Eat Locally, In Winter

Being environmentally responsible and living a sustainable lifestyle doesn’t happen simply by driving less and recycling; you need to look at the impact of everyday consumption as well. People can avoid buying useless consumer goods rather easily, but there is one thing every human must consume every single day: food.

People are staring to take theses issues seriously and several good books and articles have been written recently about how the industrial food supply system is bad for the environment, bad for farmers and bad for consumers. Shipping food, especially perishable produce, by container ship and airplane around the world is simply ludicrous. Consumers are forced eat bad tasting (but easily shippable) food because they’ve been sold on the expectation that it makes sense to eat anything they want, even when it is out of season.

This harms local farms by forcing them to compete against the lowest common denominator. They must “commodify” their products and compete purely on cost. This vegetable industrial complex has no use for the best tasting food, only the most shippable food. So heirloom varieties, that taste better and are far more unique that standard shippable varieties, become too expensive and uncompetitive against this lowest common denominator. When this happens we go from tens of thousands of edible varieties in nature to a few dozen available in a grocery store.
Fortunately, many people are waking up to the fact that they can get far better tasting and healthier food from local producers and thereby supporting their “food shed” or “eating their view”. Environmental impact through food consumption is also decreased due to the fact that far less fuel consumed in the shipping process and far less petroleum based fertilizers are required. Local farms are also far more likely to be poly-culture farms that fight pests through biodiversity and local manure based fertilizers, something mono-cultures just can’t match.

Farmer’s markets are exploding in popularity all over the country. A visit to the Union Square market on a Saturday will show you how strong this movement is in New York City. Many locations also have something call Community Supported Agriculture organizing where people buy “shares” of a crop from a local farmer and get a new delivery to their neighborhood each week. This also forges a bond between the consumer and the producer of their food. Better than any of these is having your own garden and growing your own food. Nothing is better from an environmnetal perspective and nothing gives you a closer to connection to your food. I do it in New York City so chances are everyone can grow at least their own fresh herbs!

Some companies are focusing their business on local suppliers and distribution, including the winery I started, Manhattan Meadery, where we get all of our ingredients from local farmers, produce locally and distribute only to New York City. Flatbush Farm Restaurant in Brooklyn and the Green Grape wine store have similar business models. This is taking the local food movement one step farther; rather than the consumer being limited to locally produced ingredients, they can choose finished goods that incorporate all the same value, environmental protection and flavor of the local food movement.

So this is all well and good, but I’m sure you’re asking… does this mean that just because I live in New York City, I can never eat an orange again because it doesn’t grow close to me? How about eating a strawberry in February? Aren’t I supposed to be eating fruit as part of a healthy diet?!?! I can’t just eat locally produced meat, eggs and cheese all winter long. And isn’t that bad for the environment too because it takes like ten times the weight in grain to make meat?

True, true, true. But we have to live too, and adhering to a dogma too religiously isn’t going to make you happy or popular with your friends. In realty, it’s about making educated choices. Buying watermelon or raspberries from Chile in February that flew in on a 747 is a bad choice. Why not eat raspberry jam grown locally last summer? Or better yet, make your own when it’s in season and save it for the winter! Enjoy orange juice from Florida (it's not THAT far away) but you should probably explore unique seasonal and local fruits before you gorge on kiwis that flew in from New Zealand. Sound too hard? Well here is an example of a totally sustainable, local and well balanced meal I made last weekend. Plus it was delicious!

For this meal I’m preparing grilled bison flank steak from Elk Trails Farm with hollandaise sauce, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. Everything from the meat, the potatoes, the eggs, butter, milk even the pumpkins from last fall were purchased at the Union Square farmer's market.

The Pie: The pumpkin I’m using has been frozen in my freezer since last fall. Most recipes that involve pumpkin start with “one can of pumpkin”. But making your own cooked pumpkin is very easy. I started by cutting a few sugar pumpkin into small pieces and baking for about an hour until soft. Then I cooked down several sugar pumpkins on my outdoor cooker. I used some to make beer and some I froze for cooking purposes. I defrosted a quart of this pumpkin in a double boiler I made from two pans stacked on top of each other.

To make the pie crust, I took a few cups of flour (ok, the flour isn’t local… no one is perfect) and mixed in half a cup of warm butter, mixing it in with my hands. I mixed in salt and slowly a small amount of water until the dough was firm. I put the dough in the refrigerator for two hours. Because they’re no lard in the crust-it’s more of a tart crust than a flaky pie crust.

I rolled the crust with my flour container because I don’t have a rolling pin. When stretched, I fit the crust into the pie plates and pit them in the oven for 5 minutes at 400 degrees to cook them slightly.

To the pumpkin in the double boiler, I added cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, three eggs, brown sugar and white sugar. I whisked it together and into the oven for 25 minutes.

The Hollandaise Sause: I don’t know if this is the proper way to make hollandaise sauce, but it works! I added half a stick of butter to the cleaned double boiler. Then I separated four egg yokes and set the whites aside. I beat the yokes and then slowly added a few tablespoons of boiling water. Keep whisking and add to the melted butter. Do this last so it doesn’t congeal right before you serve it.

The Mashed Potatoes: Potatos are a good example of biodiversity that is lost when food is commoditized for the grocery store. My farmer’s market has so many varieties and they’re available all year long. These are carola potatoes! I cut them into pieces and boiled them for 13 minutes. I ran them through the food mill, mixed in butter, milk, salt, pepper and the egg whites I saved from the sauce. Eggs are not typically an ingredient in mashed potatoes, but I couldn’t bear to waste them. When they were well mashed I set them aside until everything else was finished.

The Bison: Bison (aka American Buffalo) has incredible meat. It’s low in fat so you don’t need to cook it quite as much as beef. Flank steak is also a cut that you don’t want to over cook. I rubbed the steak with Crazy Jane’s Mixed Up Salt and some pepper and seared it on the grill for only a few minutes on each side. I carved it and served it to my guests.

Everything turned out great. The potatoes and the buffalo were incredible plus the hollandaise sause was delicious. The pumpkin filling was fantastic but the crust was not as good as I had hoped. I’m far from a pastry chef so I guess I have something to work on.

This is a delicious example of a well balanced meal, when nothing is being harvested in the northeast! There are simple things you can do involve buying local fresh food when things are in season and preserving that you can for when its not. Look for finished products with local ingredients and ask restaurants tough questions about where they get their ingredients. Enjoy meat sparingly and don’t eat anything that flew on a plane, especially from another continent. But don’t feel guilty about eating oranges from Florida or olive oil from Greece! Think about what you eat and be environmentally conscious, but don’t stress out! Enjoyment of food is a forgotten luxury in America. Rediscover the experience!