Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
The Top Five Ways to Make Thanksgiving Local
By Kisha Lewellyn Schlegel, 11-20-07
As we head towards Turkey Thursday and get ready to give thanks, give up the remote for unending hours of football and doze off with the tryptophan, locavores will celebrate their addition to the Oxford English Dictionary this year, with locally grown food. For those who want to join them this Thanksgiving, and give up the long-distance vittels, here are the top five ways to go local.
5. Avoid Cranberries.
While Washington state is the closest producer of cranberries, most producers sell to the Massachusett’s based Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. So while you might think they are pretty local, they can actually end up in a rather long supply chain. But according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer if you still can’t give them up, you can look for an “M” on the packing code (like “M400"), which indicates that they come from Washington.
4. Heirloom Potatoes.
The All Blue Potato, Yukon Gold and Cherry Red varieties do more than add color and flavor to a local dinner. Buying these heirlooms encourages growers to do more than grow the ever popular and monocultured Burbank and Russett and expands the gene pool. This may prove key to decreasing disease and pest problems. Those who plan ahead can buy potatoes from local farmers at the end of the growing season and store them. For the rest of us, some grocers carry local produce. If they don’t, this is the perfect season to ask. I was once told by a food expert that if two or three people request local food, a grocer is likely to start carrying the product because they figure that most of us want it but just don’t have the time or gumption to ask.
3. The No-spice Pumpkin Pie.
Cinnamon and nutmeg are spices that no one this side of the Rio Grande has found a way to produce. Native to Sri Lanka and South India, the quills of the Cinnamon bark are a mainstay of holiday taste. But according Alisa Smith, the long-distance spice problem can been solved with a no-spice pie. According to the chef, it won’t just taste like a spoonful of puréed pumpkin.
2. Local Libations.
Look for local breweries and wineries, with special attention to the origin of grapes and hops. Some wineries must ship grapes from drier, warmer climates to make “local” wine in Montana to Idaho and New Mexico. For those of us who enjoy a pint with dinner, the number of microbreweries in the Rocky Mountain West has grown exponentially. But unlike the Oregon based Caldera Brewing Company’s “Dry Hop Red” Beer, made with three local hop varieties, most breweries buy hops from the global market. This might become problematic in the coming year as New West’s David Nolt warns of a hop shortage.
1. And finally, the number one way to localize Thanksgiving: Buy that turkey from a local farmer.
Most turkeys in the U.S. are raised in Confined Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs. Efficiency and profit determine the conditions of a CAFO where animals are packed in as tightly as possible and some have over 55,000 turkeys. Because turkeys are given 2.5 square feet of living space, they would, if allowed, fight and kill each other to expand their limited range. To curb this, poults (baby turkeys) are de-spurred and de-beaked so they will not scratch each other. This says nothing of attendant environmental and health problems.
Rather than support this practice with our turkey purchases each Thanksgiving and Christmas, buy turkeys from local producers. Some can be found at Local Harvest or at Sustainable Table. Look for Heritage turkeys of the variety that originated in the Americas and are raised in fresh air with plenty of room to roam on pasture. From the Jersey Buff to the Narragansett, Slate and Standard Bronze you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the way a turkey really tastes.
Each week in Spade & Spoon, Kisha looks at how Westerners are living, working and eating in their foodshed. Read every Tuesday at www.newwest.net/spadeandspoon.
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Rather than eat some hybrid turkey, why not shoot your own dinner in the form of deer, elk, duck, goose, pheasant, grouse or any number of other critters. The things you really have to avoid, rather than the native cranberry, is the green salad and fresh veggies, because they all come from somewhere far away, grown using pesticides and fertilzers that won't make you feel good about eating them. NAFTA, you know. And be sure those made in China dishes aren't leaching lead into the gravey or the jello didn't come from the hooves of a mad cow. And just plain forget seafood. Most Alaskan seafood is caught, and then shipped to Asia for processing, and then shipped back to the US. It is a labor issue. Americans feel entitled to living wages, and that is not an issue in Asia. Of course, neither are their sanitary guards. bon appetit.....
Are you freakin' serious with that spice recommendation? Should I give up everything because it doesn't come from the bonehead around the corner?
You don't HAVE TO give up everything - but how about thinking about these issues and not coming off like a self centered - JERK!
To live an examined life ISN'T easy - does good all around ; TRY IT!
By the way, what are the relevant "issues" here? What does this 'don't buy cranberries' logic actually try to accomplish? What good is this article? This logic is so freakin' flawed and ridiculously misguided I almost feel embarrassed for the author, but s/he submitted it for publication, so now they have to defend it.
What if I live in WA, should I not buy cranberries?
What if I have relatives in S. ID, should I not buy their potatoes?
What if none of the farmers around me raise turkeys, should I eat my illegally kept emu instead? (But thanks to some other misguided folks, soon I will be able to eat 6 chickens).
What if I'm Indian (the sub-continent kind), should I be ashamed of my pie with spices come Thursday?
What if I'm allergic to everything ever put in a pie except lemons, which we know come from the south? What should I do, eat an alfalfa pie? That I can get.
Help me out here Jay boy, help me think through some of these immensely important issues. Por favor.
A lot of the point in buying locally isn't just about being environmentally friendly--it is about supporting your local farmer, rancher, brewer, gardener, whatever. Wouldn't you rather give your money to a friend and neighbor instead of some multi-national conglomorate? I sure would. I'll go so far as to say it is more patriotic to do so.
No one is perfect (especailly moi), No one can be Pefect (especailly everyone else - that is a joke); because - THE UNIVERSE isn't Perfect!!
So Do the BEST you can, but look at yourself FIRST - accept your flaws and DO what you can to correct them!
Defintely get some LOCAL Brew - re-read the article; laugh at it, yourself, the world and then go do something about it!
Namaste to ALL - Jay J
Thinking about the impact of food distribution systems is important, but let us not forget about variety being the spice (!) of life. We want variety (including exotic spices). More importantly, our bodies need nutritional variety.
Sure, eat local when you are able. But give up cinnamon and spice and too many things nice? Ouch.
The cultures of the world seemed to evolve almost at the same time with a cereal and a legume, for some reason maybe found in our DNA. Rice and soybeans in Asia, barley and lentils in the mid East. The Americas saw beans and corn, and both came from nearer the equator than the 45th parallel. Nothing much grew here in the New West that has found acceptance in commerical ag.
Locally grown is good, but do remember that most locally grown food is exotic to this end of the world. Not bad, just exotic. Not native. From somewhere else. Except cranberries and blueberries, and some of the squashes. So the real locals are mostly meat eaters, and can be distinguished from the vegetarians, those guys with the skinny arms, little pot bellies, with the yellowish skin who are all the time farting, by all the camo they are wearing, the truck with aggressive tread tires, and the big smiles.
By the author's own statements, if I buy everything except the turkey from local producers I have not achieved the ever so coveted 'numero uno local buyer' status, have I? Although, since I will spend more dollars on everything except the turkey, thereby keeping more dollars local than the thirty I'll shell out on the Choteau bird, I could achieve the coveted status by acting in direct conflict with the author's suggestions, thereby showing the author has no business suggesting to the suggestable listener (yeah, that's a Zappa line) how to support the locals. By the way, is Choteau not local enough? It's a couple hundred miles away, but so are the cranberries.
And what about everything OTHER than food that's purchased for the big day? That amount may be surprisingly large compared to the food. Will your candles be locally made using wax from the local bees hanging around the local wick-maker's house? How about the flowers, are they locally grown? What about those stupid freakin' turkey sweaters everyone seems to wear; made locally? Doubt it.
It appears I've thought about it a whole bunch more than Jay boy or the author, so don't tell me how to support the locals. Don't even suggest it.
As for me, scalloped oysters and old Kentucky ham inspire gratitude.
Happy thanksgiving!
http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/
"[Localization] is absolutely absurd, for any number of reasons. I'll just list three...."