sustainable Development Partnership.

“People are more interested in what they eat,” Ulland said. “They’re concerned about being healthy, and they want to know where their food is coming from.”
According to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, ingredients in the average American dinner travel 1,500 miles before reaching the table. Local foods are more environmentally friendly because they reduce the need for fuel to transport them and layers of packaging materials.

Locally grown foods, while not always certified as organic, often have been raised with far fewer chemicals and pesticides.

In rural Minnesota, the number of farmers markets has more than doubled in the past five years, according to University of Minnesota Extension.
The Initiative Foundation, serving 14 central Minnesota counties, including Cass and
Wadena, has provided grants to help establish farmers markets in six communities.
“We’ve found that farmers markets are a great strategy for revitalizing downtowns, said Kathy Gaalswyk, Initiative Foundation president. “They attract shoppers while supporting family farms and healthy living.”

Sharon Rezac Andersen of Park Rapids did a farmers market analysis for U of M Central Region Sustainable Development Partnership last season that bore out what Gaalswyk said.

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Main street attraction

Surveying customers at the farmers market in Pioneer Park on Main Avenue last fall, she learned one-third made the trip to town only to shop at the farmers market, but 27 percent planned to also go to a restaurant, 21 percent to the grocery store, 19 percent to a retail establishment, 8 percent to a gas station and 1 percent to a service industry (to get a haircut, for example).

The majority of shoppers, 33 percent, spent between $10 and $20 at the farmers market. Most others spent less, but one spent more than $40.
Asked what attracts them to buy at the farmers’ market in Park Rapids, 47 percent responded, “locally grown.” Freshness topped the list of reasons at 41 percent. Other choices were “meeting producers” and “variety of products,” each a reason for 6 percent of shoppers.

Twenty-nine customers were surveyed between 8 and 10:30 a.m. and 16 completed the survey between 10:30 and 1 p.m.

“Two vendors, new to the market this season, articulated how the additional income was extremely helpful,” Rezac Andersen wrote in comments summarizing the local findings.

The Park Rapids Farmers Market will add Wednesday hours this season to make it easier for working people.

The farmers market will be open from 3 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays from Memorial Day through the end of October in Pioneer Park on Main street. Then it will be open again on Saturdays from the Saturday after Thanksgiving until Christmas at the Frank White Education Center.

“When you buy local food, you vote with your food dollar,” according to the Web site foodroutes.org. “This ensures that family farmers in your community will continue to thrive and that healthy, flavorful, plentiful food will be available for future generations.”

For more information, go to localfoods.umn.edu/buylocal, foodroutes.org, foodalliance.org or www.mfu.org, localharvest.org or www.mfma.org.

luannh@parkrapidsenterpise.com

FAQs | The Book | Schedule of Events | Article about Stone Soup