By Faith Bahadurian Special Writer
Do you remember what you were doing in 1970? I was living in Cambridge, Mass., and working at Boston After Dark newspaper (now the Boston Phoenix). While it wasn’t as far out as the scene in San Francisco, we had plenty of wonderful music and other exciting happenings to keep us feeling groovy.
The dawning Age of Aquarius also included new ways of thinking about food and the earth it came from. We avidly read books like “Finding and Buying Your Place in the Country” and “The Whole Earth Catalog,” and cooked from “Diet for a Small Planet” and “The Moosewood Cookbook.” In Boston, we virtuously shopped at Erewhon for macrobiotic and natural foods.
In Princeton, as the first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970, “ … community members discussed the need for a store that offered environmentally-friendly products and provided space for the exchange of information about environmental issues,” according to Whole Earth Center marketing director Fran McManus. “Seed money was donated by local individuals, barrels were purchased and filled with foods like granola, rice, oats, and beans, a hand-painted sign was made, and the Whole Earth Center opened in a tiny Nassau Street storefront … As a retail business, their structure is unique. They are a not- for-profit, privately owned corporation that is operated by a Board of Trustees.”
The oldest natural food store in our area (they opened in October 1970), WEC, as we affectionately call them, has survived and flourished by staying true to its mission and by expanding carefully. They’re celebrating their 40th anniversary this week with a series of events called “WECstock.” The three-day event runs April 22, 23, and 24, and includes music, samplings by local farmers and producers, and special sales on the five bulk items that were offered for sale on opening day: sunflower seeds, brown rice, lentils, rolled oats, and granola.
WEC chef Alex Levine sent me some recipes and information about how prepared foods have evolved at the store. He made special mention of the same thing I’d noticed in reviewing my older cookbooks — in an effort to make up for omitting meat from the diet, many of the dishes in the early days were made with copious amounts of eggs and cheese, and thus were very high fat. Now we know better, and use more grains and legumes as stand- ins for meat protein, as in the Perfect Protein Salad below, based on the principal of Protein Complementarity, i.e., combining vegetable foods (such as a grain and a legume) to achieve a balanced, more complete, protein.
“Our institutional memory does not go all the way back to the founding of the store,” he writes, “but we do reach to the late 1970s, when Anna Thomas’s ‘Vegetarian Epicure’ (1972) and Molly Katzen’s ‘The Moosewood Cookbook’ (1978) threatened to outsell ‘The Joy of Cooking.’ In those days, American vegetarian cooking turned to high-fat proteins to replace meat … That era also introduced the country to whole grains (brown rice, wheatberries, etc), and, of course, to tofu. We adapted one of Molly Katzen’s recipes to create a vegan salad that to this day has a sizeable local fan club. The original recipe uses mayonnaise and cottage cheese, we use ‘Nayonnaise’ and tofu.’”
Alex also mentioned the store’s signature “Whole Earth Salad,” which goes back almost 30 years and is their best seller. I’m a fan myself. They don’t give out that recipe, but it is so complicated to make that when he does try to describe the process, most people say, “Never mind, I’ll just buy it!” Another good reason to support our locally owned natural foods store.
Happy Birthday, WEC!
PERFECT PROTEIN SAL AD
12 Servings.
Salad:
1½ cups dry soybeans, soaked overnight, rinsed, cooked until tender, drained and cooled
1½ cups dry red wheat berries, soaked overnight, cooked until tender, drained and cooled
6 scallions, finely chopped
½ red onion, finely chopped
2 medium carrots, finely chopped
2 small cucumbers, seeded & finely chopped
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
½ red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 cup minced flat-leaf parsley
¼ cup minced fresh dill (or 1 tablespoon dry)
Dressing:
½ cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
½ teaspoon dry mustard
1 tablespoon soy sauce
½ lb. firm tofu
1 cup vegan “mayonnaise”
Combine all “Salad” ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Combine “Dressing” ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth. Combine salad and dressing and dig in.
The Whole Earth Center is at 360 Nassau St., Princeton, 609-924-7377, www.wholeearthcenter.com.
Read Faith Bahadurian’s blog at www.packetinsider.com/ blog/njspice (also www.twitter.com/njspice).
Today and Saturday
at Whole Earth Center
Friday:
Local Supplier Spotlight: 1. Beechtree Farm, noon to 3 p.m. Charlie and Lucia Huebner will be sampling grass-fed beef from their Hopewell farm. 2.TwinHens Pot Pies, 4 to 6 p.m. Kathy and Linda from TwinHens will be sampling their delicious pot pies
Music: 1. Mountain View. Noon to 2 p.m. Bluegrass and Old Time Country. 2 . Dance Improv. 5 to 6 p.m. With their collection of many congas, djembe, and assorted percussion from around the globe plus flute, piano and vocals, the Dance Improv Band will offer up their own style of live, improvised music, punctuated with some live, improvised dance. 3. Whole Earth Staff Talent Show. 7 p.m.
Talk: Herbal Healing: Taking Your Health into your own hands with Dan Fiorella.
Cooking/Nutrition Demo with Lora Botwinick.
Saturday:
Local Supplier Spotlight: 1. Griggstown Farm, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Griggstown Quail Farm will be sampling their delicious pot pies. 2. bent spoon ice cream. Throughout the afternoon. Samples of some of bent spoon’s delicious flavors.
Music: 1. Bill Flemer Bluegrass, noon to 2 p.m. 2. The Sustainable Jazz Ensemble Plus 3, 2:30 to 3 p.m. the Sustainable Jazz Ensemble will take on a multi- generational dimension for the first half of its performance, as teenage congueros Ian Mertz and Nick Cosaboom and clarinetist Anna Hiltner join the group to perform some original latin repertoire. 3. Steve Hiltner and the Sustainable Jazz Ensemble. 3 to 5 p.m. Best known in town for his environmental work, Steve Hiltner is a longtime jazz saxophonist and composer who in his life-before-Princeton led an all-originals jazz/latin group, Steve teams up with Rider University’s pianist/composer Phil Orr and bassist Jerry D’Anna to present a program of all- original jazz composed using only local, organic ingredients, natural chord progressions and solar-powered imaginations.
Also happening will be children’s activities.
