Locavorism
So, I am writing a paper on locavorism for my writing class. Namely, the history of locavorism, the problems encountered with locavorism, and what a local diet would consist of for someone in Central New York (which is where I'm located).
I was wondering what some of you thought about the idea of being a locavore and also if you could point me to any additional web resources that may be helpful! Scientific papers or articles written about eating locally would also be really great!
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16 Comments:
there is a woman named SUSAN WEED (not sure if that's her real name, but that's what she goes by) who is a wild-food forager in the catskills, i believe. maybe you could google her name - i believe she has a book. there are so many edible weeds that surround us, this spring i plan on learning more about them. for instance, chickweed, burdock, wild spinach ....nettles, dandelion. very interesting stuff. we have wild mushroom foragers in my neck of the woods, here as well. and some of the local farmers are starting to grow chestnuts. ever had a local chestnut? sweet as sugar, you don't even have to roast them.
i think we're coming full circle, with all of the stuff going on in the country and the world, we'll be forced into becoming a more "local" society. doesn't it make sense? the life we are living is really not normal. we've only been doing it for the past 50 or so years.....a mere drop in the bucket in terms of people being locavores. why not just "normal-vores"?
pooch at 12:00AM on 02/24/09
@luxie - i just googled SUSAN WEED - and most of her work involves herbal healing - but she also does edibles..... may not be the right person for you... but it's still interesting stuff.
good luck, sounds like a great project.....
pooch at 12:13AM on 02/24/09
There have been at least a few conversations about it here, so you might want to do a search and maybe do some followup questions on what hasn't been answered.
For my part, I've got to say that it would be a lot easier to be a locavore in an area with a year-round (or nearly so) growing season. Where I live, there's absolutely no veggies being harvested for a good part of the year, so it limits my ability to buy local during those times.
The other thing to consider is that not all crops grow in all places, or maybe they don't grow there well, so if you want to eat a varied diet, there's always going to be a need to ship things around.
And as far as shipping, it's not only food that gets shipped. If there was a sudden embargo on shipping food, there would be a lot of trucks traveling empty carrying other goods to where it needs to go. When people talk about how far food may have traveled from one area of the country to another, they're not taking into consideration that the trucks aren't going to stop moving if the food doesn't get shipped.
Once the farmer's markets start up, that's where I buy all the priducts available there. But there are still things that aren't grown here.
dbcurrie at 12:17AM on 02/24/09
also ....
a large part of learning to live on local foodstuff is knowing how to preserve it. so much energy goes into the preservation of whatever is growing locally, seasonally.
perhaps luxie, you should read historical accounts of how people lived 100 or more years ago, it's very informative. especially in the northeast (and other colder parts of the country) -- if you didn't know how to preserve your local food source -- and if that food source was compromised (i.e. water damage, mold, etc) you'd be in deep trouble.
if we really need or have to live on local food -- we have to be prepared to learn a lot more than we know at the moment. takes a lot of work to put up food for the winter. ask your grandmother. or your great grandmother.
that's why convenience foods became so damm tempting.
pooch at 12:50AM on 02/24/09
Here in Willits CA, there is a local farmer's market, another one going to start in the spring, an economic localization organization that is all over the food issues, at least two community supported agriculture coops (one run by the local elementary school), and a local granary starting up. They're issuing bills worth 10 lbs of grain that local merchants have agreed to treat as cash! The long-term goal is to make Mendocino county enconomically self-sufficient. "Eat local" is just part of it: it also means generating jobs. Years ago, you didn't have to leave town to go to work, but now most people do.
Food again: My daughter and I are up to our ears in kale right now (but winter-frosted kale is sweet, so there are no leftovers) and antsy to start planting our heirloom tomatoes. Daughter-in-law says my daughter can play with her big garden as much as she wants.
gentlyferal at 12:53AM on 02/24/09
Wow, great topic! It could also be a rather broad topic. What kind of writing class is this for and how long is you paper supposed to be? Also, CNY--Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Oswego? Fingerlakes, (Ithaca) too? I'm just trying to get an idea of how much info you would like to explore and where your focus will be.
You might think about lakeside communities and how being close to these bodies of water makes the climate more condusive to growing food. I'm talking about large lakes such as the Fingerlakes and Lake Ontario here.
As far as history goes, I would suggest hitting some of the historical societies and also looking into the Erie Canal and how it was used for transporting goods among CNY communities and also for importing and exporting goods to/from further destinations.
Cornell University probably has a wealth of info regarding this topic correlating to CNY. You could probably even tie in their Kids Growing Food program, which is a small grant that schools can apply for to get kids growing in the classroom. It, or other programs like it, could be a way of showing how our little ones may be influenced to grow and buy locally in the future.
Local CSA's may have some great info for you also.
Good luck! And have fun looking into CNY's locavore's past, present and future.
dhorst at 7:17AM on 02/24/09
If you can look into old issues of the philly weekly newspaper online (pw.com) I remember reading an article a couple years back about a reporter trying to eat only locally, it was interesting, I hope you can find it.
annabanannas at 8:50AM on 02/24/09
i think the new york times had an article awhile back (pretty sure it was linked to on here) talking about some of the drawbacks to eating locally - like how if we all ate only local fish, they'd have to build way more fish processing plants, and that could actually be worse for the environment, or something like that (wow my retention of information is impressive....not!) anyway, hope that helps.
billyburgwife at 10:32AM on 02/24/09
My friend Leda Meredith did a 250 mile diet last year, and only ate foods from within that radius. She has a blog called Leda's Urban Homestead where she blogged about her experiences. You should definitely look at her old entries.
http://ledameredith.net/wordpress/
She also helped put together a resource for locavores in New York:
http://www.localfork.com/locavoreguidenyc.aspx
Hope that helps!
sophia kitchencaravan at 11:15AM on 02/24/09
The Slow Food Movement website is a great resource for all sorts of locavore info.
http://www.slowfoodusa.org/
Cabot_Jen at 12:25PM on 02/24/09
You might also want to research some of the Amish communities around the state. Some are obscure, but there are many in central and northern NY, many of them are true locavores as they live off their own land.
dmcavanagh at 2:35PM on 02/24/09
Barbara Kingsolver wrote a book on her experience trying to be a locavore called Animal Vegetable Miracle. Might not be exactly what you're looking for, but she's a fantastic writer and I would be surprised if she didn't reference some more scholarly resources in the book.
Embackus at 2:59PM on 02/24/09
Wow, thanks for all the great responses! I will definitely do a site search, I didn't even think of doing that at all!
@dhorst: It's just a basic second level writing course that is required for everyone. We're currently reading "Animal Vegetable Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver and we are trying to tie food into pretty much all the other humanities and sciences. (But mostly sciences since I go to SUNY-ESF and its pretty much science 24/7) I'm in Syracuse but since most of the CNY region has similar weather I was thinking about writing it about CNY but I may end up doing just the Syracuse area. My paper is supposed to be I think, 8 pages, so not very long at all!
@embackus: That is actually the book we are reading for class right now!
I may end up quoting some of you in my paper or using your thoughts, but I will be sure to let you know before hand to make sure its okay :)
luxie at 6:23PM on 02/24/09
@luxie~my BIL and SIL are both grads of SUNY ESF. They are both landscape architects in Syracuse. I'm in Syracuse 'burb. There's a great farm near where I live that might have some neat info for you. Their name is Abbot Farms and their website is here.
Tired of the snow yet? I don't mind the snow itself--I'm just sick of the road vomit that's all over my car!
dhorst at 6:43PM on 02/24/09
If you want the historical perspective on being a locavore, go back to times when food wasn't routinely shipped across the country and all over the world, mostly because there was no practical way to do so. Flour, sugar and salt was easy to ship, store, and distribute, but perishables had to come from local sources. People lived without a lot of products that we take for granted, and people went hungry when crops failed or when something went wrong with the supplies they canned, cured, or stored.
If you compare that to the current locovore movement, you'll find that many current locavores are fine with buying products that aren't grown locally, so coffee and black pepper and spices and coconuts are all on the menu because we've become used to a ready supply of so many things that don't grow well locally. And I'll bet there are more locavores in California than in Minnesota.
There was something on the food or travel channel that talked about pineapples and how most people on the mainland had no idea what pineapples were until someone came up with a way to can them. So the canned pineapples arrived in the US before we knew what a fresh one was.
Is it bad to ship pineapples and for us mainlanders to eat them? Again, it's not a one-way trip for the planes, trains, and trucks.
People grow crops in areas that are suited for those crops. Not all crops grow in all places. Some places aren't suited for growing much at all, but we might have industries in those areas that support a population of workers. Those workers have to eat, so food gets shipped in, products get shipped out.
The idea of eating local food when it's available and practical makes sense. But personally I'm not ready to revert to a time pre-refrigerated trucks and pre-modern canning.
dbcurrie at 6:49PM on 02/24/09
A book called Plenty was written by a Pacific Northwestern couple before the AVM phenomenon. In my opinion, not as interesting reading, but short and perhaps useful.
louie734 at 1:05PM on 02/25/09