Mary Ruth Gibbens White -- May 29, 1914 to May 2, 2007

                        Grandma Gibbens with Elizabeth and Mary Ruth, 1916 or 1917?

                          Mary Ruth on the farm she loved, 1916 or so.


I've copied some scenes from Mary Ruth's life, mostly in her own words. She left a couple of memoirs, and of course, many letters and shorter accounts.

The older photos are from Josephine's collection, preserved by Steve Russell (deepest thanks, Steve), and compiled by Betsy (deepest thanks, Betsy).

[From a 1997 memoir] "What is it like to be 83 and to have seen the better part of the century?

I was born in 1914 on the Illinois prairie. My first clear memory is of a November night when I was four. Such remarkable happenings. Winter nights should be at home, but Dad hitched the horses to the buggy and in the dark and cold took us into a very small town nearby, to a familiar spot, my uncle's general store. There was only one store.

We joined the gathering crowd in the big meeting hall on the 2nd floor. In contrast to our travel in, here lights were very birth; it was very hot and very noisy. Such a contrast; I'd never been in sch an assembly before. Aside from those contrasts I couldn't understand any of the intense excitement and the mood of exultation. Long after bedtime it was still going on, but at some signal, all the large windows were open and my dad set me on the window sill and held me there as we looked down below. A huge bonfire blazed up in the center of the street intersection below, and amid great shouts, a man, fully dressed was through into the fire. What a shock! They told me the man was the Kaiser Wilhelm. I was too young to know it was in effigy."

                                               Grandpa Gibbens with Mary Ruth and ??

. . .
My parents had been leasing a farm, now they bought their own twenty miles away, and I attended a one room school. There were wide swings in the economy, with few of the safe guards government now provides. After a promising start, times became hard for farmers and dad looked for another way to support the family."

[Mary Ruth left a school paper that she wrote in about 1926, about "Our Trip to Starved Rock." ] "One Thursday morning in the last of August we started on a trip to Starved Rock . . . Allen Park was near Ottawa so we camped there. Daddy and I put up the tent which was fastened over the car to keep out the rain. Then, while the children played Daddy and I walked up town. . . . We got our groceries and walked back to the camp. . . . We had put our cots in the tent and soon after the dishes were done Mother, Elizabeth and I walked up town while the children went to bed. . . . The Fox River joins [the Illinois River] . . . the lights shone on the river and the stars were reflected. Oh! It was pretty. We went to bed about nine o'clock. Daddy and Mother slept in the car." [This is the first that I've seen of this account, so I will scan it and send the whole thing around. It's four pages, neatly written, single spaced, and now that I look I see that it's followed by a story about Christmas that Mary Ruth made up.]

                                           Elizabeth, Mary Ruth, and Josephine.

                                       The Gibbens siblings, circa 1926 or so?

            The Gibbens kids, Mary Ruth, Jo, Elizabeth, Bob (?). Missing Stephen. 1923? [Deirdre suggests that he either wasn't there yet, or was staying warm in the oven -- Grandma said that she put both the twins and Stephen into the warmish oven when days were too cold for infants. This day looks like a pleasant one though.] Need help on these dates.


[Continuing with the 1997 memoir]. "We were proud of our life as agricultural people. We raised, canned and preserved, most of our own food, including the beef, pork, and chickens. I was adept at harnessing the horses, and the winter Dad was gone I kept the furnace going, a responsibility I considered a great honor. . . . It seemed a good life, but we felt with great expectations. . . . Mother felt assured we could go to college in the city, and Dad believed fervently in the benefits of insurance.

So we moved, and marveled at city life. . . . Generations ago my father's ancestors came from Germany, Mother's grandparents were from Ireland. Nearly everyone we had known were agricultural people. Dad had studied piano and was licensed to teach, but felt it didn't provide an adequate income for a family. Mother had taught elementary grades for years, and both of them felt it was important to prepare for a career, and build on a good education.

In Kalamazoo, I felt quite out of place and became very shy. The parents of classmates seemed very different from my own. Mother was busy raising us five children of whom I was the oldest. Dad's work [selling State Farm insurance] took him into the countryside and I felt neither of them knew anything about this new community. As the oldest of us siblings, I felt lonely indeed. I had to make my own way, but most of the '20s, looking back, were fun. . . . I entered college nearby on a scholarship [Nazareth College, where Jo and Elizabeth also went, as did Peg, Betsy and Micki]." . . .

                           Mary Ruth, high school graduation. She was 16, I think, so about 1930.

"Jobs were hard to find in the early 1930s. My first teaching job was in New Troy, about fifteen miles west of here  [Buchanan]. My hope had been to start a highly social life in the wide world, going from one party to another -- a butterfly. In fact, there was a sign on the one small grocery which acclaimed New Troy Center of the World. There was a small bar also on this two blocks of church, school and house, to which one went to use a telephone. All out of town teachers found board and room in a widow's home. The one man had the best downstairs room and choice of bathroom hours; we three girls were upstairs. No drug store for incidentals and no soda bar for conversing, no bus to get out (of town), no nothing. Sundays I walked two miles to church, got a ride home with Phil Sexton's family. But what fun it turned out, friends made all the difference. And I've danced till two in the morning, to phonograph music in that one building, having a wonderful time. Afternoons, next to the gym and basketball practice, high school boys taught me ping pong, with practice enough to become good at that, and sometimes I passed as one of them. . . .

A group of Catholic young folk from New Buffalo and St. Joseph gathered on weekends to have good times. Someone said 'you should meet Al White, he's been to college,' a rarity in those deep depression days. So one girl [Ruth Mathieu, who was a good friend of Al's sister Teresa] took me to Buchanan late one afternoon. Al worked 2nd shift, as a supervisor, grateful for that opening at Clark Equipment. He was sleeping on the sofa, girls weren't a part of his life then, and he wasn't at all happy to be awakening for a stranger. I certainly wasn't impressed either. Weeks later we met again at a party and he invited me to go ice-skating. Occasionally we dated after that; in the summers he brought a friend and we double dated, very common then."

[Peabody teachers' college offered Mary Ruth a fellowship, so she got her Master's in Early Childhood Education in Nashville, summa cum lade. She taught in Ann Arbor for a year, which she didn't like, and then went to Wakefield in the Upper Peninsula. She continued to date Al, long distance, and when he got a job at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh in October 1939, he proposed, she accepted, and they were married all in the space of a couple of months.]

              Mary Ruth skeet shooting with Al -- 1938 or 1939? My personal favorite photo.

                                      Mary Ruth at Lake Michigan, 1939 -- taken by Al.

           The wedding, February 3, 1940. Note the snow. Grandma made the dress in about a week. Chick Franklin was the best man, and Elizabeth is the maid of honor.

[From another memoir by Mary Ruth, written in 1994 and focused on her married years] "Westinghouse allowed Al Friday and Monday for travel time, plus the weekend to get married. As we came into the city he stopped at a florist's and bought a lively spring bouquet, blue iris, red tulips and other flowers, so that, as he explained, I wouldn't feel quite so lonesome and lost when he went to work the next day. They did help. . . . The first year of our marriage was one of the happiest of my life and the only one which seemed really free. . . .that first year in Pittsburgh was a wonderful rest. . . ."

                                   The Gibbens siblings, and Rob and Nell -- 1942?

[Still in Pittsburgh]  . . ."As civilians we did what we could, and one way was to be thrifty. Even after the depression, we learned new ways. We saved money whenever possible to help our forces overseas. . . .In later years, my brother spoke of their fortuitous experiences abroad, not in direct personal contact with death and dying [I'm not sure what she's referring to, but I think that most of her siblings did see action; maybe they were reluctant to share.]  . . . Elizabeth's service was of great value, from the nurses landing in Africa, in Anzio and the in the forefront in France. Her comments now are somewhat ambivalent."

               Mary Ruth and Al, in Pittsburgh, late March, 1945, with Jim, Peg, Teri.

[Mary Ruth describes how happy she was in Pittsburgh, and then continues --]  "No wonder I cried as we descended in to Buchanan. And cried again, many times. . . . We left [Pittsburgh] with our three youngsters, the baby Joe in the baby basket, and Teddy, a good sized Irish setter on the floor of the backseat. It must still have been about a ten hour trip, much of it in the dark so the children would sleep. . . . It was early February, with intense cold and a blizzard raging. . .  [they stayed briefly with Al's parents, two houses away from 116 Clark Street, and soon moved into that house.]  . . . The next winter the four children starting about Christmas time has measles . . .were very sick. . . . No sooner had they recovered, they all had the chicken pox, one after another. The new baby was expected at the end of March, and how I did pray they would be over . . . sure enough, the last signs of chicken pox dropped away before Betsy came, April 2."

                                 The Gibbens siblings and Rob and Nell -- 1950?

                         I think that many of us are in this photo -- it's about 1952?


[Photo missing for the moment.]
The ice rink in the backyard at 116 Clark Street, Buchanan, 1954. Note that everyone is up by the porch -- Mary Ruth has probably brought out hot chocolate, or something wonderful to warm the skaters.

                    Mary Ruth, Grandpa and Grandma, Jo, Jeanne, Margaret, and Elizabeth with various grandkids, including some of the West Coast Gibbenses--1963?

               In Buchanan, Mary Ruth and Al's 25th wedding anniversary -- Mary Ruth, her parents and her siblings. December 1964.

                     A collection of grandchildren with Rob and Nell, in the late 1960s?

                  Betsy says 1973. Look at the hair, and Elizabeth, always stylish.

   

 Last photo with Al and Mary Ruth, in the lawn seat at 116 Clark Street -- 1973, we think.

[Al died in March of 1974. Mary Ruth taught for a couple of years after that. In 1976, she left, bought the brown (Chevy?) van, passed the driving test that the boys set for her (drive in rush hour in Chicago), and headed out on her own to drive around the country. From there, she traveled to every continent except Antarctica, as often as possible with her kids, grandkids, and exchange students.]

                        Mary Ruth and crew in Arosa, Switzerland, summer, 1977.

[Next two photos missing for the moment.]
Elizabeth's 70th -- at Russells' house in Kalamazoo, 1986.
Another one from Elizabeth's 70th, with Steve and Margaret.

Mary Ruth at Portage Glacier, 1987 (those are icebergs in the lake, not actually the glacier).

  

                                           Mary Ruth's 75th birthday party. 1989.

                                    Those good-looking Gibbens siblings, 1994.

                                    Fishing at "The Swamp," Mary Ruth's lake, 1995.


[I'm going to end this account of Mary Ruth's life here, so it's out in time to celebrate her 100th year. I can continue with photos and stories, and remembrances from all of you, if you'd like to hear more. Teri, May 28, 2014.]

La Baleine in 2014

                                                               La Baleine.


Mandy Dixon has just re-opened La Baleine on the Homer Spit (here's my post from last year about the opening days).  Go for absolutely fresh food, cooked to order, and beautifully presented. It's easy to spot, on the left just past Salty Dawg Saloon as you're headed toward Land's End.

     Best breakfast sandwich anywhere, the mostly veggie version with zucchini, mushrooms, greens. The meatier variation includes bacon, an egg, and cheese. The staff will make anything you like within this range.

We ate Mother's Day breakfast there, and in keeping with her generosity, Mandy served a small bag of mini-beignets drenched  in confectioners' sugar to each mom -- enough to share, if one was so  inclined. Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of them before they disappeared.

Jim's oatmeal, with choices of fresh fruit, dried cranberries, brown sugar, cream, honey, and more for toppings. All of La Baleine's dishes are unusual pottery, suitable for setting off the food.


Added attractions -- fresh flowers on every table, free coffee, food to go (including cookies, salads, and sandwiches perfect for a picnic lunch), and friendly staff. The prices are low -- Mandy says that she wants a place that serves "local food that local people can afford."

E. J.'s authentic Philly pretzels

 Soft pretzels, Philly style, with sea salt flakes, and butter glaze. [Photo, TW Carns]

My friend E.J. from Pennsylvania says these are the real deal. Having never eaten a Philly pretzel, I have no way of telling, but the ones he made sure tasted good, so I tried his recipe.

 

Painting  from Alsace, 12th century C.E., may be the earliest picture of a pretzel (on the table). From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hortus_Deliciarum_1190.jpg.

I reviewed pretzel recipes on a few web sites to see what the most important things about baking pretzels might be. Bottom line -- boil  or dip them briefly, in an alkaline bath (made with baking soda or lye; here's a link to a discussion of the merits of each). That's what makes them pretzels rather than bread. Boiling them helps set the proteins on the outside, limiting how much they can rise in the oven. That gives them a texture that's denser and chewier than regular breads.

They also are pretzels because of the way that they are traditionally twisted, representing someone praying according to many accounts They were good for Lent because Christians in the Middle Ages and Renaissance gave up all meat, dairy products, and fat for the forty days, and pretzels are just flour, water, and salt.

 Photo, traditional pretzel twist, looking like arms across chest in a gesture of prayer. [How Stuff Works.]

I wondered what makes a bagel actually a bagel instead of a pretzel -- because you boil both of them. Historically, it appears that bagels descended from pretzels, a "Christian" bread, remade in Jewish ghettos in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. (Of course, others suggest that the pretzel itself descended from circular Pagan breads, made to represent the sun.)

Two answers to the bagel question were, a) some sweetening (often mixed into the dough), and b) some malt or malt syrup, either in the dough or in the water. I didn't have malt on hand, and impatient as always, didn't want to go out for it. One recipe recommended boiling the bagels in sweetened water, so I tried that, and sure enough -- they tasted bagel-ish, not pretzel-ish. On the other hand, as I read further, I found recipes for boiling bagels in water with baking soda (just like pretzels), or with nothing in the water, etc. So the answer to the question of why is it a bagel rather than a pretzel (besides the shape) remains ambiguous, like so many culinary questions.

E.J. Pavsek Philadelphia pretzel recipe - 5/19/2012

      This recipe is a basic yeast dough -- flour, water, salt. You're kneading it; letting it go through a standard first rise (about an hour, until about doubled); cutting and shaping the dough (either pretzels or bagels); boiling it very briefly and draining it; baking in a hot oven; letting cool a bit before eating.

Ingredients

1 package dry yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast from a jar)
1 1/4 cup warm water
2 teaspoons salt
4 to 5 cups all purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking soda (for pretzels), 1 1/2 Tablespoons golden syrup (for bagels), in 4 cups boiling water

Kosher salt, coarse (or other toppings, as desired); melted butter if desired

How to make them

     Make the dough

Dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup of the warm water, and let stand for about 10 minutes until foamy. Stir in the rest of the water (one more cup).

Mix 4 cups all purpose flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the yeast in water and enough additional flour (or water, as needed) to make a stiff dough. As with any yeast dough, the proportions of flour and water will vary somewhat depending on the season, humidity, and so forth).

     Knead, and let the dough rise

Knead dough for 10 minutes on lightly floured board OR until dough is elastic. Form the dough into a ball, coat lightly with butter, place in bowl. Cover the bowl loosely with plastic wrap and let rise for 45 minutes. Note that this dough only rises once.

Dough in bowl, ready to rise. Cover with a damp towel or lightly layer plastic wrap over it, to keep it from drying out. [Photo, TW Carns]


     Shape and boil the pretzels/bagels

At the beginning of this step, shaping and boiling the pretzels/bagels, do these three things:

• Preheat oven to 475 degrees;
• Butter a baking sheet; and
• Bring to a boil 4 cups of water, and dissolve 4 Tablespoons of baking soda in it (for pretzels) or 1 1/2 Tablespoons of golden syrup (for bagels).

I made small, snack or appetizer-size pretzels and bagels, by pinching off a small dough ball (one ounce for each pretzel or bagel), rolling it by hand into a 8 or 10 inch long x 1/2 inch diameter rope, and forming the rope into a pretzel (see pictures here) or bagel shape. E. J. noted that for larger pretzels, "It’s easier to make the 'ropes' of dough by rolling out all your dough with a rolling pin, cutting it into strips, and rolling the strips lengthwise."

                            Shaped pretzels, ready to boil. [Photo, TW Carns]

Drop pretzels into boiling water; fish them out after 5 to 10 seconds using a slotted spoon (the surface will look a little dimpled). Drain them on paper toweling, briefly, and put them onto the buttered baking sheet.

Boiling the bagels, in 4 cups of water, with 1 1/2 Tablespoons of golden syrup added. The pretzels were boiled in 4 cups of water with 4 Tablespoons of baking soda added. [Photo, TW Carns]

Sprinkle with sea salt, to taste (Maldon flakes are a good size), or use kosher salt.

             Boiled pretzels, sprinkled with salt and ready to bake. [Photo, TW Carns]

Bake for 8 to 12 minutes OR until golden (start checking at 6 minutes). Cool on a rack.

Pretzels, some salted and some not, cooling. Brush them with melted butter, if you like. [Photo, TW Carns]

                            Baked snack-size bagels. [Photo, TW Carns]

Pretzel as bakers emblem, traditional in Goerlitz, Germany.

Historical notes

Easter: Besides being a Lenten food, in some places a pretzel was hidden, along with two hard-boiled eggs, for people to find on Easter.

Weddings:  Pretzels were associated with marriages as well. One site notes  that the knotted shape represented the binding of the two parties, or, "Tying the knot."  "Weddings in Europe for a time used the tradition of the bride and groom tugging at a pretzel like a wishbone, the larger piece assured the spouses fulfillment of their wishes."

Coming to the United States: From foodtimeline.org, under "Pretzels  --  "The Dutch probably brought the pretzel to America, and there is a story that in 1652 a settler named Jochem Wessel was arrested for using good flour to make pretzels to sell to the Indians at a time when his white neighbors were eating bran flour. The first mention of the word 'pretzel' in American print was about 1824, and the first commercial pretzel bakery in the United States was set up in 1861 by Julius Sturgis and Ambrose Rauch in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Most pretzels are twisted by machine, introduced in 1933." ---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 255-6)

                       Jacob Fobsen Van Es Déjeuner Nancy  (1596–1666).

Iranian flatbreads -- a guest post by Antonia Moras

             Barbari bread in Iranian bakeries. [Both photos by Kamyar Adi.]

Antonia Moras spent more than a year teaching in Iran during the mid-1970s. She recalls the breads:

"In Iran, we ate marvelous breads - some of very very simple composition and baking. One type was merely water, flour, and salt in a thin dough baked by pressing it against the walls of a stone oven for a few minutes until it fell off. It sounds like something kids might do, yet it had a distinct identity.

I did a little Google research to revive my Iranian memories. The three types of bread that were most common in Tehran were sangak, lavash, and barbari.  They were all somewhat similar to Indian naan -- thin and best served immediately. Lavash is the one made by pressing the thin oblong against the wall of a hot stone oven. It cooks in a minute or so.

                                           Lavash [Photo by Kamyar Adi.]

Sangak, also just water, flour, and salt, is rolled out and baked over a bed of very hot pebbles, You need to brush away remnants of the pebbles before eating it.

                   Sangak in oven.  [Photo by Muslim Harji at simerg.com].

Barbari, which was my favorite, is somewhat thicker, is slightly leavened, and lasts longer. The other two types turn to crackers within a few hours, but barbari remains softer for about a day. The practice was to send a servant to wait in line for the bread twice a day. Everyone queued for bread -- odd discipline in a place where otherwise queues were rare.



Woman buying barbari bread [Photo, Creative Commons.]

There were other types too, but those are the three I remember encountering most frequently. They all also bear some resemblance to different types of pizza crust.

To my knowledge, no one prepared their bread at home in Tehran, not even the poorer people. The different types may have required less fire but not necessarily less heat and the ovens each had a special construction. My research this morning mentioned that soldiers would prepare theirs (sangak) on beds of hot pebbles while they were on the march. They carried their pebbles with them. But I can't say that I've witnessed this!"

    "Fresh nans off the stone tandoor." [Photo by Muslim Harji at simerg.com]

Traveling wheat -- The geographic range of wheat.

                                    Michigan wheat field, mid-July, 2013 [Photo, Micki Glueckert]

Wheat is a cultivated version of wild grasses. According to one site, it probably originated in Iran about 9,000 years ago when durum wheat crossed with wild goatgrass (Aegilops tauschii). Although many of the ancient variants of wheat, including emmer, einkorn, spelt, and Triticum are still consumed today, bread wheat, Triticum aestivum [Triticum from Latin for threshing, and aestivum, Latin for summer] is by far the most important.

The earliest evidence of people eating wheat is from the Ohalo II site, about 23,000 years ago, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Charred seeds of emmer were found in a settlement that contained six huts, six open air hearths, and a grave. Cultivated barley also has been found that dates to about 23,000 years ago; the two grains were often grown together.

Fast forward a dozen millenia to Gobekli Tepe, in southeast Turkey, where a site with carved pillars set on terrazzo floors caused great excitement among archaeologists when excavation began in 1994. Settlements of the people who built the pillars have remains of einkorn wheat. Five hundred years after the earliest work began at Gobekli Tepe, a village nearby had begun to domesticate wheat. Other sites in the Middle East, including Abu Hureyra I and II in Syria, Nevali Cori, and  Cafer Hoyuk also show evidence of cultivated einkorn  and emmer wheat starting as early as about 11,000 years ago. Because new sites are always being discovered, it is impossible to say for sure which site holds the honor of being "first." Within a thousand years or so, cultivated wheat appeared in a number of places in the Middle East -- Iraq, Iran, Persia, and more.

From there, wheat spread to China, Russia, Central Asia, much of Europe, and northern Africa and Egypt in the lands around the Mediterranean. It traveled over land, and by sea, in the holds of ships, and the bags carried by people seeking a better life in a new land.

By the time that the Roman Empire was at its peak, nearly a thousand years later (around 250 CE) it relied on Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, Egypt, and northern Africa, for most of its wheat. A Stanford web site (ORBIS) allows the viewer to enter variables like mode of transportation, time of the year, and costs and calculate how long it would take a kilogram of wheat to be carried from London to Constantinople, or elsewhere in the Empire. Empires of Food (Faser and Rimas) describes how the Romans fed themselves, and what happened when they finally could not, because of climate change, and political issues.

                                      Michigan chickens eating wheat. [Photo by Micki Glueckert]

As Europeans explored the Americas and Australia, they took wheat with them. Its range today goes from ". . . 260 m below sea level (Jordan Valley) up to 4,000 m (Tibetan plateau)." [Kew 2013]. Farmers cultivate it on every continent except Antarctica, with China and India being the largest producers. The United States is third, followed by France, Russia, Australia, Canada, Pakistan, Germany, and Turkey.






Map from Wheat Atlas, showing where wheat is grown. Note that much of the U.S. grows winter wheat, as does much of Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Russia. The "facultative" areas grow spring wheat that is sown in the fall rather than in the spring; all of them are moderately cold climates (small parts of Chile, China, the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa).

Even if a particular area grows little if any wheat, much of the world's population depends on it as a major source of calories and protein. Graphic from Wheat Atlas.



 

                                   Michigan wheat field, mid-July 2013. [Photo, Micki Gluekert]

Wheat will grow in many environments, but prefers drier areas with ten to thirty inches of rain a year. In the United States, the Great Plains -- Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota,   and Eastern Washington state are the major places for amber waves of high-gluten bread wheat. Fields in Ohio and several Eastern states produce more of the low-gluten spring wheat for cakes and pastries.

          Wheat still rules in the Roman diet. Roman bakery, September 2013. [Photo, TW Carns]

The Little Red Hen and Monsanto

I feel obliged to note that this is a parody, and in no way reflects any actual experience with Monsanto. Just for the record, at this time (April 2, 1014  2014) Monsanto has not released any GMO wheat, although it is discussing the possibility of doing so in the next few years.

                                       Red hen, Anchorage, May 24, 2013. [Photo, TW Carns]

Once upon a time a Little Red Hen found some grains of wheat while she was scratching in the barn yard, and decided to make bread. She asked her friends the donkey, the pig and the dog, “Who would like to eat some delicious warm bread?” The donkey, the pig, and the dog all said, “Oh yeah! We’d love some warm delicious bread.”

The Little Red Hen said, “Who will help me grow this wheat to make the bread?” And the donkey, and the pig, and the dog all said, “We are soooo busy! Not us.” But the gentleman from Monsanto who had just spread the grains of wheat in front of the Little Red Hen said, “That just happens to be Round-up Ready (Trademarked) wheat that we’ve been wanting to test. Will you be so kind as to try it out for us?” So the Little Red Hen said “Sure, why not?”

                        Southwest Michigan winter wheat field, mid-April 2013 [Photo, M. Glueckert]

The Little Red Hen planted the Monsanto wheat in her carefully-tilled field and watched it sprout and grow bright and green Then came the day to pull the weeds that had grown equally bright and green in among the wheat stalks. The Little Red Hen said, “Who will help me weed the wheat?” The donkey, and the pig, and the dog all said, “That is not the sort of work we are cut out to do.” But the Monsanto gentleman said, “Spray a little Roundup (Trademarked) and the weeds will go away.” So the Little Red Hen bought some Round-up from Monsanto, sprayed her wheat, and the weeds shriveled away as advertised.

     Southwest Michigan wheat field, June 21, 2013 [Photo, M. Glueckert]

The grain waxed golden, and the Little Red Hen said, “Who will help me harvest this wheat?” The donkey, and the pig, and the dog all said, “That’s character-building work, and as you can see, we are already bursting with character. We do not need to help harvest.” The Monsanto gentleman said, “I can put you in touch with some harvesters,” and he did. They came, cut the wheat, and gave it to the Little Red Hen, who paid them well for their work. 

The Little Red Hen had to grind the wheat into flour, and she knew better than to ask the donkey, the pig, and the dog to help. So she took it to a mill where they removed the vitamin-rich bran and germ (which they sold to health food stores), and added in vitamins and minerals, as required by the FDA. They brought the fine white flour to the Little Red Hen in artisanal sacks, charging her a very reasonable amount extra for the nice packaging.

           
                                                             Flour sack image.

The Little Red Hen said, “It’s time to make this flour into bread. Who will help me?” The donkey, and the pig, and the dog all said, “We probably shouldn’t help because we might get it wrong.” The gentleman from Monsanto said, “We have friends who will make your flour into bread.” The Little Red Hen turned over all of her flour to the recommended bakers who put it into a monstrous large kneading machine with mono- and di-glycerides, sodium stearol lactylate, calcium sulfate (aka gypsum), and high fructose corn syrup (among other ingredients). They shaped it, and proofed it, and baked it before giving it to the Little Red Hen after she paid her baking fee.

                                              Bread, May 12, 2013. [Photo, TW Carns]

Along came the donkey, the pig, and the dog, and said, “Let us help you eat that bread. There’s way too much for you.” But the Monsanto gentleman came along and said, “No way. Little Red Hen invited me to dinner. She is going to cook bread pudding with mountain oysters, and we’re going to eat it all ourselves.” And they did.

                                         Savory bread pudding (minus the Rocky Mountain oysters).

                                      Red hen, Susanne and Thomas's, July 2011. [Photo, TW Carns]