The Cult of Compost
For all the talk about rising food costs, we still waste a lot of food in this country. Just think about what you don’t eat in a restaurant: Salad bar leftovers. Those pale, pasty tomato slices that adorn every sandwich between here and California. The ridiculous parsley garnishes, for goodness sake! A lot of it goes in the trash (and in the tomato slices case, probably more than ever right now).
Now, I’m not ordering everyone to clean their plates. We could probably start with much smaller portions, but that’s a conversation for another day.
But I do think we could compost more of our food waste. That keeps it out of the landfill, and it helps our yards. I’ve gotten a little preachy about compost since I wrote a story about it earlier this year, so forgive me, but I just don’t understand why most people wouldn’t compost. Even if you don’t garden, composting is great for your yard. It’s not (conventionally) pretty to see a pile of garbage in your backyard, but it’s really not that ugly, either. A properly-maintained compost heap doesn’t smell, and honestly, there really isn’t much maintenance to it anyway.
And honestly, it’s fun to dig around in that big pile, shifting and turning the rotting scraps, leaves, grass clipping and the like, then spot a mass of happy worms turning your kitchen scraps into black gold (perhaps I need to get out more). Because I’m rather carefree composter, I have a pioneer zucchini plant growing in my front yard flower beds, maybe the result of some not-quite-composted composted that I spread there early this spring. The zucchini plant seems to be thriving, and I’m looking forward to some fried zucchini flowers from it earlier than I had expected this summer (the zucchini plant in my actual vegetable garden was planted late and is small). UPDATE: Breaking news! The mysterious squash plant appears to be butternut squash, not zucchini. I guess they all look the same until they start to actually produce something. I like zucchini, but consider this spontaneous butternut squash plant to be a true gift.
Mitchell Britt seems to agree, at least with the environmental benefits of compost if not my loving description of my own pile. He was involved in the Werehouse’s efforts to start a farmers market there (which seemed small but workable last year; haven’t heard much about it this year). Now, he’s trying to set up a local composting program that’s part educational, part a way to actually turn some of Winston-Salem’s food waste into something that’s good for the ground.
According to his e-mail, one of his ideas is to get local restaurants, grocers and food wholesalers involved in composting some of their food waste on area farms. Getting all that compostable material moved around might be tricky in this era of $4 a gallon gas, but it’s worth a try. Restaurants have challenges that us home cooks don’t - for one thing, they go through much more food - but it’s doable. The city of Modesto, Cali. got a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to start a test program two years ago composting restaurant food waste. Once it was composted, it was sold to landscapers, farmers and Mr. and Mrs. Citizen.
If you’re interested in talking to Mitchell about his still evolving ambitions, please contact him at mitchellbrittATgmail.com or by snail mail at 106 S. Popular St., Winston-Salem, 27101. And because Mitchell is so excited about compost, it’s called Compost! Winston-Salem.
