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From JEFF COX

So. Where are we really going with environmentalism, with organic agriculture, with our green ideas? What’s the goal? What will the world look like, be like, and what will our lives be like if we get what we want and achieve the world we’re striving for?

First, we have to realize that green living, alternative energy, organic farming, and environmental protection are short-term goals. They are steps on the way, but they aren’t the ultimate goal.

Simply put, the ultimate goal is an earth in balance

We have far too many people on the planet now, and we are wrecking the place. That doesn’t mean we need to immediately eliminate excess humanity. Populations can be reduced over time through attrition and education, plus intelligent birth control. But we do need to ask ourselves, “What is the optimum human population of the earth?” That is, what number of people represents a population that can live from the natural bounty that the earth produces, without agriculture?

For the earth is fecund and produces a natural bounty of food if nature is allowed to reach an ecological climax state. When I was a young teenager, my friend Ditty and I wandered the hills and forests of eastern Pennsylvania and we were never hungry. We found food everywhere—in the streams, in the trees, buried in the earth, hanging ripe and sweet from wild brambles, dropping from shrubs, hanging in low clusters from little strawberry plants.

Among the trees in the forest are many that produce high quality protein: beech, hickory, pecan, pinyon pine, chestnut, hazelnut, and more. Yes, chestnut. The American chestnut, once the dominant tree in the eastern hardwood forests, is making a comeback since scientists have back-crossed it to resist the chestnut blight that killed these magnificent trees in the early 20th Century.

Are we talking about returning to a hunting-gathering society such as existed before the agricultural revolution? Is there something wrong with agriculture?

Yes, there is. Once people started farming, they broke apart the earth and began the process of soil erosion that has depleted life-giving topsoil all over the world. Famous “dead zones” formed off New York City and where the Mississippi River flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Monocropping depleted animal and plant habitat, causing a Great Extinction that is ongoing right now. The land became owned, and once the land was someone’s property, it had to be defended. And that meant war. That doesn’t mean there weren’t warlike societies among hunter-gatherers. But certainly there were no high tech world wars. Hunting and gathering societies tend to think of the land as the property of life as a whole—humans, animals, plants. That’s a start on a peaceful world.

This is pie in the sky, isn’t it? Maybe. But humans lived this way for more than a hundred thousand years before modern civilization occurred, with its wars, rat-races, diseases, pollution, and barren cityscapes. Examination of the fossil bones of our hunter-gatherer ancestors shows a robust people, devoid of most of the diseases of civilization: cancer, diabetes, heart disease, even tooth decay.

When the pilgrims landed in what is now Massachusetts, they were a scurvy lot of disease-ridden, misshapen Europeans scourged by the Black Death, smallpox, and lice. Their food was inferior. They wrote in their journals about the magnificent physiques of the natives—their inherent nobility—their fairness—their advanced politics—and their beautiful, strong bodies, both men and women.

As Joni Mitchell sang long ago, “We’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.” And the garden is metaphor for man and woman in their natural state, living from what the earth provides.

If this sounds naïve—a return to Rousseau’s idea of the Noble Savage–I’d advise skeptics to check what to the anthropologists have to say about the indigenous hunting-gathering societies they’ve studied over the past 100 years. These people work about 17 hours a week. They lead low-stress lives with plenty of time for love and laughter and story-telling and communion with nature. They are happy. And they are healthy.

What are we?

Our impulse toward green living, carried to its logical conclusion, may just carry us back some day to the place we started from, only then we will be wiser and more aware of the pitfalls that await those who violently wrest life from nature instead of taking what nature so gently and beneficently provides.
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Fabulous Organic Apple Pie

This recipe makes such good apple pie that your first thought after tasting it will be, “I’ve got to make another one—right away!”

But here’s a tip. When the Honey Crisp apples are in the store, use them for this pie. They are truly superior. When they’re not in the stores, use whatcha got. Granny Smiths are good. Fujis, Galas, or Braeburns are good, too, but Honey Crisps are the bomb.

There is a store not far from my home called Mom’s Apple Pie with a real mom (Betty Carr) and real apple pie. It used to be surrounded by Gravenstein apple orchards that supplied the year’s first fresh apples to all of America, but the bottom fell out of the market due to controlled atmosphere storage in Washington State—but Mom’s Apple Pie remains and the pies are as good as ever. This pie is even better, believe it or not.

Note that the pie crust dough should best be made a day ahead.

For the Crust:

This recipe makes enough dough for two crusts—one top, one bottom—for your apple pie. The secret to flaky pie crust is simple: everything must be ice cold so the butter never melts until you pop the pie into the oven.

2 cups all-purpose flour, taken from the freezer
½ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons butter, chilled
4 tablespoons canola oil, chilled
½ cup ice water

1. Mix the flour and salt together in a bowl. Cut the butter into eight pieces and add them to the flour along with the canola oil. Using two knives, cut the butter into the flour until the pieces of butter are smaller than peas.

2. Add six tablespoons of ice water and toss the mixture lightly using two forks. Add more water if needed so that you can press the mixture together into a ball that retains its shape. Wrap the ball in wax paper and refrigerate for at least two hours, preferably overnight.

3. Cut the ball into halves and using a chilled, floured stone or a chilled, floured board, roll the first half into a round larger than the bottom of the pie pan. Using a rolling pin, flip the far edge of the round over the pin toward you and roll up the dough onto the pin. Carry this to the greased pie pan and lay the dangling edge of the dough over the near edge of the pan. Unroll the dough into the pan. Trim excess (any dough that hangs more than an inch over the edge of the pan) with scissors.

4. Fill the bottom crust with the apple filling. Now repeat step 3, rolling out the top crust so it generously covers the pie. Again trim off any excess with scissors. Press the edge of the top crust into the edge of the bottom crust to make a seal, and flute the edge with the back of a table fork. Cut five two-inch slices in the top crust. Bake as instructed above.

For the Pie:

6 medium apples
½ cup brown sugar
1 Tbl. cornstarch
1/8 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1 ½ Tbl. butter
1 Tbl. lemon juice
1 Tbl. white sugar-cinnamon mix

1. Quarter, peel, and core the apples and cut the pieces into thin slices. Place the apples in a bowl. Combine the sugar, cornstarch, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg and add them to the bowl. Toss the apple slices gently with the dry ingredients until they are evenly coated.

2. Line a nine-inch pie pan with one of the pie crusts. Place the apple mixture in the shell and sprinkle it with the lemon juice, then dot the top with the butter. Preheat the oven to 450 F.

3. Place the second pie crust on top and trim excess. Squish the top and bottom crusts together along the rim of the pie pan with the back of a fork. Lightly sprinkle the top of the crust with a tablespoon full of cinnamon and white sugar mixed half and half. Make five two-inch slices in the top crust with a sharp knife. Place a sheet of aluminum foil on the oven rack to catch any drips. Bake at 450 F. for 10 minutes, then turn the heat down to 350 F. and bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the juices are running. Makes one pie.

Note: Be prepared for compliments.
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Image: © Edward Westmacott | Dreamstime.com
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