When we arrived in New York and were told the that we were challenged to eat only local food the first 5 months, my simpleton Virginia mind thought nothing grew up here, it's too cold right? How would we find cereal grains? What could we eat besides carrots, cabbage, and squash? Why were we doing this and what does it have to do with feeding the hungry? I was kind of scared we would starve, and thought it was farther into the hippie food movement than I was comfortable with.
We were allowed to choose four items that didn't have to be local which we chose to be rice, peanut butter, nuts, tea/coffee. This kept our sanity in tact. Well, that was the hope at the beginning at least; no promises our sanity is still in tact.
Five months later I can tell you, New England is the place to eat local food! And we should always support our local farms as much as possible! We've continued eating much of our pre-Boston diet, but have at least doubled our vegetable intake.
Dairy products and eggs are pretty easy to find local almost anywhere, but here is some cool stuff: We found oats grown in Maine and flour (both corn and wheat) grown here in Massachusetts. We joined a chicken CSA and get about four chickens each month and 2 dozen eggs. We joined a fruit and vegetable CSA and received a box of each every week from when we arrived in August to December 9, and we're proud to say we just finished off the last of the carrots last week! We've frozen more vegetables than we actually needed. And we've seen some vegetables I've never even heard of (despite 2 years as the botany guy at Nature Camp). Romanesco cauliflower, arugala, kholrabi, savoy cabbage, regular cabbage, Hubbard squash, delcatta squash, butternut squash, pea tendrils, KALE, collards, BEETS, Brussels sprouts, Tat soi, plums, Swiss chard are things I've come to love but never thought I'd ever cook myself.
All this cost less than $200 per person per month. How does that compare to your food budget? (serious question. Leave me a comment)
I would encourage you to Eat Local (if just for a month) for the following reasons
1. Get to know your farmers. Some people work their butt off against the unpredictable forces of nature to grow food so others can eat. Get to know these people, they have such cool stories. Local food and farmer's markets have the reputation of being expensive and they can be, but you can often save money on orders by contacting the farm directly, ordering in bulk, joining a CSA, or asking for the "seconds," or "B-grade" crops (ie. peaches with bruises or spots that are cosmetically flawed and won't make it to market). The seconds are ususally much cheaper, but are still just as good if you cut around the bad spots. They are great for cooking or preserving. We were able to get our beans, delivered to a local library for free where the bean farmer's wife is a librarian, and our bulk flour delivered right to our door for free as a result of contacting the farm directly.
I have a pretty good relationship with Liz, the flour girl from Four Star Farms, Mrs Baer, the bean lady, and Farmer Dave the fruit and veggie guy. Libby knows our chicken man at John Crow better than I. When we say the blessing of "bless this food and the hands that prepared it" we can actually picture some of the hands who have prepared the food for us!
Until this year except for the green beans we'd get from my Aunt Susan, and the occasional dozen egg or bag of tomatoes from a church member, I never could put a face to the people who grew my food. Maggie, our site leader told us once, "everything we eat except grains like corn harvested by machine, has been touched by at least one person's hands." There are "fingerprints" on our food, every tomato was picked by someone. Eating local puts you on the path to meeting that someone, and knowing who has touched your food.
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| homemade pop-tarts (what a mess!) |
2. Get to know your food. Eating local gets you more in touch with your food. We can't count Dunkin' Doughnuts as local because the sugar, flour, and "proprietary ingredients" are not grown in New England, even though it is a "native" pastry chain. Except for the flour, everything we get is in it's most raw form and we've had to learn what to do with it in order to eat it. My culinary skill improvements have included cooking a raw chicken, making tomato sauce from tomatoes, canning peaches, freezing greens and other veggies, making soup stock from the chicken bones and veggie scraps, making poptarts from scratch, making pasta from scratch (noodles and ravioli), making tortillas from scratch, and my favorite: making a pumpkin pie from a pumpkin--not a can!!3. Get to know your region. Our vegetable farmer, told me he sees a disconnect between people and God's creation because we don't know where our food comes from. The four of us have been re-connected with God's earth, sun, air temperature, rain, and seasons by the limits of eating seasonally. For each crop there is a season of being sick and tired of being smothered by it, followed by the remorse and missed feeling when it's no longer available at the market.
I never would have known wheat is grown this far north until I had to look for it! It added a whole new dynamic of learning New England culture to learn about New England's food industry!
4. Think about where your food comes from and the work it takes to stay alive. Eating local put me in the mindset of questioning the source of all my food and asking, "does buying this item support businesses that contribute to environmental degradation, poor worker conditions, or other evils?, or does this support a business that takes care of the workers, the plants, the soil, the air, and God's kingdom?"
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| Stocking up on Soup Stock from chicken bones and veggie scraps. |
Local eating tips:
Here are some local eating tips. Find out what farms are local in your state. Do an internet search. farmfresh.org is where we started. Write down your typical diet and see what of that you can find local, and what nutrition you can substitute for the things you can't. Visit farmers markets, ask around and find who and what is growing in your area. Who knows what you'll find; they grow oats in Maine and wheat in Massachusetts!
Do some research on preserving the harvest. You'll want to freeze or can those summertime vegetables to enjoy them in the cold winter. Use a root cellar to store root crops. Get excited to try new things! Ask your parents or grandparents, or any of my roommates or I if you need help. Unleash the inner beet lover you never knew about!
Good luck! and Happy Junk Food Awareness Day!
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