uvlocalvores : field notes

[cross-post from the northern New England Localvore discussion list]

Hello to all Upper Valley Localvores,

Thanksgiving Day is less than two weeks away. How local will your meal be? Some of us are planning localvore meals (with wild cards) and others are aiming for 80% local. Are you up for a challenge?

If you are not hosting the dinner, you may be limited to making your own contribution local . . . but if the meal will be at your home, how
about nudging others to include some locally grown foods in their recipes?

The Upper Valley Food Co-op has Vermont Cranberries. Last night I made a delicious cranberry sauce using a ratio of 1 cup cranberries to 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup maple syrup. (Multiply as needed.) Cook carefully for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the cranberries”pop”. Cool to room temperature and serve.

This is my menu for a vegetarian Thanksgiving:

Stuffed Acorn Squash*
Fresh Cranberry Sauce
Mashed Potatoes
Mashed Sweet Potatoes (from Cedar Mountain Farm at UVFC)
Kale-Apple Sauté (cooked in cider)
Mushroom Gravy (if I can find local mushrooms–otherwise Onion Gravy)
Maple-Cornbread with Butter

Maple-Apple Pie
Maple-Pumpkin Pie
Strafford Creamery Smooth Maple Ice Cream

Cider, Maple Seltzer, and a local wine
Mint Tea

*stuffed with sauteed onions, garlic, celery or celeriac (optional), sage, thyme, Trukenbrod whole wheat bread (toasted and diced), chopped walnuts (wild card), and maybe some chopped cranberries with some grated cheese, salt and pepper. Adapted from the Moosewood Cookbook
“Comprehensively Stuffed Squash”.

Mad River Valley Localvores have posted a 100-Mile Diet Turkey Dinner menu with recipes.

Here’s an interesting article on the original Thanksgiving.

Remember that there will be a Winter Farmers Market at the Norwich Grange from 10:00-2:00 on Saurday November 18; Killdeer Farmstand may be open that day as well.

If you have a favorite Thanksgiving recipe that can be made from locally grown foods, would you be willing to share it at our new site? Jenna Dixon is developing an Upper Valley Localvore web site. Please check it out, check the wiki, check the blog . . . and add your recipe to our new wiki. Never wikied or blogged before? Experiment with it–Jenna has simplified the process. If you have difficulty, please let me know.

Best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Pat McGovern

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It feels good to me to track places where it seems like the localvore concept is explained pleasantly and succinctly… I set a up a Google alert for “localvore” a couple of weeks ago and this link from a Mass. paper came across this morning. Something to point interested friends or family members at?

Becoming a localvore

-jenna

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Apologies if this is a bit off-topic, shopping locally is part of the whole local mojo for me! The next time you travel, this site will allow you to search by area code for *independent* coffee shops, bookstores and movie theatres… Yes, Virginia, there are alternatives to Starbucks…

Delocater

-Jenna

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How lucky we were to have Jessica Prentice, one of the original San Francisco “Locavores”, present “Deepening Our Sense of Seasonality” in Norwich, at King Arthur Flour on Tuesday night.

Jessica is a knowledgeable and articulate spokesperson for local and seasonal food and her presentation was relaxed, engaging and enjoyable. She uses the structure of 13 full moons throughout the year to talk about seasonal food through history and through different cultures and myths.

There was some interesting Q and A after her talk; I particularly appreciated her response to the question of “elitism” in regard to local and organic foods. Jessica said the issue was a big one, and she didn’t have all the answers but she did have observations and opinions: she observed that people have eaten local food through most of human history and our current dependence on globalized corporate food is just a “blink” in human history.

Many immigrants come to this country with a tradition of growing their own food and continue to do so in spite of low incomes. Many cities have community gardens where low-income people can grow food for themselves and their neighbors. The problem is not low income — it is a matter of culture and values. (If the culture promotes junk food, alcohol, cable tv, video games, and lots of commercial “stuff,” those things are likely to become the major values and where people spend their money — in our culture, farmers are demeaned and local food has not been given much value.)

I personally felt energized by Jessica’s presentation and know that Cindy Heath and Lou Anne McLeod are now percolating on the idea of community feasts a la 13 Moons!

–Pat

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