I’m on the Big Island (Hawaii) for the summer, and the other day our lunch consisted of soft flour tortillas filled with grilled tuna, spinach, tomatoes, and a mango/coconut/ghost-pepper sauce we bought at the farmers’ market. Dessert was fresh lychees. The beverage was iced tea made with Tazo English Breakfast tea.
The tortillas had been made on Oahu, using no locally sourced ingredients. The tuna and all the produce came from Big Island waters/soil. The main ingredients in the sauce were local; I have no idea if they snuck any off-island flavorings in. The Tazo was imported of course, just the water was local.
So the meal wasn’t 100% locally sourced, but it was awfully close. All the associated labor (except for growing the wheat and other aspects of the tortillas) was within Hawaii State and mostly on our island. That’s pretty typical of how we eat here, since there is an abundance of local produce and fish, and you can even get some locally produced dairy and meat if you know where to look.
What would a similarly locavore-ish meal look like in your neck of the woods?
In most parts of the world, it’ll depend a lot on the time of year. If you’re eating local in a temperate-zone winter, you’re restricted to foods that can be stored for months at a time. In a temperate-zone summer, though, you’ll have plenty of options.
It depends not only on the time of year, but the radius that you consider local. And also what’s actually grown commercially; lots of stuff can be grown in plenty of places, but just isn’t commercially viable.
For example, it’s not too tough to grow potatoes around here (Dallas / Fort Worth), but it’s not done except for tiny farmers and home gardeners, because it’s not commercially viable when compared to places like Idaho.
Out here in Alberta? Steak, of course. Since it’s June, we are just starting to see veggies in the Farmer’s markets, most are still greenhouse/hot house though.
Naturally, what is available varies by season most places (that’s true even here - it is lychee season at the moment). So, specify time of year in your answer if that helps you determine what the meal would look like. (You can use preserved/frozen local foods too, of course.)
Define your radius however you like - I’m not aiming for scientific precision here, just curious what people might eat if they want to be sort of locavores, but aren’t obsessed about it.
Overall, it’s a huge variety of egg, cheese, sausage and other meat dishes with a variety of local grain products. LOTS of local produce in season. Free range chicken, duck, goose, pork, beef, and even elk, lamb, bison and goat products available too, in their turn.
Sounds delicious. We can do that here, too, but you have to either hunt down and roast your own pig, or know someone who does. (Wild pigs are all over our property at the moment. A local guy has set traps but so far the pigs are too smart to get caught. If he catches any, he’ll smoke the meat and we’ll get some.)
My wife’s good friend has a little organic farm and supplies a local gourmet place with produce, chicken, duck and even beef. So I suppose you could get just about anything you want from there.
Don’t think you could scrounge anything to make bread around here, though.
And her name isn’t Alice. And nowhere near any railroad tracks.
Hmm. I’m planning on chicken-fried chicken tomorrow (slices of chicken breast put through the cube-steak-making machine), mashed potatoes, and corn. All three foods are plentiful here, but only the chicken can be raised year round… Small boiled ‘salt potatoes’ from countless farms, and salad, and locally made natural casing hot dogs are a natural here in the summer.
If I run a radius of 100 miles from my location I can eat like an Emperor pretty much year round. That circle encompasses not only the SoCal fishing docks, but the Imperial Valley as well. Plus all the vineyards and such.
A much tighter circle would still net me chicken, eggs, citrus galore, dates, strawberries, peppers, beef, pork, etc. I live 5 miles from the biggest apple orchards in California, and just over the hill from the guy who introduced kiwis to America.
Or elk roast from the farm just outside the city, with a saskatoon wine reduction and wild mushrooms, Taber corn roasted in the husk with pecorino butter, honey glazed carrots on a bed of wilted spinach and homemade perogies with lots of sour cream and fried in wild boar bacon and onions. Maybe a small pan fried pickerel with dill sauce to start, and finish up with a rhubarb-strawberry crumble. Granted some of those ingredients won’t be quite ready until a bit later in the summer but totally do-able withing 300 km or so.
There is a winery on our island (http://volcanowinery.com) but even the vineyard owners allow as how it’s just “for fun” - not great wine. But they infuse one of their wines with jabuticaba, and I genuinely like that one.
This site lets you search for local this and that. Unfortunately, the maximum radius you can search for is 100-km which is laughably short for around here.
Coastal Mid-Atlantic, halfway between Baltimore and Philadelphia. There’s not a lot that’s not available locally - Excpeting the true exotics. Wine, beer, spirits, shellfish, fish, pork, mutton, geese, ducks, chickens, turkey, beef, some exotic meats (venison, elk, bison), wide range of termperate veggies, fruits, and grains. Dairy products also - including some fairly nice cheeses.
Basically, if it’s stereotypical ‘american,’ we’ve got it, and a lot more too.