The 100-mile dilemma

Whole, fresh and local sounded like a good idea at the time.

Our dinner group has been meeting and eating for about 10 years now and is willing to try just about anything. Like the time we had a totally heart-healthy meal because one of the group had just had a multiple by-pass. So what if the cake tasted like cardboard with rubber frosting?

So how hard could it be to produce a gourmet-quality meal entirely from ingredients produced within 100 miles of our rural New Glarus home? That was the challenge and we figured, except for the wine, no problem! It’s harvest time, after all, not January in Wisconsin (yet).

We were inspired by Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver, of course, but also by a 100-mile dinner we had in March at the Raincity Grille in Vancouver. Go to: http://www.dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=117

Let me say up front that the meal was fabulous, the table looked sumptuous and the conversation was, as always, sharp. But it turned out that everybody had a story about getting the food. Pollan and Kingsolver have written books – and made good money – out of the stories behind the food. I’m just writing a blog for free, so don’t expect that level of detail here.

The biggest shock was learning that what we thought should be local, wasn’t. Trader Joe’s cheese is imported. Whole Foods may be whole and fresh, but it’s not local. Brennan’s had local apples and cheese (we bought some award-winning Wisconsin cheddar), but the pears came from Washington, which required a menu change. Even our local metzgerai (Hosley’s meats) informed us that their meat comes from “a distributor” and they couldn’t vouch for its provenance. Thank goodness for the Willy Street Coop and the farmers market.

Dairy, of course, was no problem. Organic Valley, Blue Marble Farm and even Golden Guernsey fall well within the 100-mile compass, so there was plenty of butter and cream from cows that actually eat grass. Our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box from Tipi Farm near Evansville provided squash, parsnips, garlic and Brussels sprouts. Swiss chard and basil came from our own garden. Apples, potatoes, peppers, creamy goat cheese and even smoked Southern Wisconsin brook trout came from the farmers market.

Fresh eggs and free-range bacon were easy to find at Paoli Local Foods, which is a true Mecca for those who want to eat local and/or organic, and has the best bacon I’ve ever eaten. A conversation with Nancy Potter convinced us that Potter’s Crackers are made with as many locally sourced ingredients as a cracker could possibly be. To brighten up the table, we cut roses from our own garden, and also ordered a centerpiece from Daffodil Parker made with local flowers.

One of our stories concerned the beef. We are omnivores, after all. We considered using the beef we get from our local cowboy/farrier who raises Texas longhorns, but the tradition of the dinner group demanded something special, so we finally settled on beef tenderloin stuffed with chard, cheese and dried cherries. We stretched the 100-mile rule just a bit to enjoy cherries from Door County.

Getting the tenderloin illustrated the second problem with the local market – actually making the connection between farm and table, even after you’ve found the supplier. We ordered the tenderloin from Pecatonica Valley Farms in Hollandale at the farmers’ market a week before the dinner, but when we went to get it on the day of the event, it wasn’t there. The owner, John Lee, rather sheepishly explained that he had forgotten to put it on the truck that morning. While were still rapidly calculating the logistics of a last-minute menu change in our minds, John suggested that he would deliver the tenderloin direct to our home in plenty of time for dinner. Now that’s local! Thanks, John.

For more on this topic, check out Mary Bergin’s Local farmer, meet local chef in The Capital Times at http://www.madison.com/tct/entertainment/253804.

For the apple cake dessert, we found locally grown organic flour from Brantmeier Family Farm in Monroe. Surprisingly, even the wine didn’t turn out to be the problem we feared. Everyone independently discovered Wollersheim wines made in Prairie du Sac with Wisconsin-grown grapes. Entirely drinkable, as they say.

What wasn’t local? The aforementioned cherries from Door County and maple syrup from Maple Hollow in Merrill were a stretch of the 100-mile rule, but still local to Wisconsin. We couldn’t resist offering New Glarus beer, since it’s made just from over the hill from our home, even though we know the hops come from around the world and even the grain probably isn’t local either.

The hard core of not-local came down the kinds of things that have launched fleets of trading ships for centuries: coffee (fair trade in this case), seasonings and olive oil. If there’s a local source for cooking oil, we didn't find it.

And the people. Our food certainly traveled less than the average 1,500 miles to our table, but that doesn’t mean our carbon footprint was negligible. To get all our guests to the dinner required 150 vehicle-miles. A couple of trips to the farmers market and other venues for us made another 100+. Not counting our guests’ travels in search of ingredients or the
various farmers’ trips to the farmers market. Or, stepping back another layer, not counting the original inputs that went into growing the food to begin with.

So was it some kind of environmental virtue that drove us to this experiment? Not really. In the end it was those primal human urges: the pursuit of good food and good companionship. Both were well satisfied on this particular Saturday night.