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The Griggstown Quail Farm George Rude is a tall, burly man—a rough-and-tumble Vietnam veteran who prizes his gun collection, his trophy heads, and a plain, commonsense manner. Regular visitors to his farm still chuckle about the prim visitor from the city who paused during a tour to complain that a fly had just wafted across her line of sight. In response, George barked, “Well, ma’am, this is a farm. What do you expect flies to do?” At first glance you wouldn’t peg him as a champion of the Slow Food movement or guess that he had won the admiration of James Beard, one of America ’s greatest food critics. Yet under George’s leadership, Griggstown Quail Farm and Market supplies tens of thousands of birds every year to fine restaurants, specialty vendors, and markets throughout the tri-state area. During the past three decades, George has become a giant in the New Jersey Slow Food community, and his farm has become a go-to destination for supporters of healthy, locally grown food that’s produced humanely and naturally. George’s farm has long been popular among restaurant owners, chefs, and supporters of local food. But he wanted to reach out to the general public as well. So in 2004, as a way to celebrate Griggstown Farm’s “field to market” theme, he began hosting the All Bird Barbecue, with sponsorship support from Slow Food Central New Jersey. Staffs from Griggstown and Tre Piani prepared food for the extensive buffet, while local wineries supplied the libations. For three years in a row we were blessed with perfect picnic days, and hundreds of people paid admission to celebrate George’s food and explore his terrain. They took haywagon tours, mingled, and enjoyed live music. They feasted on free-range chicken (peach-glazed or fried), smoked quail, rotisserie poussin, duck sausages, Jersey tomatoes, sweet corn, salads, and freshly made pies. Held in the slanting harvest light of autumn, these were magical events. We were elbow-to-plate in a crowd of guests, surrounded by tables of delicious food. The air was thick with aromas, music, and laughter. We believed this new Slow Food tradition might last for years to come. 5  46  Then an ugly incident forced George to stop the party. One night in 2006, several weeks after the last All Bird Barbecue, animal-rights activists broke into the farm and tore down the fences and netting that enclose the vast pens where the free-range birds live. Their malicious actions resulted in thousands of dollars’ worth of damage. Later, George learned that the offenders had actually come to the barbecue posing as guests so they could take the tour and learn the lay of the land.They hadn’t just been dishonest and cowardly, but they had also breached the farm’s hospitality. I understand that these activists believed that they were acting on behalf of the birds and that it is inhumane to raise any animal for food. In truth, however, without George’s commitment to them, the birds would probably not have had any life at all. At the Griggstown Farm, the birds are treated humanely and have lots of room to roam and stretch their legs and wings. They have access to high-quality feed and water twenty-four hours every day and live happily in a natural environment. Compare their lives to the miserable existence of the millions of Perdue- and Tysongrown chickens who end up in supermarkets and fast-food restaurants. Imagine living in a wire crate so small that you cannot turn around. Your cage is one of 100,000 or so, arranged in stacks of thirty in a row a quarter-mile long. Your food and water appear mechanically on a conveyor belt.Your diet is made from processed corn, soybeans, fillers, chemicals, antibiotics, growth hormones, artificial coloring agents, and other secret ingredients. The ammonia smell of the feces is so powerful that workers wear gasmasks in order to perform their jobs. Your flesh grows so much faster than your bones that you can barely stand. At about eight weeks of age, you are big enough for the market, so you are quickly electrocuted and hung upside down on another conveyor belt, where the blood runs from your body and the bodies of your 100,000 colleagues.You are then gutted with a powerful vacuum and soaked in a blood, water, and chemical solution to cleanse you. Eventually...

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