What would a reasonably locavore meal look like in your area?

Cafe Society
41

I live in Sacramento, which bills itself as the “Farm to Fork capital”, so pretty much anything but seafood is local.

42

The most recognizable in our country to visitors is pork adobo w salted duck eggs and fresh tomatoes. The working man’s lunch (until it became too expensive) was bulalo: boiled beef shank with corn, string beans and chinese cabbage. Some roast fish or steamed shrimp on the side will do it. And then there’s the roast pig but that’s a banquet dish, not regular fare.

I’m more inclined to introduce some of the Philippines’ more quaint offerings. Don’t worry, no balut:

  1. dinuguan - pork strips braised simply with some garlic and onions. Once done, fresh pig’s blood is added and stirred, producing a creamy black soup. Instead of rice, people prefer to take this dish with either bread or steamed rice cake.

  2. lumo-lumo - freshly butchered pork loin boiled with garlic and onions into a plain soup, topped with green onions. What makes it special is that it’s eaten early morning, with steaming hot rice, sausages, and dried fish. The house help at our grandmother’s house used to go to the slaughter house at 3 AM just to make sure he get’s the loin from the first butcher.

  3. sitaw at pata (string beans or black eyed peas with pork knuckles flavored with fish sauce) - My favorite dish. Chock full of the three deadliest substances known to man: uric acid, salt and cholesterol.

  4. bagnet - it’s actually chicharon but people mis-name it. I may be biased but it’s far better than any chicharones I’ve tasted stateside.

  5. If you dig #4, look for the ultimate treat: chicharon bulaklak. If you’re in Manila just ask your host about it and he/she will find you a good sampling.

43

Popcorn.

No, seriously - something like 40% or more of the world’s popcorn is grown in just a couple Indiana counties, and I live in one of them. The fields of corn around here are mostly fields of popcorn. And if you use soybean oil on the popcorn you have the other major crop around here.

44

Dungeness crab, butter clams, mussels, salmon, and geoduck. There are lots of small farms so fresh milk, butter, and eggs are easy to get. Salmonberry is native; blackberry isn’t, but chokes everything in a kudzu-like way and ripens around August 1. Lots of people have small orchards of apple, peach, plum, and apricot, and certain strains of fig and kiwi are popular too. Gardening-wise we do better at cool-weather crops like lettuce, radishes, and brassicas than we do at solanaceaes like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. Melons, I’m told, are Right Out.

My particular town has lots of microbreweries, so there’s plenty of beer to choose from. There are vineyards that produce drinkable wine, too.

45

I’ve never thought much of the locavore thing, because it is so limiting for our area, as demonstrated by what’s not available:

• no apples, pears, oranges, lemons, limes, grapes, raisins or currents (let alone exotics like mangoes and avocados);

• no rice;

• no tea or coffee;

• no whiskey, rum, gin or other spirits (except maybe vodka, but none currently produced locally);

• no wine (see: no grapes, mentioned earlier);

• no lamb or mutton;

• no seafood;

• almost no freshwater fish (not on a commercial basis, at any rate).

What is available:

• fresh vegetables, but only from mid-September until late June;

• from mid-September to late June, only vegetables that have been canned or kept in a cold cellar, like root vegetables and potatoes;

• beef;

• pork;

• chickens;

• dairy (but no local cheeses);

• lotsa wheat, oats and barley;

• beer!

So locavore or 100-mile diet is just a trendy fad from other places.