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Newsletter 44 - October 2012

Aloha!

This month we are celebrating breadfruit and banana at Breadfruit Festival Goes Bananas on Saturday, September 29 (more info) at Amy Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden in South Kona. The festival is about experiencing and connecting with the culture, history, and current practices associated with breadfruit and banana in Hawai'i. These traditional crops are culturally, environmentally, and nutritionally appropriate for Hawaiian homegardens and orchards.

For over two centuries breadfruit has been marginalized in Hawai'i--please join us in revitalizing it and other traditional crops in our locally grown diet and economy.

Also, in this issue of the newsletter, we are delighted to feature an excerpt from Angela K. Kepler and Frank Rust's recently published The World of Bananas in Hawai‘i: Then and Now, the definitive work about our island bananas. Angela and Frank will be at the Breadfuit Festival too, taking story and answering all of your banana questions.

Mahalo nui loa,

Craig Elevitch and Pedro Tama
for the Hawai'i Homegrown Food Network
http://hawaiihomegrown.net
visit us on Facebook

Breadfruit tree in South Kona.


Events

Friday, September 21, 2012, 06:00pm - 08:00pm, South Kohala
Taste of the Hawaiian Range

Saturday, September 22, 2012, 09:30am - 02:30pm, Puna
East Side Seed Exchange & Harvest Festival

Saturday, September 22, 2012, 10:00am, North Kona
Breadfruit Cooking Demonstration

Friday, September 28, 2012, 05:30pm - 07:00pm, North Kona
"Kaluulu"-- The Ancient Kona Breadfruit Belt

Saturday, September 29, 2012, 09:00am - 03:00pm, South Kona
Breadfruit Festival goes bananas

Sunday, September 30, 2012, 02:00pm, Hilo
Edible Landscaping Beautification Day

Thursday, October 04, 2012, 09:00am, North Kona
West Hawai'i Master Gardener Monthly Meeting

Saturday, October 06, 2012, 09:00am - 04:00pm, North Kohala
Kohala Country Fair 2012

Saturday, October 06, 2012, 10:00am, South Kohala
Introduction to Composting and Worm Bins

Saturday, Oct 13, To Sunday, Dec 09, 2012, Puna
Permaculture Design Course

Monday, October 15, 2012, 07:00pm - 09:00pm, North Kona
Hawai'i Tropical Fruit Growers Meeting

Sunday, October 28, 2012, 02:00pm, Hilo
Edible Landscaping Beautification Day

Friday, November 02, 2012, 03:00pm - 05:00pm, South Kona
10th Annual Westside Seed Exchange

Saturday, Nov 03 to Sunday, Nov 04, 2012, 08:30am-04:30pm, South Kona
2-Day Intensive Seed Basics & Production Workshop

View events calendar


Reports

IceCream-apple-Cuban-Kepler-Rust

In our modern era of endless conveniences and luxuries, we take bananas for granted, but until about 1900, few Westerners knew of their existence and even fewer had eaten them. In fact, bananas were the first tropical fruit to be mass produced for North American and European markets. Imagine those first bananas exhibited at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, wrapped in foil and offered for ten cents apiece! On the opposite side of the world though, in Southeast Asia and New Guinea, villagers had been improving local banana landraces for millennia! Indeed, the seedless banana was one of the world’s first domesticated food plants, at least seven thousand years ago, in the New Guinea highlands.

Read more...



KeaauNaturalFoods-OutdoorposteronlanaiinfrontofstoreCElevitchDisplay window at Kea'au Natural Foods.Tucked into a corner of the Kea'au Shopping Center, right next to Ace Hardware, Kea'au Natural Foods is a small but very clean, bright and extremely well stocked and organized store. It has been in the present location since 1996 and seems to have constant traffic passing through its doors.

The original store was founded in 1983 by Alex Beamer in a small shopping center that used to sit across the street from the present site, where the McDonalds is now located. Present owner, Wes Fujii was working as manager in the original store and bought it about 6 years ago. Wes is a full time hands-on store owner, and his wife Claudine, who recently retired as branch manager of the Hilo Library, helps with the paperwork from home. He tells me he considers himself the "gatekeeper" of the store, using strict standards for personally approving everything that is sold. He knows his customers trust him to sell them only products he feels are safe and that he would feel happy about giving his own children. The two most important guidelines for choosing products to sell have to be quality and safety.

Read more...



Roy Honda of South Kona.Roy Honda of South Kona.Roy Honda, Farmer
Roy Y. Honda Farm, Captain Cook, South Kona

Roy Honda started farming in 1997, specializing in oriental varieties of tomato and cucumber. He is best known for a tomato variety he grows that is a favorite in Japan. Originally he grew this variety to satisfy consumer demand in the Hawai‘i market, and now it has become his signature crop. Other crops include bitter melon, lettuce, squash, papaya, beans, and myoga (edible ginger flower).

Honda sells his produce to wholesalers, grocery stores, health food stores, restaurants, and at a local farmers market. At the farmers market he can sell at retail, whereas selling to wholesaler venues provides a smaller return. “There is a limit to how much an account buys, so by selling to many accounts I can sell more and get a higher total return,” says Honda in justifying his marketing plan. Even though the profit margin is much smaller for wholesalers as compared with direct retail sales at the farmers market or to restaurants, selling to wholesalers is necessary for times when production is high.

Read more...



Announcements

New breadfruit cookbook

Learn how to pick or buy fruit, cook, and prepare wonderful breadfruit dishes!

Breadfruit-cookbook-front-cover-300px2This new cookbook is essential for both novice and expert breadfruit cooks. It covers how to select fruit that will have the best taste and texture for the dish you are preparing. Then it covers the most important ways to cook breadfruit to eat plain (like potato) or use in various recipes. Finally, it presents 20 recipes selected from the last 25 years of breadfruit cookoffs and cooking contests in Hawai'i, allowing you to pick a perfect dish for any occassion.

Order the book now from Amazon.com or buy it at Breadfruit Festival Goes Bananas on September 29, 2012.

Read more...

Locally grown food has just gotten more affordable and accessible on Hawai'i Island with eight farmers markets now accepting EBT.

EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) it is what SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called food stamps) recipients use to buy food.

In addition to the Hilo Farmers Market and S.P.A.C.E. Farmers Market in Puna, the following markets are now accepting EBT: Maku'u Farmers Market in Puna, Hilo Coffee Mill Farmers Market in Mountain View, Kino'ole Farmers Market in Hilo, Volcano Farmers Market in Volcano and Keauhou Farmers Market in Kona. The Hawi Farmers Market in North Kohala will begin to accept EBT in October.

All of the markets have a central location where they swipe the EBT cards. Then markets use either a food bucks system or a receipt system that the customer redeems with the vendors. The restrictions on what you can and can't purchase with EBT are the same as at the food store—you can buy food items and seeds and plants that produce food, you can't buy hot foods, food that will be eaten at the market or any non-food items.

Other announcements


Farmers' Markets and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

Visit our comprehensive directory of Hawai'i Island farmers' markets and Community Supported Agricuture.

Web Resources

This month's web site listings

Other web resources

Supporting Organizations


Sponsors

Hawai'i People's Fund and the Hawai'i Community Foundation

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Founding sponsors

Hawai'i County Resource Center, a program of the County of Hawai'i Department of Research and Development. Hawaii Agricultural Development Program in partnership with the Big Island RC&D Council.

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Agroforestry Net

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This newsletter is published by:

Hawai'i Homegrown Food Network
PO Box 5
Holualoa, Hawaii  96725  USA
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Web: http://hawaiihomegrown.net

 

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