There is a growing food crisis within the kosher community, just as there is in mainstream American society. Many kosher-observant Jews, starting with children, are eating low-quality food, much of it either heavily processed and packaged or, if fruits and vegetables, trucked in from thousands of miles away. This food is not clean, healthy or good for the environment, the animals or the humans eating it! Additionally, this demographic often suffers from nutritional deficiencies like vitamin D imbalance due to lifestyle.

But there is a better way. I started Consciously Kosher in part to educate families in my community around establishing better food consumption habits. With the ongoing pandemic, there is now an opportunity to shift those habits.

Ariane Daguin: CEO of D’Artagnan and 8th-Generation French Chef

I usually interview Jewish-owned businesses or companies that sell kosher products with a conscious angle. This week's food expert, though, is a departure from that model – and a real treat: Ariane Daguin is the founder, owner and CEO of D’Artagnan, the renowned gourmet food purveyor. Famous for providing humanely-raised meats, from game and foie gras to organic chicken and prepared charcuterie, she is also an 8th-generation chef from Gascony in Southern France.

A Pioneer of the Farm-to-Table Movement

Most apropos to this publication, Ms. Daguin is considered one of the pioneers of the farm-to-table movement. This movement emphasizes:

• Humane and sustainable farm practices

• Not wasting any part of the animal

• Produce that is fresh, immediate and locally grown

• Direct relationships between farmers and restaurants or sellers

As a world-renowned food expert, Ms. Daguin offers a wealth of advice on the food ecosystem, why it’s better to eat sustainably-grown animals and plants, the importance of eating meals together as a family – and what the future of post-pandemic cooking may look like. Additionally, with the pandemic pushing people to cook and eat at home in larger numbers than they have in decades, it is important to know what options are available.

Why are the Small Farmers so Important?

Consciously Kosher (CK): The story of the American food industry is one of mass production and ever-increasing efficiency. Yet, you've built a career out of growing a network of small farmers and humane slaughterhouses. Why are the small farmers so important, when it is so much easier to purchase from the larger operations?

Ariane Daguin (AD): We've gone overboard big-time. Factory farming doesn't treat animals as living. They treat the animals as "gadgets". This [method of farming] brings a whole slew of problems: First, the inhumanity  of that job. Second, the pollution that comes with it, [including] vast amounts of rejects and not knowing what to do with it. And most importantly, the taste. When you rush and continuously try to make something cheaper, cheaper, cheaper, instead of better, better, better – well, you've succeeded. You lose things along the way. And there is a point where it is not worth it anymore.

I understand people who eat plant-based burgers, because if the alternative is between that and factory-farmed beef – then why not eat plant-based? However, it brings the same problems, as far as pollution and mono-regeneration of the soil. At least you don't deal [with the] factory farm.

What are the Advantages of Small Farmers?

AD: The small farmers [have several advantages]: They are independent. This is very important because they are not huge conglomerates with many employees who don't have any motivation in front of the animals. And they do respect the animals. When you respect [the natural ecosystem], then you take care of it. That's why it's so important to support [the small farmer] any which way you can. COVID has made this difficult because the demand got much bigger, whether it's on the Internet or in the store. But animals that are a bit more exotic or that are less familiar and people don't know how to cook them at home, the farmers who have been raising those are suffering a lot and we need to look at that.

The Importance of Sustainably-Raised Meat

CK: Why is it so important to eat meat and fowl that have been raised naturally and sustainably? For the naysayers, are they also tastier and more nutritious than, say, a factory-farm-raised chicken?

AD: It's a variety of food that makes the muscles and the meat, in general, taste good. It is good for the animal to be able to go outside, to pasture on different land, on different crops, on different pieces of grasses. For the poultry, [it's feasting on] little bits of insect, picking on different things and basically varied food, which is also very conveniently aligned with biodiversity.

You cannot make good dishes if you don't have  good wholesome ingredients. And the only way, in the meat business, to get good ingredients, is to make sure that the animals were happy, stress-free and medication-free, that they were raised naturally.

Why Is Sustainably-Grown Meat Tastier?

CK: You source the best animal protein because it makes a difference and matters in the food, in the end result. It's not greenwashing. What is it about the meat that makes it tastier and better quality?

AD: Animal are affected by both stress and medication. On the [topic of] stress, there is a theory that adrenalin levels go high when an animal gets stressed, which translates into some acidic fluid going into the muscle. On the medication, it is simply that those substances are foreign to an animal – and they will affect the taste. It might be true, it might not be true. But certainly, it is in the process and it cannot hurt to take it out. And even though the food lobbies keep telling us there is no trace of antibiotics, once you take it out of the feed of the animal during the last two weeks of its life, I still believe that we will one day be able to detect these foreign elements in the meat. I also don't want it for me and I don't want it for my family. I cherish antibiotics when I need them and I want them to be effective.

How Does Food Variety Affect Us?

CK: When you sit at home all day, your muscles atrophy, you don't feel well and you develop anxiety. How does the variety of food that we eat affect us?

AD: If you do eat a diet of varied food, you're going to feel better. Everything is good in moderation. When you eat all the time exactly the same food, you are bound to have deficiencies in something. And you can tell me anything you want, but to reach over-the-counter for pills and additional minerals and vitamins, that's not going to be it. It's not going to be assimilated by the body the same way as you assimilate things that are natural, that come in nature, ready to be assimilated by your body.

[Of] that, I've been always convinced, because I've been raised in that philosophy. It's been very difficult to convince the American consumer of that. We've always been a very niche business. However, professional chefs understand that, when you put, on a blind tasting, chicken that was raised free-range with a variety of food, and a factory-farmed chicken, then they taste the difference immediately. The second thing that is very encouraging is the wave of educational need, by the consumer, that has been going on for the last 35 years. This has been accelerated a lot during COVID, because, during COVID, people don't have so much choice for outside food anymore. You don't have that many restaurants that are open anymore, you have a limited amount of takeout possibilities and you are stuck at home. You don't go to work and you don't commute so much. So all of a sudden, there is this whole new generation of Millennials and other people interested in cooking. And the more you cook, the more you realize that it will be better if you start with better ingredients. That is very encouraging. If there is one thing positive about the virus, it would be that.

Why Shop at a Farmers Market?

CK: I'm a big proponent of farmers markets. I know that you are as well. How do you convince a novice to shop a farmers market instead of the produce aisle of a supermarket, especially during a pandemic?

AD: You have to know where your food comes from. The more you know the farmer, and the more you make a connection with the farmer, the more you know how they raise the animal or how they cultivate the fields. That's how you make the connections. You really appreciate it better if you know that your food was well raised. 

Is Eating at Home a Permanent Shift?

CK: The pandemic has forced many people to alter their food habits. This includes cooking at home more often, and more from scratch than before. Do you feel that this is a permanent shift – or do you think that people will slowly slip back into their old ways of comfort and convenience?

AD: I hope for the sake of myself and my company, D'Artagnan, that this is here to stay. There are signs that it is, of course. Restaurants will come back. Of course we need to go out. We are social animals. We can't live like hermits at home all the time. But I hope something will stay in that we will find pleasure, maybe not every day, but maybe once in a while, to bake our own bread, to cook our own food, and, very importantly, something that doesn't happen right now, to invite people and to share a meal together.

Now, there are reasons behind that, simply because we cannot socialize right now, we cannot invite a lot of people, and we cannot entertain. But we do have a family. And something that has been lost for at least three generations in America today is the tradition – and the importance of the tradition: to sit down, together, the family unit, once a day, and share a meal together, and share the conversation together, and share what happened to you [during your day].

Eating Meals Together as a Family

CK: When you go back to the 1950s, you see families sitting around the table together. Now, though, you have people sitting at the table and nobody's looking at anybody because they're all talking to their friends on their phones – even if they are in the same place. Can you provide an example to illustrate the importance of sitting down to a meal together, as a family?

AD: A meal is not just sustaining yourself and eating. A meal is sharing the cooking, sharing the chores of setting the table, or the pleasures, and sharing the conversation. And this has been lost.

This was my first bad surprise when I came from France to America as a student, and I was an au paire. And in the family, there was no meal. The kids were each in their rooms playing on some kind of a PlayStation® console, and the parents were going to go out, so they had to prepare. Therefore, they were not eating at the table. And the grandma was in front of the TV and not moving from there. There was no set time for the family to reunite.

This lost habit is not native only to America. In France and Europe, it is becoming more and more like that. This is a very big loss for the civilization. We should watch that and encourage with everything in our might to go back to those basics. It doesn't have to be two [meals] a day. But it is very important for the mental health of the kids, and for the morals that have to be passed on. It is simply a must for living together. If somebody in the family, with help from another member, actually put together that dish or meal with love, there is instantly something to talk about that everybody can agree on, right there. In my part of France, this is something that is almost religious, where we actually talk about the meal, we talk about the next meal, we talk about the beautiful meals that we had in the past that resemble that almost. We talk about food all the time! It's a good way to enter the conversation. It's so important!

An important way to take off from the conversation about the phone is to have something in the middle of the table worth talking about.

CK: You're gushing with excitement. We experience this with our Friday night Shabbat meals. We have that one 25-hour period every week to do what you just mentioned, whether we want to or not. It's so refreshing to talk to our families, to talk about what we are grateful for, about the food. I love food. But you must have a reason to congregate around something to create that importance. And you must guard it once you attain it. Otherwise it doesn't happen on its own.

AD: The farther you look, it's all related to food. But this is not particular to my family. In Gascony, everybody was – and still is today – in the food business, because it is a very rural area and we love good food. When you visit Gascony and you knock on somebody's door, and the door opens, the first thing you hear is not "Bonjour!" (hello). The first thing you hear in Gascony is "Have you eaten?"

Cured Meats: The Original “Fast Food”

CK: What seems exotic to Western or American or modern palates was really food that was fast and practical, and in some ways also very sustainable. You would pickle, ferment, can or cure foods that you could not get 6 months out of the year because they were out of season, them. For instance, you might can your excess tomatoes so they can be eaten 6 months later. So I feel this is a very sustainable way of living.

AD: For centuries, we've had specific recipes that were made to preserve meat, whether in charcuterie, cold curing meat or confit, which is done by preserving the meat with spices and cooking it in its own fats. These techniques originate from the Jewish people, when they were slaves in Egypt. It was in Egypt that Jewish farmers discovered foie gras [a delicacy made of fattened duck or goose livers] and passed it forward, when they migrated [during the Exodus]. It was in their travels that they communicated those recipes of foie gras and also of confit. And so in Gascony, because it's a temperate climate, a bit humid, there is a wonderful natural habitat for water fowl that naturally took hold and that's how the traditions started. Because it is a French word, something like confit we can call an exotic, difficult French technique. But no! Confit and foie gras are "fast food." The [dish] that you made in batches, once a year, in the winter, because there was no electricity at the time, you kept in the pantry in small portions in little jars, so there was no air coming in. And when you had a guest, all you had to do is take it out and warm it up.

It is fast food – except it's excellent fast food! So that's how we've been enriching ourselves for centuries.

Why Not Buy Cheap Ingredients?

CK: So why not just buy cheap ingredients?

AD: This is a question of priorities. Is it going to be a little bit more expensive? Probably, if you don't live in the countryside. But it will be a lot better for you, for the earth, for your body. It's a question of priorities. That's why it's so important not to forbid anything, like "don't eat this, don't eat that" – but rather to encourage people and make them understand that.

Preparing for Winter Foods

CK: The winter months are soup months. This includes cabbage and also lots of organic root vegetables. What is the best way to prepare them?

I've been using only organic vegetables. When you use organic vegetables like carrots, leeks, turnips and parsnips, you don't need to peel them. You just wash them carefully and then cut them into squares. But you don't peel them. I'm not saying to do that with potatoes when the peel is a little unpleasant to eat. You can do that, and it gives a really good taste. But also, there is a lot of nutrition in the skin that there isn't inside the vegetable. When you buy, yes, it will be a bit more expensive. But it goes a longer way. You can do more with it and have less waste.

CK: What are you favorite types of dishes?

AD: A stew. I love the idea of that one convivial dish, the one-dish meal that you put on the table and that people share like that.

Use the Whole Vegetable Without Any Waste

CK: The waste issue is always on my mind. Right now it is squash season. We've been buying squashes like red kuri, butternut and kabocha. My wife discovered, when she made squash soup, that we could use the peel as well. The flavor is so rich and deep and nutty when you use the outside of the vegetable!

AD: [With foods in their natural state,] if it tastes good, that means that there are nutrients in there that are good for you. This is the same as [it is] with animals. They know where to go to eat the right food for themselves. It must be in our DNA somewhere that we know what is good for us, simply because it's good tasting for us. We are losing that, little by little, with all those processed foods, with all those chemically-induced "taste adventures." We have to go back to that, without making it a punishment, just like you said with regard to cooking your squash, making sure it's delicious and giving it to your kids and seeing what happens.

Becoming a Discerning, Educated Consumer

CK: These days, more people than ever before have food allergies and sensitivities. Many people also follow alternative diets like vegan or vegetarian. On the other side, restaurants are used to being asked what's in their food or where their food is from. However, they often have no idea how to answer these questions. But you have to be a discerning, educated consumer.

AD: A good chef's number one priority is the taste on the plate. The only way is to get good, wholesome ingredients. So a good chef knows and is very conscious of where the food is from.

CK: Thank you, I really appreciate you taking your time to speak to me this morning.

AD: My pleasure!