Locavore is defined as:Someone whose diet consists of food grown or produced within an area most commonly bound by a 100-mile radius of their home. Locavores usually shun large supermarket chains, opting for farmer's markets and local gardens instead. It is also a current trend for many high-end restaurants as well.
This word was just declared Oxford American Dictionary's 2007 Word of the Year. It was coined in 2005 by a group of four women from San Francisco. It's also sometimes spelled localvores.
Is Locavore/Localvore a word you are familiar with?
If you are reading Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life" like I am, it's a word/concept I'm coming to understand more and more. We're getting together next Tuesday, 3/11 at 4pm to talk books and food. Everyone is invited to join us - whether or notyou've read the book - and talk about the concept of eating locally -specifically how to eat locally in Northern Minnesota. Maggie Montgomery will be on hand totalk about how she has been eating locally since last July.
Not only am I considering a more extensive garden this year, making cheese
has actually crossed my mind after reading the book! Kingsolver writes about the New England Cheesemaking Company where she learned to make homemade mozzarella and other cheeses. Have you ever made cheese? Let us know! What local food do you eat?
1 comment:
We always had a garden and chickens growing up; Weeding, feeding, watering & cultivating were all part of our chores. Even though I have always had a healthy understanding of where food comes from, over the years shopping at the grocery store has desensitized me. Reading Barbara Kingsolver's book, and tracking Maggie's local food odyssey, along with KAXE's local food programming have made me realize how disconnected I am with that sense of where things come from, or why they are coming from so far away when they are available locally. I don't have Maggie's gardening skills (I would surely starve if I only ate what I can grow) but these topics have really made me stop and think when I shop about where my food comes from, who profits from it, and do I really need it? The mango in my refrigerator gives me pangs of guilt every time I open the door....
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