LOCAVORE NATION SAVOR THE REIGN OF REGIONAL FOODS by Judith Fertig
C
onsider Boston cod, Georgia peach pie, Florida’s Indian River grapefruit, wheat from Kansas, heirloom tomatoes from Colorado, Michigan sour cherries, Texas pinto beans and California wines. While the definition of American cuisine is difficult to pinpoint, it definitely exists in regional form, say the Americans polled by the James Beard Foundation. It’s the particular tastes of the places we call home. There’s a delicious reason why regional foods remain popular; as The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture found, the average “fresh” food item on American dinner tables now travels 1,500 miles to get there—and often tastes like it.
Taste is All About Terroir “Place-based foods have a unique taste, related to the soil, water, air and cli-
24
Rhode Island Edition
mate of a region, as well as the ethnic or regional heritage of their producers,” advises Rachelle H. Saltzman, folklife coordinator and director of the Iowa Place-Based Foods project. She notes that regional food might be considered a result of the happy pairing of nature and nurture. Regional foods start with terroir, a French term that refers to a peculiar combination of microclimate and geography. If we draw a circle with its center in our own backyard, the area within the circumference of the circle that encloses the same climate and geography is the general terroir. Although terroir is in wide use in reference to wines, it also applies to any food. Terroir accounts for the differences in flavor between mild orange blossom honey from Arizona, aromatic and pear-like tupelo honey from Florida, amber-colored and medium-
RINaturalAwakenings.com
flavored clover honey from Iowa and dark and slightly sulfurous sunflower honey originating in South Dakota. “When you eat honey that local bees make, you’re eating an easily digestible, raw food full of enzymes, pollen, vitamins, proteins and minerals from the region,” says Tony Schwager of Anthony’s Beehive, in Lawrence, Kansas. Bees forage for nectar in nearby blossoms and then do all the processing in the hive. The result is a regional food yielding more than 300 varieties across the United States. Even Vermont maple syrup can register the flavor changes from terroir, according to Amy Trubek, assistant professor of nutrition and food sciences at The University of Vermont and author of The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey Into Terroir. Trubek is participating in an ongoing study of the character of smallbatch maple syrups.