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May 19, 2007

Olallieberry! What Does Organic Actually Mean?

Santa Cruz is famous for its olallieberries. Olallieberries are used in pies, in syrups, in preserves. We even had olallieberries in our wedding cake from a local Santa Cruz bakery.

Inevitably, people ask: What is an olallieberry? Or maybe they ask: What is an ollalieberry, olallaberry, olalliberry, ollalaberry or an ollaliberry? No one can agree on the spelling.

Our answer has always been: A cross between a blackberry and a raspberry.

The truth, you see, is not that simple, but then it never is. At least not on this blog.

Olallieberries are hybrids of other hybrids. Some were created on purpose to make super berry bushes and others happened accidentally, resulting in a very yummy berry.

A Dewberry is a blackberry-like berry, and let's not go there, ok?

I wondered, then what the heck is a Boysenberry? Supposedly its some mix amongst blackberry, red raspberry and Loganberry.

Why am I telling you this? Well. It all started last week when I was trying to figure out how to grow our own olallieberries. I also wanted to know if they could be grown in the Northeast, where my parents live.

When I told my husband about the interesting hybridization history of the olallieberries and boysenberries, he had a rather amusing reaction. First, he got this really hurt look on his face, and said something to the effect of "but my mother said we had wild boysenberries when I was little".

I told him I didn't see why he couldn't have had wild boysenberries when he was younger and he responded with "but they couldn't have been organic". I didn't see how you couldn't have a "wild" hybrid, but I suppose I was thinking hybrid "gone to seed" or left to fend for itself. I also didn't see how berries growing on their own in the forest wouldn't be organic.

And that's how our strange discussion of organic came about.

Just what does organic mean?

My understanding is that organic has nothing to do with what species you're growing (plant or animal) but the dictates the process by which it is grown. The process has to be free of artificial pesticides and additives, hormones and such. The post-harvest processing also may have regulatory requirements, like not adding preservatives.

Organic produce can be hybrids like the olallieberry or boysenberry. Organic does not mean native varieties of plants and animals, nor does it mean that the species grown wasn't modified some way or another. The USDA hasn't really taken a stand on the definition of the word "organic" yet, but so far, cloned meat, for example, could be called organic if it was raised with organic feed and not given hormones, etc.

Organic crossbreeds appear to be very common, ranging from the obvious cattle and chicken species that have been bred for production markets (naturally hardy, disease resistant, larger, etc) and range to more exotics like beefalo (Cows X American Buffalo/Bison). Plant varietials have the same sort of thing going: various berries, fruits especially, considering the truly wild versions of these plants don't fruit nearly as plentifully as the ones people have "improved" for centuries. In California, organic tangelo (mandarin-orange X grapefruit) crops are plentiful despite being natives of Asia. Organic honey comes from bees that aren't native to North America. Basically, the short answer is, you could cross a chicken with a boysenberry, and call the result organic, provided it was fed and cared for properly.

I certainly support organic farming (especially strawberries cause they taste way better). What's this all mean to me?

(1) "Organic" needs a clear definition to farmers and consumers
(2) "Organic" isn't descriptive enough on its own to be "healthy"
(3) "Organic" doesn't really cover other good farming practices (sustainability, cage-free)
(4) "Organic" is rather short-sighted. It *appears* to me that its a grey area when a parent isn't organic but the offspring is raised that way... So can you feed a mommy chicken sewage waste provided you take her chicks away as eggs and raise them organically?
(5) "Organic" alone isn't as beneficial as buying local organic produce (hopefully more natives)

And with that, I'm off to the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Cooking For Solutions, a dining and wine event composed entirely of edibles produced in ways that preserve the soil, water and ocean wildlife.

Posted by sorsha at May 19, 2007 8:37 AM