Future of farming resembles the past

Neighbors appreciate it

Joe used to work in the financial services industry. Blessed with a green thumb, an amiable nature, and a strong back, he’s long provided friends and family with homegrown delicacies such as arugula, a fashionable – and pricey – salad green. When that career ended, Joe decided to farm professionally, together with his son, Roberto. Today he’s not only cultivating his own land, he’s growing food in what used to be his neighbor’s lawns. He’s a modern-day sharecropper and also a direct marketer. Some customers drop by 136 Glasco Turnpike and buy right out of the field.

Mangia Bene Farms has enjoyed a fruitful relationship with Mike and Judy Della Chiesa for several years. This year, Joe and Roberto began cultivating what’s known in their neighborhood as “the old Buono farm.”

Joe says members of the locally prominent Buono family are extremely sentimental about this

“everything old is new again” socioeconomic development.

“I give them vegetables and eggs, and they tell me stories about ‘Poppy’ Buono,” says Joe. “I have to tell you, I feel really close to the guy, farming his land and feeding his family. Doing this kind of manual labor gives you plenty of time to think about things like the cycle of life, the value of land, and the meaning of family,” he says.

The whole Mangia Bene farm scene is deliciously Italian and darkly comic, an epicurean version of “Prizzi’s Honor.” After sampling their garlic, nothing else will really do. The $4 spent for a dozen fabulous eggs laid by pastured chickens seems a ridiculous bargain. Laura makes her locally-famous mesclun salad mix fresh every Saturday morning; it’s $5 a bag, when available.

“I have a lady who buys three bags every time she comes to the Farmers Market,” says Laura. “She tells me, ‘your mesclun lasts a full week. The mix I buy at the store turns to mush in two days.’”

The old-timers had it right

As helpful, customer-loving, civic-minded Saugertesians, Joe suggests this fall’s squash harvest presents an unusually ripe opportunity to try new soup and casserole recipes; he also urges local families to rediscover retro food storage methods such as keeping a root cellar and canning.

“It’s going to be a very good year for pumpkins,” says Joe. “The winter squashes liked the drier, hotter summer weather we had.”

Aiello says that science has proven that the eating practices of his parents and grandparents have proven to be wise and healthful.

“When I was growing up, people made fun of my family, going around picking dandelion greens. Turns out they purify your blood and are good for digestion. So now braised dandelions, or dandelion pesto, is this remarkably exotic speciality item on some fancy menus,” says Joe. “Now I have nothing against restaurant marketing, but it is funny to me that the foods my grandparents ate as poor people are now so fashionable.”

The Aiellos don’t anticipate the dramatic price increase for corn will much affect their business. They don’t grow corn – their business model is really specialty Italian vegetables, as most of their customers are of Italian descent – but they do buy a little to feed their chickens.

Esteemed national prognosticators reckon that since 25 percent of the corn crop goes towards the manufacture of ethanol, the heartland’s drought will be quickly felt as price increases on grocery-store shelves. Higher food and transportation costs will drag down an economy already struggling. Many think the current government policies relating to methanol production are at best misguided, considering the savage face Mother Nature has shown to an increasingly obese America lately.

For that reason, and also because it’s an insurance policy against your family going hungry, Joe really believes that cellaring root vegetables is an idea whose time has come again. Carrots, onions, apples and potatoes are just some of the vegetables that can be preserved in their natural state for months without the use of fossil fuels.

“Stock up at the farmers market, whether you buy from me or someone else. These droughts in the heartland, this isn’t some one-year thing,” says Joe. “For decades these states have shipped their water away in the form of food. Nobody wants to talk about it. But when you eat local produce, the water that it took to grow it stays here, too, and that’s all I care to say about that subject.”