Local Thanksgiving - Whole Foods

Yeah, I'm the local food guy. My friends at the Eatlocalchallenge.com and others are encouraging people to make as much of their Thanksgiving meal as possible from locally sourced foods. I gave some general thoughts on how on a local thanksgiving here.

Now, I was at Whole Foods yesteday, and I can safely report that nearly everything necessary for a local Thanksgiving dinner are available there. Before I return to shilling for Whole Foods, let me remind you, without going heavy into politics, why Eat Local is good, real good:

- Locally grown food can be harvested MUCH closer to its peak
- Farmers growing their food for local consumption can grow varieties that taste great, not that ship great
- It is highly likely that locally based farmers take better care of their land
- It takes WAY less energy to get the food from local farmers to your table

Really, you will find your food tastes so much better when you eat local. I promise.

And Thanksgiving is an ideal time to go local and introduce your captive guests to eating local. As I noted in my blog post linked above, nearly all the classic foods of Thanksgiving are available from local sources/are local foods. If you do not subscribe to Farmer Vicki's Fall CSA or shop regularly at the Green City Market, you still have a very good source for stuff for a local Thanksgiving. Your Whole Foods.

On Sunday, it was all there, from organic farms in Wisconsin like Driftless Organics: turnips, black radishes, rhutabagas, arugala, green beans, brussel sprouts, potatoes, cucumbers, squash. There were also organic apples from Minnesota for dessert. Of course, Michigan apples are widely availalbe (c.f., Caputo's). Granted, one has to keep blinders on at Whole Food, ignoring the Peruvian asparagus and other chazeri. You have no excuse.

Vital Information wrote:Yeah, I'm the local food guy. My friends at the Eatlocalchallenge.com and others are encouraging people to make as much of their Thanksgiving meal as possible from locally sourced foods. I gave some general thoughts on how on a local thanksgiving here.

Anyone make a local Thanksgiving meal (or make their Thanksgiving of local food)?

Vital Information wrote:- It is highly likely that locally based farmers take better care of their land

Rob,

I can see all of the good points about eating local, but I'm not sure of the rationale behind the above quote. It seems like one farmer is as likely as the next to take good care of their land. After all, it's their livelihood. Please enlighten me.

I also agree with most of that. However, Mexican produce trucked up by very small operators presents a conundrum. A guy in a box truck can have (does have) vine-ripe stuff from Mexico in Pilsen, Aurora (or one of the bodegas that serve migrant farm workers all over IL-IN-WI-MI) within a few days of picking. As winter falls upon us, I'll have a hard time living on potaoes and turnips when glossy chiles and cilantro beckon.

JeffB wrote:I also agree with most of that. However, Mexican produce trucked up by very small operators presents a conundrum. A guy in a box truck can have (does have) vine-ripe stuff from Mexico in Pilsen, Aurora (or one of the bodegas that serve migrant farm workers all over IL-IN-WI-MI) within a few days of picking. As winter falls upon us, I'll have a hard time living on potaoes and turnips when glossy chiles and cilantro beckon.

(I'll respond to Steve Z when I have a bit more time)

Jeff, do you know that right now, in Farmer Vicki's hoophouses, tomatoes, zuchini and other things like that are ripening away? The stuff's out there.

Let's also not forget that if you planned, you might have things stocked away. Which would you rather have, a nice fresh Michigan aspragus frozen promptly or one shipped in from thousands of miles away. So, it won't make for a good salad, but in pasta or risotto or other dishes, would you ever know it had been frozen?

Vital Information wrote: Which would you rather have, a nice fresh Michigan aspragus frozen promptly or one shipped in from thousands of miles away. So, it won't make for a good salad, but in pasta or risotto or other dishes, would you ever know it had been frozen?

Depends on who is doing the freezing. I used to pick up cases of Michigan asparagus at Detroit's Eastern Market and freeze it. Personally, while I had good experience with blanching and freezing OTHER vegetables, asparagus is a PITA. As is zucchini.

If you are saying that one should buy from local sources, I would agree. However, buying local means getting AWAY FROM Trader Joe's and Costco which get all the raves around here and most of the other foodie boards.

As for quality, twenty years ago, I might agree. Today, I am not so sure due to better logistics. We backhaul a lot of produce loads from NoCal to cover our deadhead costs and the stuff gets delivered to the wholesaler in under 48 hours anymore.

For the record, yesterday's lunch was canned beef with canned potatoes and canned beans, all from the family farm.

Bad example, since I dislike asparagus. However, frozen or fresh is like apples/oranges to me. Wouldn't I enjoy a Honeycrisp from Coloma more than an Indian River grapefruit? Depends. Would I rather have walleye pike than grouper? Depends on when each was caught and what I'm in the mood for. If I'm in Saugatuck or Green Bay, I'd be stupid to opt for the "grouper." I guess if I have a point, it's that the food has to compete on its own merits first; only then will I consider the source a real tie-breaker. I'm as fond of cabbage and roots as anyone, but that doesn't leave Andy over at TAC much to make my dinner with.

The current Goodness Greeness newsletter had, I thought, an interesting take on eating local:

http://www.goodnessgreeness.com/newsletter/63/

Now, obviously, they're a little biased in that they are trying to sell organic foods they ship in, but I think there are some pretty interesting points in this article.

jlawrence01 wrote:

Vital Information wrote: Which would you rather have, a nice fresh Michigan aspragus frozen promptly or one shipped in from thousands of miles away. So, it won't make for a good salad, but in pasta or risotto or other dishes, would you ever know it had been frozen?

Depends on who is doing the freezing. I used to pick up cases of Michigan asparagus at Detroit's Eastern Market and freeze it. Personally, while I had good experience with blanching and freezing OTHER vegetables, asparagus is a PITA.

Interesting. We froze a fair amount of asparagus this year (after blanching), I hope you are wrong.

Also, Jeff, don't you know about the "eat out" exception to Eat Local?--although one of my big wishes for local dining would be that more "ethnic" restaurants started paying more attention to using local/seasonal produce. I'd love to see a cross between Vie and say TAC.

Vital Information wrote:Interesting. We froze a fair amount of asparagus this year (after blanching), I hope you are wrong..

YMMV.

I used to pick up a case of asparagus for $2-5 each week. Eastern Market (Detroit) is a mixture of TRUE farmers' market and surplus market. By 3 pm, the farmers want to start packing up and there is a LOT of wiggle room.

stevez wrote:

Vital Information wrote:- It is highly likely that locally based farmers take better care of their land

Rob,

I can see all of the good points about eating local, but I'm not sure of the rationale behind the above quote. It seems like one farmer is as likely as the next to take good care of their land. After all, it's their livelihood. Please enlighten me.

Ok, a bit of time to address this:

Well, I'll say right off the bat, that for the sake of brevity, I did not express the point quite as well as I wanted. Obviously, I was thinking of factory farming (believe me, I know having recently did some extensive research on a major corporate animal farming company), or the fact that our recent bagged spinach scare showed that the organic label is no guarantee. Still, as you point out, there is nothing intrinsically special about a farmer being local, that makes the farm better. After all, there are plenty of quality farms in California or any other place far away from us.

What I mean, what I really mean, is that it is highly likely that the farmers you will buy from, when you buy local, will take good care of their land. Why? Well, for one thing, CSA/Farmer's Market farmers need the cache of being being good stewards. Nicholl's advertises their strawberries as unsprayed as a marketing tool as much as anything. Yet, in the same vein, the process of small farmer, practically demands quality. For instance, Henry's idlyic farm in central Illinois is on rolling land that cannot really support typical Illinois agribusiness, which was one reason why he went to vegetable farming. Farmer Vicki, for her own health, does not want to be out on fields all the time that are inudated with chemicals.

Now, none of these factors prove anything. They're just suppositions that suggest quality. Local farmers should be better. Do we have to believe that. No, but that's where local really matters. Want to know about Vicki's operations, ask her, she's there weekly (or visit her farm, she ran two open houses this year). I'm not sure if Farmer John's Angelic Organics requires a farm visit or just allows it, but again his CSA subscribers have the chance to be out on the farm (in fact camping on his fields). The ultimate quality test comes from you. Dealing with local farmers allows you to easily satisfy yourself of the quality of your products.

Vital Information wrote:What I mean, what I really mean, is that it is highly likely that the farmers you will buy from, when you buy local, will take good care of their land. Why? Well, for one thing, CSA/Farmer's Market farmers need the cache of being being good stewards.

The distinction is less between local and non-local than it is between small and corporate farms, right?

And I think being "good stewards" of the land is less a marketing strategy and more an inherent feature of the small farming operation. Small, local farmers take care of their land in the most elemental way possible: by growing lots of different things on their farms. Unlike larger corporate farms, Genesis Farms is not a monoculture that sucks the life out of the earth and then replaces lost nutrients with chemical supplements. The kind of "cross training" of the soil that occurs at smaller farms is good for the soil, by nature.

I think "local" almost by definition means "small" -- when we say we buy local, we don't mean we buy from an Archer Daniels Midland megafarm in Dekalb.

David, I think your points are good, and I don't really disagree with what you are saying, but I do wonder if size is the issue.

For one thing, certain local farms are not that small, in a farm sense. Angelic for sure, probably Nicholl's too. It's not size that dictates. For another thing, practice or business is not necessarily about the size of the farm (alone).

Take two dairy companies: Horizon and Organic Valley. Both are large scale operations, offering organic milk. Yet, the former is a factory operation while the latter is a co-op of many smaller farms. In the market, however, they appear similiar.

I still think, at the end of the day, it comes down to knowing your farmer or something like that, and local farming faciliates that--again, I think the issues or monoculture and stuff are just as key and important points.

PS
Is not Archer Daniels Midland local

I can see the point about small/family operated farms VS. big corporate factory farms, but every farmer is a local farmer someplace. If they care about what they do, they'll care for the land or eventually they'll be out of business. That's not as important to the factory farms bacause they can always spray more chemicals to make the land produce against its will.

Vital Information wrote:For one thing, certain local farms are not that small, in a farm sense. Angelic for sure, probably Nicholl's too. It's not size that dictates. For another thing, practice or business is not necessarily about the size of the farm (alone).

My wife's parents finally "retired" from the dairy business about five years ago when my FILs brother passed away. The brother's family helped out for a few months after the death but they had their own farms.

The farm consists of 160 owned acres and perhaps, at one time, 240 leased acres. The leased portion has shrunk as civilization has grown in northern Ohio.

I have assisted with the farm tax returns for a few years and all I have to say is that it is nearly impossible to operate a 50 head dairy operation and make enough to feed a family of four. Farmers still have to pay for medical insurance, they still have to feed the kids and they still have to pay college expenses and the like. (A lot of farm kids DON'T get financial aid as the formula for aid counts the farm assets as available for use toward tuition. Try taking a dairy cow to Ohio State for tuition.)

You need a lot larger operation today than you did thirty or forty years ago in order to make an adequate income.

My in-laws were able to survive as long as they did for several reasons. First, they never took out a farm loan. (And their newest tractor is a 1960 - no kidding). They built their own home by hand. They heat with wood for the most part which is available on the farm. Oh, and they raise their own food and barter for a lot of what they don't raise.

A lot of folks have this idyllic view of farm life. However, fundamentally, it is a business and is subject all the other economic pressures.