In The Kitchen

Having learned about the 100-Mile Diet and the ensuing 100-Mile Thanksgiving hosted by Tom Beatley, professor of sustainable communities at the University of Virginia, I am confident that both efforts encourage some people to search for more local ingredients to add to their diet—to “buy fresh and buy local”, if you will. I, on the other hand, took it as a challenge to see whether or not a feast meal, such as our traditional Thanksgiving or Christmas could be prepared with foods sourced within a 50-mile radius here in central Virginia.  Ron and I set our goal to find as many ingredients for our traditional feasts as possible.  Taking a look at A Map of Scenic Roads in Virginia, and using the scale provided, we drew a circle with a radius of 50 miles, using Charlottesville, Virginia as the center. The circumference of the circle passed through Fredericksburg, Sperryville, Lacey Springs, Buena Vista, Madison Heights, Appomattox, Powhatan, Manikin-Sabot, Montpelier, Spotsylvania and all points in between.  Obviously, you can perform a similar exercise from your own home, where you may find sources of local growers and food producers that you’ve never thought of.

We were committed to the task, regardless of what could be found. This adventure could be approached from two points of view.  Usually when sourcing food locally we would create a menu from available ingredients found at local farmers markets, farms, and grocery stores carrying local foods.  Wanting to maintain out traditional menus as part of the challenge however, we decided to make a list of ingredients we would need, shop the list locally and then see what substituted we’d need to make.

 We typically have peanut soup for Christmas.  Though they are a native Virginia product, they are raised outside the 50-mile limit.  Securing mushrooms from Sharondale, we chose to make mushroom soup instead. The same is true of oysters, always a part of our holiday celebration, but since there is no substitute, we eliminated them from the menu. There are two other items, cranberries and oranges, which can play heavily in some of my holiday recipes that are not grown in Virginia and we decided to eliminate them from our traditional menus substituting instead, homemade chutneys. Finally the dried fruits used to make our traditional fruitcakes are not native to Virginia and so we ate fruitcake throughout the holidays but not on feast days.

With the exception of those things mentioned above, I must admit that this was really not a big challenge for us.  We not only live in a well-endowed food community with a favorable climate, we typically source our food within a 50-mile radius or at least within the state.  There are some few exceptions that purists might scoff at.  We regularly use some spices, sea salt and pepper, coffee, chocolate, baking soda, baking powder, and sugar that are not native to Virginia.

Here are menus from feast meals in 2008.  We are now sourcing similar menus for 2009 Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We purchased our pasture-raised turkey at C’ville Market and our standing rib roast from Gryffon’s Aerie Farm near White Hall. We found the vegetables: kale, Swiss chard, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, onions, carrots, parsnips, rutabagas and beets from farmers we met at the farmers markets earlier in the season and from local grocery stores that carry local produce.  Apples, sweet potatoes and cider we bought at Vintage Virginia Apple Harvest Festival.  Parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, and lemon verbena come from our garden, others from Harvest Thyme Herb Farm. Honey, sorghum, and chestnuts we found in Nelson County. We have a source of whole raw milk from which we churn butter and we buy rendered lard from a local pork producer.  We used our own home canned green beans and tomato juice.

Maple sugar we found in Highland County ( a bit beyond the 50-mile limit).  We bought cornmeal from Massy Mill in Amherst and had to go a little further for flour from Byrd Mill.  However these items are Virginia agricultural products and are available in Charlottesville at Foods of All Nations and other area specialty food stores.

The 100-Mile Diet is about learning by doing, getting to know the seasons, and understanding where our foods come from.  It is true that certain foods make it back into our daily diets, chocolate, coffee, and spices, for which I make to apologies or substitutes.  For these 2 feast meals, however, they are eliminated.

Some notes on sweeteners and shortening.

I took a little more time experimenting with local sweeteners: maple syrup and honey, and shortening; modifications are below.  Using these simple rules, many recipes may  be modified to comply with the 50-Mile criteria.

When baking, substitute 3/4 cup maple sugar for 1 cup sugar, and then increase the liquid in the recipe by 3 tablespoons per cup of sugar recommended.  If baking soda is used, decrease the amount by 1/4 teaspoon per cup of sugar substituted.  Substitute 3/4 cup honey for each cup of granulated sugar called for in recipe, then reduce another liquid in the recipe by 1/4 cup, adding 1/4 teaspoon baking soda.  Reduce oven temperature by 25 degrees—(substituting honey for sugar alters the flavor and tends to make baked goods moister, chewier and darker.)

In recipes where shortening is recommended, in pie crusts and biscuits for example, I  substituted 1/2 lard and 1/2 butter for the amount of shortening indicated.

When you get a taste of the fresh flavors of local foods, you’ll want to continue to source your foods locally.  We’ve also found that the habit of sourcing local foods extends into our travels where we’ve found Tennessee whiskey, Vermont cheeses, Maryland crab, and more—you get the message.  Practice eating local wherever you are.