Macrobiotics is based in large part on striving for balance between the opposing energetic principles of yin and yang, which are supposed to be in evidence everywhere, including in food, which is its main concern. One of macrobiotics' foundational concepts is that food has a profound influence on various aspects of person's condition, and the community brings special attention to the link between food, thought, and behavior. So an important part of the practice is to develop an awareness of how different foods affect you, how you feel, what you think, say and do.
A main goal of eating macrobiotically, to use a popular metaphor, is to "come down the pendulum" from the extremes of highly concentrated foods like white sugar, other processed foods, and animal foods, to a simpler, lower-on-the-food chain, lower-frequency diet composed of mainly whole plant foods, at the heart of which are well chewed grains, chiefly brown rice. This kind of diet is meant to promote a sound, healthy condition.
As I mentioned in my last post, the rice fast gave me a renewed gratitude for the pleasure of eating, which got me thinking (and drooling) about the many tasty delights I've enjoyed while here that I haven't yet had the occasion to share with you. So, here is a bit of a sampling, may it provide inspiration...
Noodles (or noo-noos [nOO-nOOz]) and broth with home made tofu, veggies and hot sesame oil
Chimichanga, also known as a deep fried burrito. Amazing.
My friend and partner in crime, the illustrious kickball Joe, enjoying a snack of fruit turnover
Mochi, a fried pancake of mashed sweet rice. A centerpiece of a sumo wrestler's diet, I am told.
Sandwich (or sankwich, if you please) of homemade tempeh, sprouts, lettuce, mustard, vegenaise, and tomato (a bit of a nightshade treat). So good the camera could not focus.
Millet, lima beans seasoned with mustard (tasty as I've had that particular bean), beet salad
Pekoras, or, as the chef prefers to call them, coogly wooglies
This was called a "tofu quiche," it was a macaroni casserole type thing that came out like the delicious vegan cousin of mac 'n' cheese.
Pan toasted sesame seeds snap crackle and pop as they cool
Pea soup, cabbage, quinoa, and getting a little mediterranean with some falafel on the side
Some kind of crazy delicious mustardy seitan concoction.
The conch that calls us to dinnerNot long ago I took a 3 day rice fast (more like 3 1/2 days... but who's counting?). The rice fast is a common ritual here, where well-chewed grain is the heart of a macrobiotic diet. Some times for a day, some times for a week, ideally for 10 days, which is supposed to be the time it takes to fully cleanse the bloodstream.
The photo above was the recommended bi-hourly meal on the fast we were undertaking: a scoop of brown rice with a bit of gamasio (a blend of ground toasted sesame seeds and sea salt). Some miso soup in the morning was also permitted, but the main event, as the name might suggest, was rice. The scoop above was divided into four bites, each of which was to be chewed 200 times. Chewing is an important practice in macrobiotics, both as an essential beginning to good digestion and as a means to heightening attentiveness to the food you're taking into your body, cultivating a habit of presence and awareness that hopefully spills out into the rest of your daily experience. Maybe it was a placebo effect, or maybe all the sugar released by chewing, but after 800 chews the first ball of rice left me feeling euphoric.
The rice fast invites a state of emptiness, but it shouldn't leave you hungry. So, feeling a bit weak and hungry after a couple of days on the single scoop meal, I modified to a two-scoop technique, which I found much more manageable. Day 4 I was feeling good again.
In addition to radically improving my chewing technique, and bringing new awareness to the practice of eating, the rice fast renewed and deepened my appreciation for the rich variety of tastes that I take for granted on a regular basis. It can be a great way to find new gratitude for the gift of eating, and to examine one's eating habits and one's relationship to food.
The rice in these trays is being fermented with aspergillus oryzae (or Koji), after which process it can be used to make a number of tasty things, miso and amasake being the most popular transformations around here.
Got to keep a close eye on the temp
The grain is bought unhulled, in bulk, to be hulled and sorted here, the most economic way. Economy of scale can be a real advantage, as you might imagine, when a large group of people buys food as a unit. It also helps, of course, if they share a common diet.
The artist
His work
Music circle at a local cafe
Diesel for winter and summer
Reduced by a head massage to a puddle on the kitchen floor
Grain drier for the Himalayan variety of barley which the community
New weed-suppressing sand on the greenhouse path
Home made tee
Robot battle
In the wildflower patch
Truly from scratch
Grinding grain into flour
Adding water, salt and oil to make the dough
Sunflower seed pesto for half the pies
Marinara style carrot sauce for the other half
Munch munch
