Entries Tagged 'Local Eating 101' ↓

For this challenge, we are defining local food as being grown in Wisconsin or within 100 miles of your home. So how do you find food that fits this definition of local?

• Most Wisconsin communities are included in a regional Farm Fresh Atlas. These regional food guides include farms, farmers’ markets, restaurants, stores and other businesses that sell local food and use sustainable production and business practices.
• The Savor Wisconsin web site links you to Wisconsin food products and services. It includes listings for farmers’ markets, restaurants, food co-ops and specialty retail stores.
• GrocersBuyLocal is the offical website and database of Wisconsin grocers who are purchasing, or are interested in purchasing, locally grown food.
• Buy Fresh, Buy Local Southern Wisconsin lists restaurants that serve local food.
• The Wisconsin Local Food Network website includes a directory of local food initiatives and projects in Wisconsin.
• The US Department of Agriculture provides a listing of farmers markets across the country.
• Check other websites such as localharvest.org and the Eat Well Guide for community supported agriculture farms and markets across our region.

The following restaurants in the Driftless Region are participating in the Eat Local Challenge:

• The Hideaway, Chaseburg
• Holvys, Hillsboro
• The Meat-ing Place, Viroqua
• Sibby’s Organic Zone, Viroqua
• Driftless Café, Viroqua
• Firehouse Restaurant, Viroqua
• Viroqua Food Co-op Deli, Viroqua
• Viking Inn, Viroqua
• Chilito Lindo, Viroqua
• Central Express, Westby
• Ole and Lena’s, Westby
• Westby House Restaurant, Westby

Typically, cookbooks and recipes aren’t adapted to the seasons. But there are many resources out there that can help you.

Cookbooks

• “Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen” by Anna Lappe and Bryant Terry
• “Local Flavors” by Deborah Madison
• “Simply in Season” by Cathleen Hockman-Wert and Mary Beth Lind
• “Farmer John’s Cookbook: the Real Dirt on Vegetables” by John Peterson and Angelic Organics
• “From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Cooking Farm-Fresh, Seasonal Produce” by the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition

Websites

• Chocolate and Zucchini: This French food and cooking site includes lots of recipes that emphasize fresh, seasonal food
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: This site by Barbara Kingsolver and family includes a recipe section
• The Sustainable Table website includes recipes emphasizing local, fresh ingredients
• The Land Stewardship Project website includes recipes from several local foods dinners.

Do you have a cookbook, website or other cooking resource to suggest? Please send us a comment, below.

Here are a few links to books, websites and other resources on local food. Please suggest others in the comments section.

• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
  by Barbara Kingsolver
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
• In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan
  (chosen as the 2009 UW-Madison common book for Go Big Read)
• The 100 Mile Diet: Local Eating for Global Change by Alisa Smith and JB MacKinnon
• Reducing Food Miles Resource List
• Sustainable Table
• eatlocalchallenge.com

It tastes great! Many foods lose their peak flavor quickly with time and refrigeration. Once you have tasted fresh local tomatoes, berries, and apples you may have trouble going back to long-distance produce.

It’s healthy. Like flavor, many nutrients break down over time and with processing. So the fresher your food is, the more nutritious it will be.

It’s safe. Local food has to meet the same health standards that shipped food does. And because it changes hands fewer times there may be fewer opportunities for contamination. Still, whether your food is local or comes from far away, you should follow safe handling and preparation practices.

You can know more about it. When you buy your food direct from the farmer you can ask about specific production practices you care about (such as use of pesticides or hormones or how the animals are confined). Even if you buy it at a grocery store or restaurant you can usually find more information on where and how local food was grown and processed.

It’s fun. Visiting farmers’ markets and farms can be an entertaining activity for the whole family. Many young children are also more likely to try and enjoy foods that they helped pick or that they associate with a specific farmer.

It helps local farmers. Do you like seeing well-tended farmland nearby? That land will only stay open as long as the farmers have a profitable market for what they grow.

It helps the earth. In general, local food uses less energy for transport than food that is shipped from far away. Many farmers who market locally also choose to use ecological growing practices such as rotational grazing and Integrated Pest Management.

It helps communities. When you buy local food the dollars you spend stay in the area, in addition to helping local farmers and preserving working lands.

It’s easy! Wisconsin is blessed with farmers who grow wonderful vegetables, fruits, dairy products, meats, and many other products; and with many farmers’ markets, CSA farms, and other places for consumers to find local food. Many supermarkets and restaurants also carry some local foods. We’re not asking you to give up imported foods like coffee or chocolate or to change your diet in a big way. We think you will find making 10% of your food local way easier than pie!

Visit a farm

Fall is a great season to visit a farm and meet the people who grow your food. Many farms welcome visitors this time of year to pick apples and other produce, tour corn mazes, buy pumpkins and winter storage vegetables like squash, go on hayrides, check out barnyard animals, and have fun. Wisconsin’s Farm Fresh Atlases and SavorWisconsin list farms that welcome visitors.

Form an Eat Local Challenge team

Interested in working with others for the challenge? Recruit a team of neigbors, friends, family or coworkers to take the Wisconsin Eat Local Challenge together. (Please sign up for the challenge individually.) Once you’ve created a team, consider having an event like a local food potluck or picnic, or visit a farm together. If you feel ambitious, you could read and discuss one of the books listed in the local food links at the right (while snacking on locally grown treats).

Preserve the tastes of autumn

While canning and freezing food isn’t for everyone, putting up a batch of pesto, jam or other preserves is a delicious way to enjoy local produce in the winter. The web is loaded with resources for home food preservation including canning, freezing and drying. Your local Extension office can also provide you with recipes and help.

Don’t stop on October 4th!

Make local food part of your diet all year long. Here are just a few things you can do make local eating a part of your long-term plan:

• Grow food for yourself in a home garden or community garden.
• Join a community supported agriculture (CSA) farm. (What is this?)
• Invest in a chest freezer and buy local meats in bulk, directly from a farm.
• Ask your local grocery stores, restaurants and other businesses to stock and sell locally grown products.