Brent P. Newhall's Blog

Thought Experiment: Could I get to the point where 100% of the food I eat for myself is made from local ingredients?

It’s an interesting thought. Let’s establish a few parameters:

1. “Local” means within 100 miles.
2. This doesn’t count social meals; going out with co-workers for drinks or taking friends or family out to a restaurant.
3. I wouldn’t force this on my hosts if a guest at someone eles’s house, nor would I force it on my own guests.

First question: How about local restaurants? I can’t be sure that their ingredients are local. So that’s out.

"Summer Vegetable Garden" by di_the_huntress on Flickr

So. Let’s stroll through my fridge, freezer, and cabinets, and see how big of a challenge thus would be.

• Dairy — I already get my dairy from a local farm.
• Meat — Ditto.
• Vegetables — I could freeze and can vegetables in the growing season.
• Fruit — Ditto.
• Condiments — Well, Heinz didn’t invent ketchup. I could always make my own; that’s how housewives did it 100 years ago.
• Flour and cornmeal — There are actually local mills that mill flour, though I’d have to get a lot at once (2 to 5 pounds).  That’s not unreasonable.
• Sugar — Fortunately, sugar can be substituted with honey in most recipes.
• Beans — Grow my own, or buy local varieties. Fortunately, I don’t eat a lot of beans, so this wouldn’t be a huge burden.
• Nuts — I do know of several local nut farms.
• Rice — Okay, this just can’t be done. So, I suppose, I just wouldn’t eat rice at home.
• Salt, pepper, and other spices — Also impossible.
• Flavored extracts

What about other ingredients that simply can’t be grown locally, like coconut and pineapple? For the purposes of this experiment, and for now, they’re banned from consumption.

How do I eat in the winter, when no food is grown? Same as my ancestors: can food during the growing season, or use easily-preserved foods like dried beans. Plus, thanks to my local dairy, I can have meat and dairy in any season.

I could actually get pretty close to my 100% goal, if I wanted to. I don’t, yet.  But now that I’ve worked the numbers, a part of my brain is pointing out how healthy this would be.

Hmmmm.

My Mom was never much of a soup person.

She’s always liked soups, but in the same way that people like cocktail peanuts or turf grass. When I think of my Mom’s cooking, I remember her chicken cordon bleu, her strawberry whipped cream cake, her divine chocolate fudge cake, her crusty French bread, her unimaginably soft homemade pasta. I don’t remember any soups. I’m sure she made some, but none glued themselves into my memory.

I’ve never loved soups in the same way that, say, the French seem to obsess over them. Soup’s always operated like a cream sauce for me — tasty, in its own way, but never a main dish.

Then I read Molly Wizenberg‘s A Homemade Life, in which she makes a strong case for soups. In particular, soup for lunch. Suddenly, soups make sense.

I always have a tough time with lunch at work. Offices never seem equipped to properly reheat leftovers, and I find myself eating like a hobo out of a sagging plastic tub. Plus, so many things really shouldn’t reheat at the same temperature; I want my roast beef hot, not the bread and lettuce as well.

(Sure, I could separate them, but then I become That Guy, the one who spends twenty minutes assembling his leftovers.)

Soups, though, are perfect for leftovers. Pop them in a big container, bring it to work along with a bowl and spoon, and you’re good to go. Bring a bag full of sliced homemade bread, and lunch becomes a meal.

Now my problem lies in finding a good soup to make. I’ve picked three tomatoes from my garden, so I’m contemplating a tomato soup. Unfortunately, I’ve never liked tomato soup. But maybe that’s because of my upbringing. No offense to my amazing cook of a Mom, but I think I need to get over my soup complex, and learn to love soup.

My Dad loves clam chowder, but that’s another story.