printNovember 7, 2008
Eating Ethically as Jews
Bringing a social consciousness to cooking
Simone Ellin
Although the advantages of healthful eating and its impact on disease prevention and physical fitness are well known, food is beginning to take on an even greater significance for many members of Baltimore’s Jewish community. Nowadays, socially-conscious individuals have begun looking to foods for solutions to many of the world’s ills.
Rachel Kassman, a Hamden-area single, gets her fruits and vegetables through a community supported agriculture project (CSA), affiliated with One Straw Farm in White Hall, Md. As Kassman explains, the decision to obtain her produce through a CSA was based on a range of concerns.
“Essentially,” she says, “CSA means buying a share in a local farm. The food is locally grown so CSA supports local farming. All of the fruits and vegetables are grown without pesticides, so it’s healthier, and since the food doesn’t have to travel far to reach me, fewer resources are used. It’s less expensive than what you might buy at a store and it’s much fresher and tastier.” Kassman’s food is delivered to a neighborhood school where she picks it up each week.
Deborah Cardin and her husband, Jonathan Willis, of Mt. Washington are also shareholders in the One Straw CSA program. “I heard and read about it and it sounded like a great opportunity,” says Cardin.
She and Kassman agree that sometimes being part of a CSA calls on one’s creativity. “You never know what you’re going to get from week to week because you’re at the whim of whatever is being harvested during a given season. In the beginning, we got a lot of kale and chard,” Cardin recalls.
Since Kassman is a single person, and Cardin and Willis’ two young girls won’t eat all varieties of vegetables yet, each household shares with one or two other families to avoid wasted food and money. 
A full share (paid months in advance of delivery) was $475 last year. CSA consumers pay for their shares before the food is harvested. This arrangement helps the farmers by providing them funds when they need it to finance the coming year’s harvest.
Of course, not everyone can live on veggies alone. CSAs are part of a larger movement known as sustainable agriculture. According to http://www.sustainabletable.com, “Sustainable agriculture involves food production methods that are healthy, do not harm the environment, respect workers, are humane to animals, provide fair wages to farmers and support farming communities.”
The movement refers to production of meats as well as produce. Meat-eaters who choose to buy organic meats may find them at local farmers’ markets or chain stores like Whole Foods. But for those who want organic meat that is also kosher, until recently there have been few options. Devorah Kimelman-Block of Silver Spring, Md., was deeply disturbed that Jews wishing to maintain the rules of kashrut, but believing in sustainable agriculture, were forced either to become vegetarian, or to eat meat from animals raised and processed by means that they believed were unethical.
In 2007, Kimelman-Block’s concerns led her to create Kol Foods. The company began when Kimelman-Block partnered with her own synagogue, D.C.’s Tfiret Israel, a local shochet (ritual slaughterer), and a local farmer to produce grass-fed (rather than grain-fed) organic, kosher meats.
The business grew rapidly, and Kimelman-Block now serves Philadelphia, New Jersey, Cleveland and Baltimore. Kimelman-Block is especially interested in the Baltimore market because she says that the only two USDA independent slaughterhouses that prepare kosher meats are located here. In addition, all of Kimelman-Block’s meats are raised on farms no more that one-and-one-half-hours from Baltimore.
Recently, Chizuk Amuno’s Rabbi Deborah Wechsler became Kol’s liaison to the Baltimore area’s kosher community and Chizuk Amuno congregant Ali Kaufman Yares coordinated Kol’s first order and shipment of meat to Baltimore. Kimelman-Block hopes to continue delivering to Baltimore on a monthly basis.
Like Cardin and Kassman, Kimelman-Block is also a CSA enthusiast. Her family’s produce and dairy products come from Good Fortune Farm in Brandywine, Md. and Kimelman-Block’s children, ages 9, 6 and 4, sometimes visit the farm, helping to collect eggs, and picking potatoes and berries. She likes the fact that her children understand where their food comes from and know the farmer who grows it.
Cardin, meanwhile, also appreciates what she calls the “farm-to-table connection” and the Cardin-Willis’ have their milk delivered from a local dairy called South Mountain Creamery.
“Some of us may remember having our milk delivered to our front doors when we were children. South Mountain operates similarly,” says Cardin. “We leave a cooler on our front porch and glass bottles of milk are placed in the cooler by the milkman (or woman). When the milk bottles are empty, the milk person picks them up and they are re-used.”
South Mountain also delivers other dairy products. Last spring, says Cardin, the family visited South Mountain Creamery for a farm festival.
“We told the girls (Madeline, 9, and Julia, 5) that we were going to meet our cow. Julia insisted that our cow was black-and-white, so we spent the whole afternoon searching for a black-and-white cow. I liked the fact that the girls felt a personal connection to the cow who provides their milk and the farm where the cow lives,” says Cardin.
Farm Tour
Interested in visiting a sustainable farm? On Sunday, Nov. 16, the public is invited to stop by Groffìs Content Farm in Rocky Ridge, Md. to learn where non-industrial farmed meat comes from.
Throughout the day, individuals can tour the farm, which breeds free-range, certified organic, kosher lamb, beef and poultry; speak to a farmer who will talk about sustainable family farming; and meet a shochet (ritual slaughterer) to learn about processing poultry in a kosher, non-industrial way.
Kol Foods, the eco-kosher Silver Spring-based company, gets its kosher meats from Groffìs Farm.
The farm, located north of Frederick, Md., will be open for visits from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. If interested, RSVP to .
-Rochelle Eisenberg
Don’t Forget Dessert!
After enjoying some local, grass-fed, organic, kosher meat and some local, pesticide-free fruits and vegetables, why not top it off with some delicious fair trade Ghanian-grown chocolate? Divine Chocolate Inc. is a new D.C.-based company that benefits cocoa farmers in Ghana and supports socially responsible enterprises. This year, it will be offering its first fair trade and Kosher-certified Chanukah gelt made with milk chocolate.
The company’s income helps cocoa farmers invest in projects such as building schools, sinking wells for clean drinking water, providing medical treatment to farmers in remote areas and helping to empower women in the region.
In addition to the Chanukah gelt, all Divine Chocolate bars are certified kosher.