Not all chefs agree about local eating. Certainly, not all home cooks agree about local eating either, that’s why I’m writing these articles. Professional cooks have access to all ingredients, local or otherwise, and have formed an opinion of the subject. My goal is to have the non-professionals empower themselves to make their own decisions.
Until recently, the common belief has been that the farm to table movement is for a select few. The stereotype has been that if you desire fresh and local food you must be a revolutionary fighting against the establishment. But, you have to make your own decisions and ask “What Does Farm To Table Mean For Me?”
I’m a chef, a Certified Culinary Educator, and someone who examines food through both artistic and scientific eyes. I’ve found there are great benefits in becoming a locavore and reducing your foodshed by finding local foods that support your community, are freshest, and taste best.
There are people who think local eating is naïve. Their perspective is that a “save the world” mentality limits the variety of foods that are available to them. They believe that it’s not a chef’s job to impact the planet, only to cook good food. Anything else is a distraction from the final plate presentation.
Local eating, organic food benefits, and fair trade are seen as marketing terms. Chefs who don’t subscribe to a seasonality of food believe these terms have been hijacked by the USDA and large corporations. If the words really don’t mean much, how could the food be that much better?
Jose Andres is a chef who says it’s not pragmatic
Chef Andres argues that if it’s not summer where he lives, then it IS summer somewhere else. He doesn’t understand why he can’t buy the summer tomato from an ocean’s width away.
After all, there are distant products that can’t be duplicated locally. If you live in northern climates, you’re not ever going to find a local orange. If you don’t live in Hawaii, you’re not eating local pineapple either. Should you NEVER eat pineapple again because you don’t live where they grow?
Should you forgo French Champagne because you don’t live in France? Never again will you eat parmesan cheese, kiwis, or drink coffee because they are not 100 mile products. Chef Andres wants to eat local, but he won’t give up many products that can’t be found anywhere else.
Local eating doesn’t need to be the ONLY eating you do. There’s reasonableness to this movement that allows everyone to make their own decisions. That’s why the stereotype of anti-establishment hippies running the farm to table movement keeps so many people from enjoying the benefits. They believe it’s all-or-nothing, but that’s not true.
The key is to find the right balance that’s appropriate for you and your family. Local food is the freshest, it helps the local farmer, lowers transportation costs and effects, but can’t be the only food in your home. The question then becomes what PERCENT of your entire food source is local eating?
Give me a good estimate. Look around your kitchen, in the fridge, in your cabinets, and leave a comment with the percentage of foods that come from within 100 miles of your home.
” If you live in northern climates, you’re not ever going to find a local orange. ”
But if you’re in Florida, you’ll find the local oranges aren’t very good because they sell all the best ones to the rest of the country.
Hi Ari!
Is that true? All the best oranges are shipped out of Florida? Are all the best pineapples shipped out of Hawaii. Regardless of the relative quality of the oranges, I’d assume the ones in Florida are freshest because they haven’t been processed and taken a long airplane or semi-truck trip.
As for the $3 apple, local growers will only have what they grow. If it’s apples, they’re not gonna be selling them for less because they still have to buy other items at the inflated prices. Forget bartering/trade situations. Just look at what happened in other areas during over inflation. Scares the heck out of me. The best thing any of us can do is make friends/connections NOW. We won’t survive what’s coming all on our own in any bunker no matter how much or what might be stockpiled for emergencies.
I remember the panic over “Y2K”. I worked with a chef that was stockpiling canned goods.
Over inflation may be our downfall (see the movie Soylent Green), but the wrong type of farming may also bring about ecological problems.
What if clean water became scarce? Eating local helps the planet repair itself as well.
For me, it’s not about saving money but finding sources of quality food as close to where I live as I can. If it’s cheaper, great. Today I had no option but to get CA strawberries since the recent rains finished off the local strawberry growers’ season. Not even FL ones were available. Did get SC peaches though they didn’t look as good as I’d prefer. Taste good. lol.
I try to buy local but it’s just not always an option. I try to grow certain things for our use but even there I can’t produce enough yet. Focusing on the worse of the dirty dozen that are important to us. Kale and strawberries. lol.
As for food shortage due to gas prices, when that “really” happens, buying local won’t be an issue since it too won’t be available after a short period of time. Every store is only 3 days away from empty. Best not to try to get stuff during that time. It will be bad. Just look how things happen when there’s a mention of a ice storm or snow in the forecast. All the bread, milk, batteries, etc. sell out in an afternoon.
Hey Vivian!
In my perfect world, people would rush for the farmers market the way they rush to the grocery at the mention of ice or snow. It’s amazing the panic people will display faced with the scarcity of something. I think good food should be more difficult to find and should cost a bit more. Things of higher quality are usually priced higher. But, this isn’t always the case with farmers markets. Often, their prices are lower than the shipping costs tacked onto the grocery item.
However, I agree with you that it’s not practical to eat 100% local all year long. Perhaps if you live on a tropical island with a strict fruit-only diet you can pull it off. For the rest of us, we each need to make the decisions about our food based on budget, availability, and desires.
While I do like Chef Andres food and dishes, what’s he going to do when cheap oil is only a memory. Food and shipping costs are rising, and food costs have already begun to rise.
We began to rely on all the long distance shipping and chemical fertilizers when oil was cheap. It’s gone from less than a dollar per gallon to over 4 dollars per gallon already. I personally remember .19 cents per gallon for premium.
As for percentages, only Sugar, Pineapple ( canned & Frozen) and some commercial flour and spices come from a longer distance. What I don’t grow myself, I get at a local farmers market which is held weekly.
Green tomatoes sprayed with phosgene to “ripen” them in transit just so I can have out of season tomatoes? Not for me. Preserve them in the summer through canning or freezing.
Hey Steve!
Cheap oil is already a memory. I’ll date myself as well to tell you I remember the gas lines during the embargo of the 1970’s. As gas prices rose, so did food prices. That’s because the food took a longer ride on a truck than I took to get to the grocery.
This eventuality is coming soon. People won’t pay $3.00 for an apple. They’ll search for local produce that’s cheaper because it’s not “soaked” in gasoline.
Thank you for the informed contribution.