People take their food for granted, especially because of how easy it is for us to access
it.
They forget how much work goes into finding it, how much work goes into taking care of
it and tending to it, and how much time it takes for the plant itself to get the nutrients
it needs to grow up and be ready for you to eat it.
In the culinary lab we have chefs that come from all different restaurants around Boston,
and they are our main instructors.
Is everyone familiar with black sea bass?
No?
We catch these on Martha’s Vineyard.
We got them in whole, because I thought it’d be fun to filet them.
Every chef has a different perspective.
Chris brought in his mentality as a farmer and this sense of how to utilize every ingredient
that you have.
I have a very close, intimate relationship with ingredients — growing them, harvesting
them, foraging for them, hunting for them.
Has anybody had watercress for dessert?
I like this a lot.
It’s got a really cool color.
We cooked ingredients that were available from his farm and from the waters that are
a mile away from his farm.
We were really excited to have our opportunity to actually visit Martha’s Vineyard and
go through a day in the life of Chris Fischer.
This is Beetlebung Farm, purchased in 1961 by my grandfather.
He farmed all over Chilmark.
So the first thing we have to do today is feed the pigs and the rabbits.
Sound good?
I’ve been raising rabbits for, I don’t know, maybe five years now?
They’re one of the only meats that you can raise that you can feed a purely vegetarian
diet.
We get to, essentially, mow our grass, and we get to feed our rabbits at the same time.
Rabbit manure is one of the only manures that can go directly onto soil.
It’s like pelletized fertilizer.
It looks like mulch.
Yeah, and it is mulch.
There’s bacteria in here that’s good for the soil.
This retains a lot of moisture, and we rotate them around to fertilize our fields.
I really like that nothing was wasted.
You pick the weeds because you don’t need them, and you give them to the rabbits because
they do.
Then you use what comes out of that, which is fertilizer.
Eventually, he tills it into the ground, and it makes whatever grows there even more delicious
because there are more nutrients there.
It’s beautiful.
So this is eelgrass that comes off the bottom of the pond.
The idea behind this is that it’s going to help break down the pigs’ manure faster.
We’re gonna dump most of this in there.
Seaweed has almost an unquantifiable amount of minerals in it.
The ocean is kind of like a big composting system.
Animals live in there and they die and they decompose, and the minerals from that process
are absorbed into the seaweed.
It’s like the perfect multivitamin for your soil.
For our meal, we had to go around the island and pick up a few more ingredients.
Usually, in Boston, I don’t know where all my food’s coming from.
Everything was within this 15-minute drive.
We’re at Larsen’s Fish Market.
They’re sort of the royalty when it comes to fish markets.
Obviously the proximity to the harbor makes for really amazing product, but also, they
keep the cleanest market I’ve ever seen.
It was cleaner before we came in here and shucked clams on the floor.
We’re going to Chris’ secret foraging spot.
This place was shown to me by a friend a long time ago.
I’ve never shown anybody it before.
I trust you guys won’t be able to find it again.
This watercress is really, really, really good for you.
Obviously there are a lot of nutrients in a stream like this.
When there’s something that’s really beautiful when you’re taking it from wherever it’s
growing, that’s when you know that you don’t have to do much to it.
It’s hard for a chef to do that sometimes, to step back and let the food speak for itself.
As soon as we started cooking, you could tell that Chris was a chef.
He was very professional even in this very casual setting, and seeing the way Chris worked
opened my eyes to possibilities.
You don’t need all these sauces.
You just need good, fresh ingredients.
Wow, stinging nettles.
I’m gonna have to taste that, even though it’s mixed with sausage.
I don’t care.
It was amazing to cook with everything from the island itself.
It all fell into place in this beautiful meal.
So we have guinea hen with wild arugula, chopped fennel, chopped mint, and chives, stinging
nettles with Beetlebung Farm pork and chilies, grilled squid with garlic chives, and a watercress,
mint, and feta salad.
Dig in.
This is definitely an experience that chefs should have — being sustainable and getting
back to the real and true basics of food.
It’s a farmers life and it’s a hard-working life, and that’s something very special
that you can’t really find in the city.