Celebrating Food Day with Mu Mu Muesli

First and foremost: Happy Food Day!  October 24th marks the first annual national celebration of eating real, sustainable food that is both healthy and affordable.

Eat mindfully.  Buy local.  Make your own meals.  These are just a few of the ways you can honor National Food Day, which was created by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.  Preparing your own meals helps you to "...turn down the noise in your mouth and get off the processed food habit," says Ellen Kanner of the Huffington post.

Although I hardly need a holiday to get me to go to the public market, I figured I would make a celebratory trip in honor of the growing local food movement by heading down to the CNY Regional Market in Syracuse, NY.

Having become slightly obsessed with farmers' markets over the summer, this was oatally exciting for me. Beyond honoring Food Day, I had a mission. Twice I was told by friends to check out "the muesli guy," but as an oat aficionado I had never ventured into the muesli part of the cereal aisle. Muesli was developed by a Swiss nutritionist in the 1900s and is a popular meal in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.  Usually it's a mixture of rolled oats, whole grains, dried fruits, and nuts, eaten raw with milk or yogurt.

Mike Shuster and his wife started Mu Mu Muesli after being
unsatisfied with the lack of fresh, unprocessed muesli products
on the market

That being said, if there are two things I know to be true, they are this: 1) I friggin' love oatmeal; and 2) Change is not my forte. Why waste a beloved breakfast on a mediocre bowl of muesli when I could  eat oats?

I wish I was kidding.  That is actually how I think.


Minutes after arriving at the market, I quickly found Mike the muesli guy, owner of Mu Mu Muesli.
Not only was I won over by the free samples Mike was giving out (the #1 reason I go to Wegmans on the weekend), but I liked that he was willing to talk to me and tell me his story. One of the biggest perks of  going to farmer's markets is forming relationships with local farmers and business owners. Go enough and you become a regular- I've had farmers save things for me or let me pay them back the following week.  It's nice knowing where your food comes from.

Mike uses a squeeze bottle to mix his muesli samples with fresh yogurt, which is too tangy for me, so I wasn't able to fully appreciate the taste of the muesli until I brought it home and tried it plain.  The toasted almonds lent an incredibly rich, buttery taste to the muesli that reminded me of a pastry crust.  I added it as a topping to what I'll call my "Blueberry Cobbler" oatmeal.

The combination of buttery muesli and tangy, melting blueberry swirls had me convinced I was biting into real blueberry cobbler. The dates and raisins in the muesli topping add just the right amount of chewiness, which compliments the texture of the steel cut oats and creates amazing mouth feel. 

Normally, adding too many ingredients to a dish is undesirable. It’s overwhelming. But cooking the oats with the strawberries and banana for a longer amount of time allows the fruits to caramelize, melding the flavors into one subtle, sweet flavor that is both nutty and fruity.  Not overwhelmingly fruity, though, so the tangy taste of blueberry still shines through.

This recipe is a reminder that home cooked oats knock the socks off any instant variety. Sure, you can buy “blueberry muffin oatmeal” or “cinnamon pecan swirl” boxed oatmeal, and think you’re getting the real deal. Not true. Anyone can take a container of dirt and call it “Brownie Mud Pie,” after all. That's marketing.  But you can be sure the dehydrated  fruit bits in your instant oatmeal are going to contain mega amounts of additives.

If you want the true taste of blueberry crisp, take the time to make this dish. The information age we now live in has sabotaged conventional societal values- including home cooked meals.  By making your own meals and visiting your local farmers' markets, you can be part of what Food Day is all about- bringing back the importance of eating real food.  One bowl of oatmeal (or muesli) at a time.

How are you celebrating Food Day? Breakfast matchup: muesli or oatmeal?