Cooking Locavoratiously!
Author: Alpha Montemayor on Monday, May 10, 2010

Ok. Truth be told, I’m using the moniker Locovoratious primarily because it sounds cool, and (surprisingly), because no one’s taken it. Although obviously supporting Local food is important to me (otherwise why would I be doing this?), but I honestly have issues with going 100% Local.

My beef (pun very much intended), as it were, with 100% local, is that this approach, in effect, institutionalizes culinary xenophobia, which in turn, begets social and ethnic xenophobia. In a diverse and multicultural society (such as Canada’s), the most immediate and effective way to understand and connect with the Other is through exposure to ethnic food. Witness the explosion of Indian, Thai, Greek, and Middle-Eastern cuisine that’s taking place everwhere, not just in major metropolitan centres. Raw Fish? Sushi? It’s defacto mainstream now, compared to say, thirty years ago, when the most exotic thing on the menu might have been a slightly spicy barbeque sauce to put on your hamburger.

To me, going 100% local would be a horrible regression to that earlier time, not just from a food perspective, but from a socio-cultural one as well. Do you really want to be part of that world? I, for one, do not.

With exposure comes appreciation. With appreciation comes understanding. With understanding comes - wait for it – Global Peace, and the shared prosperity that comes with it.

So if not 100% Local, then we have to compromise somewhere in between, creating a realistic, and balanced perspective. So don’t cook Local. Cook Locovoratiously !

What the heck does this mean?

· Use the 80/20 rule – try to, as best you can, use ingredients that are 80% from local, preferably organic sources.
· Ideally, reserve the remaining 20%, reserve for non-local spices, condiments, and staple foods, such as grains, rice, etc. I mean do you really want to eat 100% potatoes, all the time?
· Above all, stay flexible, and don’t burden yourself with guilt over not eating everything local – after all, if you’re already making a choice to support CSA’s you’re already making a difference, and having a direct impact in terms of your food supply, if not your health and the environment.
· Instead, celebrate the local, organic food you ARE using, and revel in it’s capacity to transform your meal from the ordinary to the extraordinary.

Category: | 1 Comment

1 comments to “Cooking Locavoratiously!”

  1. Theresa June 5, 2010 at 4:44 AM

    I'm so excited about your blog Alpha. I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to link it to my website and promote it more - but I'll do that today. Its been planting season in the garden, and with a single farmer CSA, that means absolutely nothing else gets done for a few weeks. I'm through about 75% of the planting now (including 100 peppers, 150 tomatoes, 50 zucchini.... I could go on and on) so I have some breathing space today.

    I couldn't agree with you more about the current hype around local. The meaning of local is so arbitrary. Many are choosing "100 miles" as "local". Why? 100 miles has no environmental or social meaning. It doesn't define a foodshed or a community. Its just a round number and was the title of a best selling book. If you draw a 100 mile radius around where we are in the K-W area (which I've done) you find that most of Ontario's fruit belt and the (so called) "banana belt" along the north shore of lake Erie, and Canada's major food processing centre (GTA) are all included. So, outside of tropical fruits and imported spices, I'll challenge anyone to name 3 foods that are not local (using the grown or processed in 100 miles definition.) So - there is really no challenge there. The challenge, from my point of view, is to switch a proportion of our diets to less processed foods, prepared from closer to natural ingredients that are grown without the use of environmentally destructive inputs such as fertilizers, GMO technology and pesticides.

    Thanks for the blog Alpha! Got to get back to work now.

    Theresa
    (the farmer who manages Garden Party - the CSA in which Alpha is a member and supporter.)