eating locally: April 2008 Archives

On Saturday my daughter and I drove over to Baldwin County to pick strawberries at BJ Farms and get some cheese at Sweet Home Farm (they're about a mile apart). We picked about 12 pounds of berries, and also bought some broccoli, onions, and tomatoes from their store front. (The tomatoes came from Florida, but the rest was grown on the farm.) My daughter showed the classic three year-old enthusiasm; at first she was excitedly picking strawberries and proclaiming these were 'the best strawberries ever,' and gradually began losing energy, claiming that her basket was too heavy, and then that she was too tired to walk (all this in about 15 or 20 minutes). In the end she said she enjoyed the tractor ride out to the fields best of all.

We bought about two pounds of cheese: some Elberta (creamy and soft), Montabella (firm and a little tangier), and Duet, which we hadn't tried before, an amazing sharp, drier, cheddar-y type. I look forward to baking some nice crusty bread and feasting on cheese, bread, and salad for dinner.

It never ceases to amaze me how good, fresh, but simple ingredients can make me feel like I'm eating like a king. Chris made some garlic shrimp bruschetta (Gulf shrimp and home-grown garlic), as well as the traditional tomato-basil-mozzarella version (with the Florida tomatoes, and home-grown garlic and basil), and we ate on the deck under the blue sky. I could not have asked for better.

The berries, alas, are half-gone already! For the ensuing 24 hours after returned my daughter would eat almost nothing but strawberries, and we've enjoyed them plain, sugared, in yogurt, and with homemade shortcake and real whipped cream. I guess I won't be making quite as many smoothies with them as I thought! BJs will be open for another couple of weeks, weather permitting, so if we're lucky we can make it back and pick some more.

The thing I don't like is that getting food this way - by going straight to the source - is not very fuel or cost efficient, and it also effectively prevents people without access to transportation from getting there. For us the trip to Elberta is about an hour and 20 minutes, and at today's prices that's about $15 worth of fuel. One trip a month, if that, would be my max.

There's plenty in the media these days about rising food costs and the consequences of industrial agricultural production. From NPR's Morning Edition comes this story, an interview with professor Roz Naylor, director of the Program on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University. It nicely summarizes many of the issues. The conclusions? Eat less meat, and for the meat that you do eat, make it from local, smaller farmers who use responsible agricultural practices.

In our immediate area, there's Hastings Farm in Bay Minette, where owner Randall Hastings raises Red Devon cattle, primarily on grass. One of our readers, who bought a quarter steer, says it's "tender and flavorful" and they were very pleased.

Not everyone is familiar with the advantages of grass-fed beef, which is leaner and healthier to eat, as well as better for the environment. When I started looking for sources of local food in the area, I called a local meat market and asked if they carried any locally produced beef. The woman told me that 'all the cattle around here are raised on grass, and you wouldn't want that. All our beef is grain-fed.' To learn more about grass-fed animal products, visit Eat Wild.

I'm happy to be able to point you to Eating Alabama, a blog chronicling the efforts of two families in the Tuscaloosa-Birmingham area to eat locally, as in within-the-state, during the months of April through July. They've already compiled a collection of interesting posts and some good resources. Check out their map of small Alabama farms, focusing on farmers "committed to sustainable agriculture and naturally grown products."

Good luck to Andrew, Rashmi, Joe, and Sara! I look forward to reading more in the coming months.