'I find it
encouraging
that there is a
whole new
generation in
farming.'

Seasonal Chefs

Soaking up Inspiration from Farmers

December 1996 -- One of cookbook author Kitty Morse's favorite buys at her favorite market, on Saturday morning in Vista, is mussels grown in a shallow lagoon near Carlsbad. "They're the best mussels. And I know they're safe," she says.

But it is more than the quality of the shellfish that she finds compelling. It is the entrepreneurial spirit of the shellfish farmers. In fact, as much as the food it is the stories of the people who produced it that attract her to farmers markets.

Morse is quite the entrepreneur, herself. She was born in Casablanca, Morocco, lived in France and went to college in Wisconsin. There, she met her future husband, Owen, and helped put him through dental school by putting on casbahs. She staged the Moroccan feasts in a North African-style tent that Owen built for her, booking entertainers and preparing a full-course Moroccan feast for the guests. She and Owen later moved with their casbah tent to California, where she took up writing cookbooks. One of her personal favorites, The California Farm Cookbook (Pelican, 1994), is all about this state's entrepreneurial small farmers and their favorite recipes.

Morse's excursions to farmers markets recently found her looking for vegetables that are popular in North Africa. That's because she was in the final stages of testing recipes for her new book, The Vegetarian Table: North Africa (Chronicle Books, 1996).

There's plenty to choose from that fits the bill. North African cuisine makes use of a lot of tomatoes, okra, citrus fruits and squash, which are abundant in farmers markets this season. In the winter, Moroccans have "artichokes with everything." And don't forget olives, which "are practically a part of every meal." And fennel, which Moroccans use more heavily than Americans.

One of her recent finds that worked well for one of her North African recipes was "roly-poly zucchini," also called roundie squash, a small, round zucchini-type summer squash that is perfect for stuffing.

How does Morse believe the entrepreneurs she chronicled in her farm cookbook are faring these days? In raw numbers, they are in a decline in California, Morse says. But her "gut feeling" is that a number of those who are left in farming are "making it."

The evidence for that is apparent in farmers markets, she says. "Maybe there are fewer farmers. But what I find encouraging is that there is a whole new generation in farming. They are mid to late baby boomers. They are really committed to farming. They have found a niche They've made a living out of it

"It thrills me that those kinds of people are going back with a different optic than they're parents. And they're making it," Morse exclaims.