The Locavore’s Manifesto

James Beard, father of American cooking, once commented to Alice Waters, mother of New American Cuisine, “My dear, that’s not cooking, that’s shopping.” What a relief. Thanks to chefs like Alice Waters and our own Lucia Watson (Lucia’s) we’ve learned that great meals depend more on what is cooked than on technique. We know that carrots grown in Stillwater’s rich organic soil are sweeter and crunchier than those shipped from large commercial agribusiness operations in California or Mexico. We know the farmers who rely on our business and trust them to care about their land and the environment. And we know we’re helping to maintain our area’s diverse character (as strip malls and big box retailers alter the landscape).

During the late fall and early winter, my family tried to become “locavores” (with the exception of coffee), and we managed to get about 90 percent of our diet from within a hundred-mile radius. It was a tough row to hoe in December when August’s heirloom tomatoes and fresh blueberries were out of the question. (I did use frozen organic vegetables from Caledonia’s Sno Pac, a processor of area produce.) With plenty of chicken, eggs, cheese, beef, turkey, bacon, pancake mix, maple syrup, honey, milk, yogurt, and mushrooms, plus potatoes and squash from storage, the only foods we truly hankered for were grapefruit, oranges, and bananas. (We did not develop scurvy.)

I found myself shopping more often, buying less, and spending a little more time reading labels. Chips and cookies became luxuries, and we found that what we consider “convenient” doesn’t always take less time. For example, the organic Annie’s mac’ and cheese my kids so love takes about thirty minutes from start to finish (you still have to boil noodles and mix the powdered cheese packet with butter and milk), no less time than making it with local Dakota brand pasta, shredded PastureLand cheese, Hope Creamery butter, and Cedar Summit milk.

What’s the point? It’s partly a question of supporting the local economy—hardly a trifling distinction, since the profits locally based businesses reap stay in our region, supporting other local businesses and creating jobs. Each dollar spent with a local food business is worth $2.50 to the entire economy, according to a recent study by the New Economics Foundation.

“I make a point of paying the small local companies first,” Dale Riley, owner of Fresh Seasons Market in Glen Lake, told me. “It’s important our local businesses stay healthy to provide decent jobs as well as good food.”

The advent of refrigeration and the jet plane made it simple and cheap to fly foods from around the globe to northern climes to supplement winter larders, but it is not without cost. On average, food travels 2,100 miles from a farm in California to my plate in Kenwood; transporting it is responsible for 10 percent of our nation’s total energy consumption. A basic diet of meat, grain, fruit, and vegetables requires about thirty-six times more fossil fuel energy to transport it than the food produces in energy. In a decade when fuel prices have tripled and there is talk about a foreseeable end to the Earth’s fossil fuel supplies, this is not an insubstantial point.

Neither is the safety of our food. Recent deadly bacterial outbreaks across the nation emanated from organic produce raised in giant super-regional farms designed to fill most of the nation’s salad bowls. In a highly centralized food system, when something goes wrong, huge numbers of people are affected.

The efficiency of these mammoth farms means they can grow food so cheaply that transportation costs are barely noticeable, even in an age of pricey gas. That said, the difference in price between local and conventional food brands in my shopping forays was not dramatic, but varied from store to store. Local Kadejan chicken from my co-op (The Wedge) was competitive with an identical Kadejan bird at Cub and Kowalski’s, but about 30 to 70 cents a pound more at Lunds and Byerly’s, though prices fluctuated. (Whole Foods Market chicken comes from a variety of processors via Chicago, but its meat department couldn’t identify them so I can’t say it offers local chicken.)

A typical “local meal” of roasted whole chicken with shiitake mushrooms from Wisconsin and frozen Sno Pac broccoli sautéed in a little Hope butter, served on Dakota brand pasta, with Sonny’s Ice Cream for dessert averaged around $3.60 per person for a family of four—and there were leftovers. The same meal from conventional sources ran about $2.35. The annual added cost for a family of four: about $5 a day or $1,800 annually.

According to Zagat’s 2007 restaurant survey, three-quarters of Zagat users polled (admittedly, a rarified foodie profile) said they would pay more for meals sourced from nearby producers. Just as thirty years ago those committed to organic food changed the retail scene, these locavores are fashioning alternatives to the industrial food complex.

With local ingredients, I got a lot more flavor for my buck. The fresh, free-range chicken with its big meaty thighs tasted more “chickeny” than its conventional counterpart with less firm flesh. The organic vegetables were free of chemicals; the chicken, butter, and ice cream came from animals that were not given antibiotics or hormones, which many suspect wreak havoc on our bodies. Recognizing the difference in flavor between food raised for flavor—not for consistency or quantity or shipping and storing hardiness—is the first step in understanding the importance of a local food network.

Kelly Smith of Iowa’s National Cooperative Grocers Association reports that last year the twelve-member Twin Cities Natural Food Co-ops sold $17 million in local food, which represents 19 percent of their sales. Given that The Wedge’s sales increased by 19 percent last year (soaring above the supermarket average of 2.5 percent), the local food movement may be the most firmly rooted in a region with one of the shortest growing seasons on Earth.

“We are the epicenter of the natural food world,” says The Wedge’s Barth Anderson. Twin Cities farmers’ markets date back 150 years; and our  natural-foods co-ops are thirty-three years old. Our region was among the first to embrace Community Supported Agriculture (see the article “Eating Minnesota”). Our “food shed” includes the “Driftless Region,” an area south of Owatonna that glaciers did not flatten. The rolling hills and lush valleys are home to small, independent farmers, who—inspired by the Rodale Institute some thirty years ago—shunned fertilizers and pesticides and embraced the sustainable methods that spawned the organic movement of the 1970s.

Independent farmer Greg Reynolds of Riverbend Farm in Delano sees a bright future for like-minded growers. “Over the years, the relationships farmers have [forged] with local chefs have changed the retail market,” he says. “D’Amico will work with us to plant heirloom tomatoes or mauve eggplant. Lucia’s may want me to try different colored baby carrots. People taste them in restaurants and pretty soon they’re looking for them at the market.” Nationally, the number of small farms such as Riverbend and Gardens of Eagan (Farmington) has increased 20 percent, to 1.9 million, in the past six years.

Our local food economy of farmers, processors, producers, and retailers is thriving. Keeping the network healthy is not a matter of idealism or sentimentality; it’s critical to our personal health, the environment, and the quality of our food. In short, it’s good to eat home-grown.