Eat Local, Eat Seasonal

"It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato."

The whole idea eating local foods becomes especially alluring if we think in terms of seasonal foods. Start by refusing the tasteless, bloated, and artificially dyed grocery store strawberries that have been picked far away—unripe so as to travel better—in anticipation of the mouthwatering local ones that will be ripe late June and early July. They will be especially delectable if they are organic and free of the chemical pesticides and fertilizers that concentrate in the flesh of thin-skinned fruits like strawberries. I can no longer eat any other kind of strawberry.

When I was young we had no option but to eat those things that were in season. We waited eagerly for the first green beans or the first brussels sprouts, vegetables that came just once a year. We couldn't grow much in the sandy soil of Bournemouth, but we did grow runner beans and some other vegetables. In the summer my grandmother Danny made gooseberry fool, rhubarb and apple pies, and blackberry and apple pies with custard, and blackcurrant jelly. Uncle Eric used to make chutney with green tomatoes—his own special secret recipe. In the autumn Danny bottled fruit and made jam. We could never lay out appl_es to dry because of the salt sea air of Bournemouth, but I used to taste them when I went to stay with friends. They became more and more wrinkled but sweeter as autumn gradually changed to the long, dark days of winter. Today, fewer and fewer people lay in stock for winter days—for now foods are packaged and shipped from all around the globe so that customers can buy just what they want, just when they want it. Only when we decide to return to eating more local foods shall we regain our appreciation for the gifts of the different seasons and once again live in harmony with nature's cycles. Then, even as we grieve the last, now tough and stringy runner beans, we shall be eagerly anticipating the first of autumn's plums that are soon to be ready for the picking.

Nutritionist Joan Dye Gussow, an esteemed pioneer in the local foods movement, tells the story of walking out of her front gate one snowy February day in her upstate New York home. On the ground, peeking through the snow, she saw a bright orange-red object. The color was so out of place in the winter landscape that she leaned down for a closer look. There she found a nectarine with one bite taken out of it. "I thought of how it probably came from a foreign country," she said, "and was picked unripe, then put into a refrigerated shipment, and ripened artificially as it was hauled all the way up to New York state where someone bought it at a supermarket, bit into it, and of course finding it tasteless, mushy, and disgusting, just thoughtlessly tossed it away. In that one nectarine I saw all the waste and senselessness of our travel-dependent food supply." If only that person had simply waited until local fruits ripened on the trees—there is nothing quite like biting intothe sweet flesh of a fresh, utterly ripe nectarine. So succulent that the juice is sure to run down your chin.

Changing the World one Hard Hat at a Time

"Hope cuisine, not haute cuisine."

Barre, Vermont, is a small, working-class town and the center of the state's granite industry—a place known for quarries and tombstone carving. Here on Main Street, in a small fifteen-foot-wide building that has been feeding residents for over seventy years, is one of the most revolutionary and progressive businesses in the nation—the Farmers Diner. In this tiny diner with its green vinyl booths and white Formica countertops, we find proof that a more hopeful harvest is already under way.

The Farmers Diner is the brainchild of owner and organic farmer Tod Murphy, who one day wondered if it would be possible to create a restaurant with good old American diner food at good old affordable prices but have most of the food come from local and sustainable sources. He took over the landmark diner in 2002 and since then has turned it into a prototype for a national franchise that may someday put Mc- Donald's and Starbucks to the test. More than a meal, the Farmers Diner represents the cutting edge of the local foods movement. So far, the Farmers Diner is spending 70 cents out of every dollar on products from farmers and small-scale producers who live and work within seventy miles of Barre. You'll find milk shakes, burgers, and omelets on the menu, but the burgers and milk will come from local grass-fed cows, the omelets from the eggs of free-range and small-flock hens. And if the season is right, you're likely to find a few surprises, such as a slice of green zebra heirloom tomato under your burger bun or a dish of local organic strawberry ice cream.

The way Tod Murphy sees it, he's building a bridge between the sustainable local foods movement and the everyday customer who may not be able to afford a meal at Alice Waters's Chez Panisse in California, but would still appreciate the riches of local, seasonal fare. (In fact, the diner's tomatoes are grown by one of the farmers who used to supply organic tomatoes for Chez Panisse.) Many of the residents who first started coming to the diner in 2002 didn't really care much about local sustainable. foods, they just wanted good, reasonably priced diner fare. While customers have come to appreciate the local connection, it is the food that keeps them coming back.

Murphy speaks fondly of his regulars, such as the elder Vermont ladies who come from the assisted living retirement housing two blocks down from the diner. "They almost wept when they tasted our sauerkraut," he said. "It's not cooked, it's just chopped cabbage with sea salt, and for a lot of these ladies over seventy this is the sauerkraut they remember from when they were little girls." They have the same reaction to the diner's beet salad made of four different varieties of local, organic beets. "For many elder customers, the resurgence in local fresh food gives them a chance to remember and retaste the food from childhood, before industry got in the way," said Murphy. "And hopefully the desire and the commitment to pay what is needed to taste it again."

Sometimes it's not until customers start reading the menu and place mats, profiling all the local farmers who brought them their breakfast, lunch, or dinners, that they are even aware that the diner offers local riches. The customer literature explains that the diner only sells animal products that have been raised without antibiotics and hormones, and all livestock has access to the outdoors and pasture as a principal part of their feed ration, thus explainin_gwhy the butter is bright yellow. "That's the way butter is when the cow is outside eating fresh grass, not chained up in a barn," said Murphy. The literature also gives the history of the diner's hamburger, how it made a seventy-mil_e route from farm to plate instead of the almost 2,000-mile journey of most industrial beef.

Tod Murphy may be an organic farmer with an idealistic vision, but he is also a savvy entrepreneur. It certainly hasn't escaped his attention that just about every food and travel magazine now includes a favorable feature about local foods. He also noted that food trends, such as gourmet coffee, seem to first appeal to consumers in the top upper 10 percent income bracket, but eventually become popular among the middle class. He sees the local foods movement eventually becoming a mainstream mandate.

His vision is to create a national franchise of Farmers Diners—with about five to ten diners working with a central pod of local suppliers. So far his sights are on a pod in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, another one in the Hudson Valley/New York City area, and eventually moving on to the San Francisco Bay area and Portland, Oregon. According to Murphy, each pod will help eighty to 200 local farms become secure in their economic viability. For now he's seeking investors while he continues to infiltrate the working class of Vermont. He likes to recount the time a crew of construction workers came into the diner for some hamburgers. They had come to Barre from another part of the state to work on a local gas station.

"One day at a quarter to twelve in walks a whole crew of construction guys looking for burgers," Murphy recalled. "They have Dallas Cowboys stickers on their hard hats, and they immediately take over two booths with their cement^- covered boots sticking out in the aisles."

When the burgers were served, one of the guys declared, "This is the best hamburger I've had since I was a kid inMontana. This has got to be Black Angus from Colorado or Montana or Wyoming."

But his friend said, "What the hell are you talking about? Can't you read the menu? It's from right around here—in Starksboro, Vermont."

The other guy got mad. "No way did this come from Vermont. I'm telling you I grew up in the West and this is Western beef." For a while it looked like a fight might break out.

This story especially delights Murphy. "These guys didn't come into the diner because we offered local food. They came in to get hamburgers and get back to the job. But suddenly they are having a discussion about local food. You now have a guy sitting there thinking holy smoke this tastes different and better than anything else because it's local and you got another guy who's now got emotionally involved in defending the position that this is local. This is what the victory for our side really looks like."

Another encouraging trend is Burgerville, a chain of thirty-nine fast food restaurants in the Pacific Northwest that was dubbed "America's Freshest Fast Food" by Gourmet magazine. Their menu is nearly identical to Mc- Donald's, but the mini-chain buys the bulk of its ingredients from farmers in Oregon and Washington. Some of its big sellers are local Tillamook dairy products. This may not be remarkable for a restaurant that features local sustainable foods—but what is remarkable is that McDonald's is catching on. Drive by the Seattle McDonald's that serves the Space Needle tourists, and you'll see a brightly lit sign, boldly advertising its exciting new menu item—local Tillamook ice cream.

Shopping for Unsuspected Grocery Part 1

Obviously unless or until we see dramatic changes in our farming and grocery infrastructure, it will be hard for many, if not most, of us to get all our food from local sources. Especially if we live in one of the so-called food deserts. But each of us, as individuals, can play a part in bringing about these changes, doing our best to get as much food as possible from local markets rather than distant producers. Ultimately, what we are looking toward is supporting and building more sources of regional foods, while only eating foods from distant places to supplement local staples. Countries in the Northern Hemisphere, for example, cannot grow items such as coffee, tea, cocoa for chocolate, numerous spices, and so on. When we buy these imported products, we should choose those that are grown ethically and sustainably—fair-trade (meaning fair wages for foreign growers) and organic—so that our purchases are not contributing to the exploitation of another country's workers or natural resources.

Talk with Your Local Restaurateur and Grocer

If your favorite restaurant does not provide any local, sustainable options, or only a few, tell them you would like to see more. Chefs and owners usually appreciate customer feedback. Even fast food restaurants have been known tochange their menu based on customer pressure—for n- stance, imagine the mountains that consumer pressure had to move to persuade McDonald's to offer a greater variety of salads and low-calorie options. Fortunately,more and more grocery stores are starting to recognize that "locally grown" is the new label with appeal. Some grocerystore chains, such as Whole Foods Market, are making a concerted effort to sell the coveted local foods. Many even fea ture pictures and write-ups about local farmers beside the produce they supply.

One big New York grocer, Long Island's King Kullen, committed to buying Long Island's seasonal fruits and vegetables for its fifty stores. In 1999, it spent $100,000 on produce from Long Island farmers. In 2004, it spent $4 million. New Seasons Market, a grocery chain of six stores in Portland, Oregon, has a looser definition of local, using a "Pacific Village" label to denote foods from Northern California, Oregon, Washington, or British Columbia. Even in the wintertime, about half of its produce is from that regional "village."

If you have a store nearby that does sell local, sustainable foods, be sure to thank the store manager for carrying foods you can support. And if you'd like your local grocer to carry more local foods, be sure to ask the manager to sell locally raised meat and vegetables from independent family farmers, and request that the food be clearly labeled. For anyone who might be uncomfortable approaching a store manager, the Sustainable Table Web site (visit www.sustainabletable.org) offers a printable version of an "I Care" card, which lists the reasons stores should supply more local foods. All you have to do is sign the card and leave it with the manager. Because profit margins are so small, grocery stores will listen even if just a handful of customers ask for a certain product. But, as I said, if you convince the store manager to start selling a certain item, make sure you purchase the product.