Buying Locally Grown in a Humid Continental Climate

Ah, food.  This happens to be my favorite subject.  Approaching this part of the project, I thought it would be a breeze to only eat locally grown and produced food.  I’m only responsible for feeding myself, which allows for greater control and research into the food I’m consuming, and I live in a city with a breadth of residents on the relocalized*  bandwagon that are geared towards empowering restaurants, grocery stores, and winter farmer markets to source locally.  I figured some challenges I may run into include the increased expense of purchasing from a widely perceived boho**, yet yuppie-ish** grocery store that sells a lot of produce and other products from regional farms.  Also, the actual process of cooking itself.  This I will have to learn, and it will take time.  My experience so far has seen the fruition (pun not intended, but it’s staying) of a few assumptions, but also some other things have emerged . . .

One thing I’m psyched about is that I live near that perceived pricey grocery store that turned out to not deflate my wallet.  A few snips into the coupon leaflet proved to be beneficial as well as their clear signage reflecting the origin of each produce item they sell.  The countless free recipe cards next to vegetables that I had not known how to cook were an extra bonus.  Luckily, I acquired a crockpot over the Christmas season that has removed a lot thinking and time out of the food planning equation.   

What I was not prepared for was the surge in root vegetables in my refrigerator's crisper, and how it is entirely possible to get bored with eating parsnips and beets week after week.  Granted, I’ve never met a vegetable I didn’t enjoy sinking my teeth into, but I’m tiring of butternut squash, and how many times can I roast beets before my mouth is permanently stained?  It then dawned on me that I have to face the fact that I live in Massachusetts and what grows here can be limited during certain seasons.  Apparently, I am quite detached to what can be grown in my regional climate during the winter months.  Regional climate includes the bitterly cold, harsh, awful, soul draining and "snowmageddon" winters of New England.  

At this point my crockpot is bored with what is being thrown into it, so I’m learning new cooking techniques to jazz up parsnips.  The cooking and planning time challenge may have temporarily left the table, but it’s back, and most likely will be as new produce pops up with a new growing season upon us.  

Eating locally is connecting me deeper into the bioregional context of what grows and when during the year.  I’m sure that spring, summer and fall will have a new meaning as I taste my way through those months.  It makes sense to eat what’s in season, and closer to where you live simply because it’s fresher and therefore tastes better.  Steve Hancock from NorthStar Farm in Westport, MA echoes this sentiment in a statement he made to RadioBoston during Somerville Winter Farmers’ Market:

“When you can start growing plants that like cold weather, it intensifies the natural sugars  -– the flavors are totally different,”  Hancock said. “Even the textures are different. You get the benefit of having a really sweet carrot or a much sweeter Brussels sprout than if  it were grown in hot weather.” (Mauzy, 2011,March, 3)

I am longing for the days of ripe strawberries, zucchini, and summer squash.  This harsh winter is certainly intensifying my impatience for spring and summer, but in the meantime, anyone have any good recipes for these vegetables pictured below?

*Relocalized = building the resilient, healthy, just, diverse, sustainable, people-powered communities of our future (http://www.relocalizemassachusetts.org/)

**Boho = (derived from Bohemian) somebody who leads an alternative lifestyle, they are not hippies because they can have an extremely wide range of different tastes in music, fashion, art, literature etc they are usually very creative people. they are above all optimists, even if they can be very cynical too(it does make sense...sort of).  http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bohemian

***Yuppie = Informal for (y)oung (U)rban (P)rofessional, or Yup. turned into yuppie in the 1980's. A term used to describe someone who is young, possibly just out of college, and who has a high-paying job and an affluent lifestyle. Can now be used to describe any rich person who is not modest about their financial status. Yuppiedom (yuppie-dum)is a term used to describe an involvement in being a yuppie  (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=yuppie)

Mauzy, D. (Writer). (2011,March, 3). Farm to fork: somerville market provides fresh food all winter long [Radio series episode]. In (Executive producer), Radio Boston. Boston, MA: NPR.