Comments on: Thinking about Local Eating

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:18:17 +0000

Jennifer,

The thing with the labor-intensive CSA lettuce… I was part of a CSA a few years ago and the lettuce was cleaned on site. I think the water conservation was much better and I also think the farmer did a much better job of cleaning than I typically do.

We are living in an area with an abundance of local food and we love it. There are some very non-local foods that some family members crave, like bananas and pineapple. Those family members are consoled with stewed local fruit on French toast. We can’t seem to get maple syrup in Africa.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 22:56:34 +0000

I hadn’t heard of the Marco Polo exemption. I love that. I also need an “over-the-mountains” exemption so that produce from the fertile Willamette Valley can be considered local enough for me.

I still don’t think people eat boxed stuff because they can’t cook. I say that perhaps to excuse myself, because my family eats plenty of boxed mac & cheese and boxed cereal. We even eat those pre-flavored packets of oatmeal… I think it’s a matter of time. Boxed foods create very little mess and, best of all, you don’t have to think about cooking. You put your hand in the pantry and 20 minutes later viola, dinner.

I got veggies from a CSA this summer. People looked appalled when they watched me rinse and scrub it all before even turning on the stove. I laughingly called it Labor-Intesive Lettuce. I thought it was totally worth the effort, but not everyone agrees.

By: maryn

maryn — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:43:51 +0000

I was a a party last night where there were lots of food-interested people: A sheep-farmer, his cheese-maker wife, a wineyard owner, a high-school teacher trying to get kids interested in the food chain. They all agreed, to my happy surprise, that if you catch kids and expose them young enough, they actually will love minimally processed food, and will be interested in prepping and cooking it. (Out of geekery – and for teen boys, sheer hunger for the extraordinary amount of food they need – if not out fledging cheffery.) It made me hopeful. Of course, on the way home we stopped off at a friend’s house to find she had made Hamburger Helper for herself…

By: cmf

cmf — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:58:07 +0000

Hi Jennifer — I’m a firm believer in what Joan Dye Grussow calls “the Marco Polo exemption” (anything that was traded in the 15th century, like spices), and by nature I tend away from extremism — so for me there’s no problem with a can of pumpkin (I have 2 from Trader Joe’s in the pantry right now). It’s what I liked about the Splendid Table’s 85% goal, that seemed eminently reasonable — allows enough wiggle room for say, my morning orange which is definitely not local to Montana.
What concerns me more is the huge percentage of people who don’t cook at all. Just yesterday, the nice rancher in line behind me at the grocery store was filling up the conveyor belt with chocolate milk, boxes of Hamburger Helper and those freeze-dried potato side dishes, Kraft singles, cereal, and then I stopped snooping because he’d been nice enough to let me and my small load cut in front of him. There are so many people who don’t know how to cook anything that doesn’t come from a box, who live primarily in the interior aisles.
So I guess I worry that strict locavorism, the sort that would ban spices, does more harm than it does good by implying that just cooking on your own isn’t good enough, you have to be so pure you only use stuff from within a small geographic zone around your home. I worry that it makes us seem smug, and that that smugness will alienate the very people who we need to reach out to, like my nice rancher who was eating crap food.

By: Afella in VT

Afella in VT — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:30:56 +0000

I thought you might be interested in this thread at change.org about stopping NAIS (USDA’s National Animal Identification System). There is an opportunity to vote and to make comments on the suggestion. With 275 votes for the top vote getter, putting a victory garden in at the white house, it would seem reasonable that stopping NAIS could get to the top of the list easily if the word gets out on it.

-mmp

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 09:04:12 +0000

No, I don’t think that’s right. Plenty of people cook. We just cook from recipes, most of which call for “16 oz. canned pumpkin” — that is, minimally processed whole foods, which we do not know how to process ourselves — or lemons or raisins or walnuts or yogurt — that is, foods not available locally.

To eat locally you have to learn to cook without a recipe.

And you have to learn to stew your own tomatoes, can your own jam.

And, it’s true, you have to learn to do without. Think of all the Christmas cookies you can’t make if you don’t have cinnamon, nutmeg or ginger!

By: J Calanthe

J Calanthe — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:21:12 +0000

“if it’s such a radical idea to eat locally is that because it’s still a sort of radical idea to eat whole foods and to cook at all?”

I think you’ve hit it spot on. I do various online surveys (because I get free shit, but also because I think it’s important to have my “radical” opinions included), and wow, the “food” they survey about is frightening, and always reminds me that the way I eat is a long way from the mainstream US diet. I grew up eating some processed “food” but have almost entirely stopped, so I too don’t do much shopping in the interior aisles, and very rarely do I set foot in a big grocery like Safeway, and when I do, wow, it’s like a whole other world. Bizzaro world where food isn’t really food…

& yes, I agree on not liking this focus on what’s being given up. I appreciate that at least they have someone saying, “This was hard to give up but I feel better not eating it, and may not go back,” but still, it seems like local eating could have better marketing!