Ashland Food Co-op - Blog » LOCAVORE SCHMOCAVORE?

LOCAVORE SCHMOCAVORE?

July 22nd, 2009 by Matthew

What does it mean to truly eat local? Why would we want to eat local in the first place? And if someone was crazy enough to truly want to eat local, How would they go about doing it?

Salad Starts

WHAT does it mean to eat local?

Over the past decade, the local food movement has finally made its way back into the fringes of our culture’s mainstream. I use the word back because our short memories neglect to remind us that during the early years of our country, eating local was simply the way of the world. Eating local was neither fad nor trend but was, simply, what’s for dinner. You cooked with food out of your own garden, with food you hunted or foraged, or with food you purchased from your neighbor or local farmer. One only needs to leaf through the first few pages of Mary Randolph’s seminal cookbook, The Virginia Housewife (which many consider the first truly American cookbook) to see how eating locally was ingrained in the day to day lives of 19th century Americans.

Knowing these truths about our culinary roots makes a trip down memory lane even more strange and hilarious: the turn of the century saw us eating home-cured meats, hearth-baked breads and seasonal vegetables; the middle of the century saw the introduction, rise, and eventual domination of processed foods (at the expense of local foods and food traditions); the 1960s and 70s saw local and seasonal eating hopelessly relegated to the likes of hippies, back-to-the-landers, and a very select few prophetic farmers and chefs; and today eating local has re-emerged as a growing trend, movement, and life-style all rolled into one, equipped with its own set of advocates and detractors, its own new-fangled vocabulary (“foodsheds“, “locavores“, and “food patriotism“), and its own social, political, economic, and environmental ramifications……….

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