Amelia Saltsman is rapturously in love with food. Not just tasting it, but observing it, learning about it, understanding what a food does, where it’s been, where it should be. The best place to develop a thorough understanding of food is from the people who grow it, to cultivate relationships with the local farmers themselves. Amelia has spent decades at her farmers’ market doing just that. The relationship between consumer and farmer that is able to transcend the “faceless” one to which we are accustomed is so important to Amelia that she has set out to encourage us acquaint ourselves with our farmers.

The Santa Monica Farmers’ Market Cookbook is, in Deborah Madison’s words, “really three volumes in one: gleanings from the culture of farming; a guide to produce, meats, and cheeses…and a great cookbook.” Not only does Amelia teach us about farmers and their lives and labors, but about the benefits of eating locally and “seasonably.” The book supports both sides of the stand, the farmers she knows and loves as well the timid cook.

“I really wanted to write the book so that it was clear and straight and inviting, to appeal to both the novice and the sophisticated market shopper. There has been a great response from both. My favorite thing is when someone says when I’m giving a demonstration: ‘How come I don’t cook? I could do that!’”

To teach us not to be afraid of different foods and spices, Amelia also inserts appropriate information from another passion, culinary history. “Culinary history is what a great editor, Judith Jones, calls ‘the “why?” of a dish.’ What is the context? When you look at the history of foods in Los Angeles, you look at who settled there, what the climate was, the fact that there was a lot of year-round growing capability: all of that influenced our cooking.” These are the stories Amelia tells in her book, the “rediscovery” of the same greens settlers were eating in their salads, the journey of the Japanese persimmon. “There are history books that talk all about great battles, but what was everyone else doing?”

And what are your farmers doing? Wonderful things, Amelia assures us. I sat down with her this weekend to talk about food, family, and the promises of farmers’ markets.

How did you become interested in culinary arts?

I wanted to cook ever since I was a small child. I didn’t realize it then, but as an adult I looked back and thought What eight-year-old notices the difference in butter from one country to another? And everybody has food memories, and that was probably my clue: I had very vivid food memories as a very young child. What’s interesting to me now is that when I was growing up we didn’t live near our extended family, and it turns out that both of my grandmothers were amazing cooks, and my mother didn’t cook, so I think somehow I was channeling my grandmothers. Exploring the connections, tastes, how something works as a recipe, the counterpoint of flavors, it was something I inherited. And of course, having a family, it’s something you want to share with them and cook for your friends.

Those food memories play a part in how you fell in love with farmers’ markets?

Absolutely—for me it’s all about relatedness. Farmers’ markets are all about families who do their farming and selling together; it’s about families shopping for their families; and certainly, in my neighborhood and in my farmers’ market (and I think this is true of most), the farmers’ market is, in a sense, a kind of community. I’ve been shopping at my market for over twenty-five years—that means an entire generation of chatting across the stands—“How are you doing?” “How are your kids?” “I have a new grandbaby!”—and that makes a very organic cycle.

You make it sound so easy, but many people are afraid of farmers’ markets—why do you think that is?

You’ve asked me two questions, really, and I’d like to take the easy part first: it really is easy. We really get in our own way, and in some ways rightfully so: we’re worried about a lot of things, about safety and our family’s well-being, and as a result we feel overwhelmed and confused. We’re not sure what to eat, and we want an easy answer, to be told what to do. Like anything in life, if we took a little bit of effort and educate ourselves, we could take responsibility for that. In that sense, shopping at the farmers’ market isn’t easy, but really when it comes down to cooking and assembling food that tastes delicious—if the tomatoes or zucchini are amazing, you don’t have to do much to it. If you buy a free-range chicken that is family-raised and –slaughtered and not frozen, all you have to do is throw some salt and oil on it and throw it in the oven, and dinner’s ready. A few years ago there was the flap about spinach, now there’s the flap about tomatoes, there is an anonymity in our food that means we don’t know where it’s grown or how it’s grown, and the grower doesn’t have to feel very responsible toward the consumer because they’re faceless. At a farmers’ market, you have a seller who’s feeding his or her family the very same foods you’re buying. And that farmer is looking you in the eye—when you buy from him, it makes for accountability. As far as safety goes, it is just that easy; also, I know what I’m going to buy. I know what’s in season is going to taste the best, it’s going to be the ripest, it’s going to be the freshest—that’s what I’m going to cook. It’s very simple.

As to why people are overwhelmed: now there’s a lot more choice and we’re shy—how’s a white zucchini different from a green zucchini?

It’s too much information. Over the years we’ve seen everyone become excited about the markets and all the variety, but not enough people have answered the question “How do you access that?” How do you become less timid and just ask “What do I do with this?” It’s a very different way of shopping than we’ve been raised. Supermarket shopping is a very solitary experience and you don’t expect to meet an expert who can give you the answers, whereas at the farmers’ market you’re speaking either directly to the farmer or to a trusted employee who knows the product and can give you a lot of advice. Writing this book, I really wanted to empower people. I didn’t want it to be intimidating at all, I wanted it to be freeing and doable.

How did you personally realize that timidity was causing people’s problem connecting to their farmers? How did this book come about?

Teaching and giving demonstrations at the farmers’ market—I was such a passionate believer in what the farmers were growing, and I figured that if someone didn’t help them and help the consumer know how to use the white zucchini or the ripe green tomato, how to access that variety, why would that farmer bother to grow it? They can’t sell it. The restaurants are certainly doing a great job of buying and disseminating information, but I think that grassroots approach of getting it into the home and understanding that you can do it and why it’s important is core. If it’s only about restaurants and chefs and culinary schools, it remains intimidating to the home cook, and it’s the home cook who’s trying to feed his or her family and trying to do what’s right. Many of my friends still don’t understand that it’s much more than an extra stock of fruits and vegetables, that it’s so much more than ambiance. Some people think it’s charming to shop at a farmers’ market, but it’s not about that. It’s about getting the best.

What is it like to be a woman in the culinary arts?

I’m not a trained chef. I’m a home cook. Some of the best chefs and best food writers and cookbook authors have not been to culinary school, have not had formal training. If you ask Marcella Hazan, or Marion Cunningham, who wrote The Fannie Farmer Baking Book,they would not ever describe themselves as chefs. They are cooks. This is part of that intimidation that has come with the Food Network and the Cooks’ Channel, that education can be both. The best way is to learn next to another cook. There is a science to know, there are things that one can always learn—it’s not to say that I don’t think people should go to culinary school, but I don’t want people to think that they can’t cook if they don’t know what a certain food is. It’s all about empowerment. If you’re a cook in a high-end restaurant, you’d better be trained, but most of us turn out fabulous meals for our friends and families without training. For me it’s a lifelong journey of constantly learning. I was just working on an assignment where I needed to develop an ice cream, and of course I was talking to cooks, talking to friends, playing in the kitchen, and experimenting: how does one learn anything? You just get in there and make a mess. Culinary arts is a lifelong journey

The Alpha Five:

1. Name one piece of work—novel, painting, movie, etc.—that really influenced/motivated you. Explain how/why.

You know, I can’t think of anything specific off the top of my head, but we’ve been talking here about family and food…and families, dishes, farmers all tell stories about a particular place and time in history. If you look a dish or an ingredient that grows in a particular place, you will open up a series of links back in time. Food and farming don’t exist in a vacuum. Food isn’t just about entertaining your friends at dinner, but about what it tells about us historically and socially and geographically. Any work that might have inspired me is not about food, necessarily, but about that connectedness.

Though after mulling it over, Amelia settled on the culinary works of Marion Cunningham and Marcella Hazan.  Not novels, but what most inspired me at a time when I most needed it was that these women were passionate home cooks who began their careers when they were well into their 40s. We hear so much about women of a certain age being passed by professionally; Marion and Marcella’s beautiful and award-winning work gave me the confidence to venture forth…when I was well into my 40s. There was one other book that came to mind—Charlotte’s Web! "Some pig," Charlotte spun, as if to say: greatness lies within us all.

2. What is the biggest challenge/obstacle you have encountered thus far?

The biggest challenge is always overcoming oneself, the worry about whether you can do it or not.

3. What is your biggest regret?

That I didn’t learn that earlier!

4. Describe what you envision your life to be like in 10 years—what has changed, what has stayed the same?

I will have learned more, gotten a greater sense of my ability to accomplish, I’ll build on that. Having done these projects and following this path has been a great joy, and I hope to be able to do more of it. I’ll continue to help small farmers wherever they are, and help consumers to be inspired to try new things. If I can continue to help people on this path of shopping more consciously and seasonably, I will be very happy. I’m hoping to have more grandchildren, as well!

5. What is the one piece of advice that you feel has been the most valuable to you and which you would like to pass on to others?

You have a great inner truth; don’t take it for granted. A lot of times we do; it’s our inner truth, we figure everybody knows it, but maybe you have something important to say. Believe in your truth. Trust that if you have a passion there will be somebody who wants to know about it. It’s not just about trends.

Amelia will be at the Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach and Sage on the Coast in Newport Beach on July 20. She will tour California before heading to the east coast in September. For more information on Amelia and the rest of her tour schedule, go to http://www.ameliasaltsman.com

Those of you in the Los Angeles area can watch Fresh from the Farmers’ Market Wednesdays at 7 on channel 16.