A long, hot summer, entirely from scratch

Like many of you, I love to cook, but I still rely on processed foods far more than I like. Many people never cook at all. Children can't identify raw fruits and vegetables in their whole state.  We have become almost completely reliant on processed and prepared food, which is available almost anywhere we go. These food products are specifically designed by food engineers to be as palatable and literally easy to swallow as possible, to make us eat more than we should, more often than we should.

Taco Bell says it best: we're becoming a nation that embraces the notion of Fourth Meal. 

The food industry would  have us all become Hobbits, eating breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner and supper -- all made up of food they have prepared or cooked for us. 

They have persuaded us that we don't have time to cut up our own vegetables for a salad anymore. We need to save time. Save time! Save time so we can watch more TV. Save time in the kitchen so you can spend it online instead. (Yes, it's true that many people are starved for free time because of their jobs, hellish commutes, or children. But cooking a quick meal from scratch can take as little time as is needed to microwave a frozen dinner.)

This cannot continue. 

It's time to rediscover the kitchen, and relearn how our food is made. We need to wrest control over what goes into our bodies from businesses that deliberately encourage compulsive overeating, and food as entertainment or self-medication.

For some time, I've committed small acts of food-industry resistance,  making yogurt, soymilk, bread and pasta from scratch. But it's not enough. I'm too caught up in this machine that pumps out highly palatable, readily available processed food. It's taken a terrible toll on my weight and my health, and many of my friends are struggling with it too. There is absolutely a place for processed foods, prepared meals and prepped salads, and trying to make all one's food from scratch is an absolute luxury. But the food industry has gone too far, and I'm going to push back -- hard.

I'm in grad school getting my MFA in fiction. I already do all the cooking (very much by choice), and make breakfast and lunch for my husband to take to work (also entirely my idea). And we live in the San Francisco Bay Area, with an astonishingly rich and thriving food culture, where one can find sushi-grade raw fish, teff berries to make Ethiopian injera, and some of the finest fruits and vegetables on the planet. 

I live in a unique place. I love to cook, and I know how profoundly rewarding cooking from raw, whole ingredients can be. So I have a rare opportunity to do something utterly mad.

How mad? This summer, from summer solstice to fall equinox, I will make every single thing my husband and I eat at home and work, entirely from scratch.

Here are the rules of my game: I have to start from whole, raw foods in their most natural state. If it is remotely possible for someone to make it at home, I have to learn to make it, or go without it.

I am allowing myself to use salt and sugar, because of the sheer difficulty of trying to make sugar, and because I've learned it's dangerous to make salt at home, because the process of concentrating salt water into table salt also concentrates any heavy metals or toxins, and testing of the  water is really expensive.   Tea, coffee and oil go into the exempt category, too. Pressing oil takes costly equipment, and even roasting coffee requires some tools that I just can't buy, having already spent what money I had for all the other expenses of this project.

I will buy whole poultry and fish because I can cut them up myself. I bought a split quarter of grass-fed beef, which they cut and wrapped for me. I'd have been game to try to cut it myself, but that option was not available, and again, that requires a whole set of spendy tools, and I'm doing all this on a very low budget. I had hoped to acquire half a pig, but the beef took up all the room in my chest freezer, so I'll have to rely on grocery stores or a butcher for cuts of pork. Sausage, I'll make myself though.

Whole grains and dried beans are permitted in this experiment, but no canned beans or milled grains.  I will use my grain mill to make flour.

Fresh, whole fruits and vegetables are what I'll work with, not canned, dried or frozen. My rules do allow me to can, dry or freeze them myself.

Dairy products must be made at home from fresh milk and cream. Yogurt and ice cream are surprisingly easy to make, and I've made both many times. Making butter shouldn't present much of a learning curve,  but cheese... that is going to be rough. Any cheese we want to eat, I''ll have to learn to make. Mozzarella and soft cheeses such as feta or chevre are relatively doable at home, but we won't be having any Cheddar or Swiss cheese over the summer. It takes about three months to make Cheddar, and my summer  experiment will be done by then. Also, I can't afford a cheese press.

Condiments such as mustard, mayonnaise and ketchup? I'm going to have to learn how to make these. Salad dressing, seasoning pastes, bbq sauce, beef jerky, peanut butter, jelly, pita bread, crackers,  bagels? All from scratch. I'll be learning how to home-cure olives,  make tofu starting from dry soybeans, and any number of things I take for granted now.

I won't be making the wine we drink, although I have made wine in the past.  I will try my hand again at making all-grain beer, but that too takes time, so I'll consider that an optional event.  

If I find myself craving a hot dog on a bun with fries, I can have it... if I'm willing to mill wheat to make the buns, grind pork and spices, and stuff it into casings, and slice and double-fry the potatoes.  How will my compulsive food cravings react to this process of DIY food preparation?

Please come along on this food adventure with me. I'll really need your support and encouragement to make it work. I've created a Page on Facebook (A Summer From Scratch), and a Twitter feed (@SumrFromScratch). I hope you find it interesting.