OK, you know what it is. Everytime you turn around someone is trying to impress you with his new devotion to all foods from the immediate region. The word locavore, chosen as the word of the year two years ago, is now quickly moving into the trite column for its overuse, and possible, misuse.
Every organization seems to tag a special dinner as a locavore event. Yes, it is important to buy local, to support our farmers and growers but not every purchase can meet the 50 or 100-mile caveat. No matter how hard we try, the urge to buy grapes or apricots may win over proximity. Just for the record, neither crop is grown within a 100-mile radius of my house. Occasionally, the blues make a migratory trip to a farm market, but someone is still driving them there.
The whole fruit discussion gets a little gnarly when you realize the phrase that has become dated is actually “out of season”. Very little now gets called out of season. Fruits are now available almost year-round. Yes, they are coming from faraway places, other countries, but they are being imported because of their popularity. Years ago apricots, plums, and nectarines were invisible except during a few short months of the year.
Let’s keep in mind that no matter how many farm markets you support, there are products that you want to buy that will never make an appearance at your weekend stop.
We buy with our eyes, our budgets, and our wishes. We want to have foods that not only appeal to our wish list but to our taste profile. Some foods sound so extra appealing when it is blustery cold and dark in this long, cold, pre-Spring calendar period. Blueberries, which are never grown in our backyard and probably not even in summertime within a 100-mile radius of our house, do taste exceptional in the dark days of interminable winter.
Yes, I know all about carbon footprint and am doing my own personal crusade to save the planet, but, I am a far more pleasant person when I can have a fruit treat at a time of year when the bounty of the region is more limited to root vegetables. Everyone deserves a break, and we can certainly skip the harangue of damage to the environment.
Let’s not miss the big picture. Yes, we strive to be locavores, but I think it is time to let go of the word. Let’s take a giant step back and not call every dinner that has a local beet course a locavore event. It is an overused word that has become a marketing strategy. Yes, chefs and consumers should have vegetable and herb gardens, and buy their meats, eggs, and poultry from a local farmer, but that is not an option available to everyone at all times.
Let’s go back to the logic: support your farmers when you can. Buy in season and use purchasing programs, such as CSAs. Buy meats, poultry and other products such as eggs from the nearby environs. Just don’t call every trip to the farmer’s market a locavore experience. It’s a trip to the farm market to buy the freshest items available that particular day.
The solution: Let’s return to the ways of many decades ago and grow what we can, buy from our nearby farms and producers, and skip the bragging rights.
It’s Time: Be Your Own Locavore « Allbeforecoffee’s Blog said
[...] health, life ·Tagged food, farm markets, locavore We’ve heard so much about being a locavore, buying local, focusing on food miles, and buying in season, that it’s time to dig into the [...]