In the first weeks that I started writing the Noshing Around column here at the Tucson Weekly, local food was the hottest thing going. But it wasn’t long before I started to smell bullshit in the air when people talked about it, and that smell lingers even today.
It pains me greatly to say that. I grew up on a small farm where we raised and butchered goats, grew our own vegetables, dried chamomile, made cheese and did all the other things that a family must do to feed six kids, two adults and dozens of animals. I learned to respect food because I saw how much it took to create food, and that respect is something I still feel on a visceral level.
That part of me is listening when a new restaurant proclaims a dedication to local food, and that part of me gets more than a little pissed off when I learn that that restaurant is not being forthright about where most of the food it sells comes from. A suggestion to these restaurants: It would be wise to pay the farmers you reneged on and to tell customers what your actual commitment to local food is. They will eventually find out and they are not going to be happy about it.
This is not to discount the great work being done by the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, River Road Gardens, Dos Manos Farm, Sleeping Frog Farms, Food Conspiracy Co-op and the growing number of people raising food, sharing food and working to try to take back some control over what we eat. You are my heroes and I will support you until the end.
But as I was driving back from a 3 to 11 p.m. shift at my other job last night I got hungry and I finally broke down and got an order of French fries from the Carl’s Jr. on the way home. I was tired – like so many of you are after busting your asses just to make ends meet – and it tasted very good and was very cheap. I suddenly felt guilty for this lingering snobbery I’ve been harboring about industrialized, processed food.
Local food is still a privilege of those who have the time to seek it out and the money to afford it, and often it seems like it’s used more as a marketing tool than anything. Maybe that could change someday, but it feels very naïve and snobbish to act – and write – as if local food is going to change the world. When working people can order a grass-fed, local burger topped with locally raised lettuce off a dollar menu, maybe, but until then it’s more like a ripe apple dangling high in a tree, beautiful to behold but, alas, out of reach.
This article appears in May 17-23, 2012.
I agree with what you are saying.The thing is that living in the desert limits us. Local food is a little harder to produce in huge quantities. For a restaurant to purchase say enough local tomatoes to serve on a daily basis can be difficult.
What I don’t understand is why the specific sources aren’t listed on the menus or on a board somewhere. I know that a few places that do so, but even then in small numbers.
The big time restaurants in NYC all list the farmers, growers and foragers they work with.
I think this would go a long way to bridging the gap.
I agree too. .when it gets down here to the prices the “little people” can pay.. it will take off. But, so long as only the rich can afford it, its out of my reach.
Federal agricultural subsidies make certain things, like corn and beef, a lot cheaper and more profitable to grow/raise than without the subsidies. That lowers the “true” price of food at fast-food restaurants, which have made an industry based around things like corn and beef. There are advantages to mass-produced food, but not all of them are inherent advantages compared to locally grown food.
As rconnelly notes above, producing food locally in the arid Sonoran desert–especially for larger scales typically necessary to make portions affordable–is a real challenge. One place that does this well, albeit in a more fecund region, is Burgerville, which is a fastfood chain w/ about 40 locations throughout Oregon and Washington. Here’s info on where they source their food, with notable reliance on (and providing a substantial market for) Oregon Country Beef: .
Prices are on par with, if not just *slightly* higher than multinational fast food joints, as you can see on this menu: .
Closer to home, and on a much smaller scale, the Desert Rain Café, in Sells, models excellent and fairly affordable ways that local, traditional foods feature centrally into menu items: . That café’s long-term vision is to integrate many of those foods into local school menus, to counteract longstanding health issues within the Tohono O’odham nation. I don’t know if that café’s been featured in the Weekly before, but it certainly deserves a visit, if not even some publicity! While Desert Rain wouldn’t be at all convenient when you need to grab some fries on the way home from an evening shift, it’s worth checking out as an notable convergence of agricultural, ecological, cultural, culinary, and public health goals.
All to say, I totally agree w/ your reflections on the potential elitism of local food sourcing/fetishizing, at the same time that I wanted to throw out some examples of how places like Burgerville have mindfully worked w/ economies of scale to make it more affordable–and to provide substantial markets for folks who are producing food ethically. Thanks for bringing this conversation to the Tucson Weekly. (And no, I’m not affiliated w/ either Burgerville or Desert Rain; I’m just intrigued by similar questions.)
Also, I know many folks take it as a given that local food is better for the environment, but, in a climate like ours, I’m not sure you can just assume this to be true. Also, I’m not even sure how you compare the impact of shipping food in (gasoline, air pollution) to the strain on our water table from irrigation. The one thing I think we can take on faith is that the most environmentally-friendly food is locally-produced *native* foods: particular varieties of corn, beans, squash, etc. Very different from the produce being grown at many local farms today.
Desert Rain Cafe is impressive on various levels. They use at least one indigenous ingredient in every dish, the chef is incredible, they are committed to their community and the mesquite cookies are weighty and perfect. They also do a good business out there in Sells, which, in and of itself, is impressive. I’ll have to check on the Burgerville model. I think a real game-changer would be a commitment by schools, hospitals or other entities in a “farm-to-institution” model. I recently asked a big player in Tucson’s local food world what it would take to move things to the next level and her response was, “I’m not really sure. Farmers are going to have to start growing a lot more and there’s going to have to be a better way of getting it out there than people walking by your stand at a farmers’ market, playing with your produce for a few minutes and walking away.”
i think you are also right, we are years away from reaching that apple. i think it takes years if not decades to re build a regional/local food system. we are totally dependent on mass produced food (corporations) i do think that we are working on building the infrastructure to have a just local food system accessible and affordable to all. the main thing i would suggest to everyone is: if you are really interest in creating a career from farming, start doing it! WE NEED MORE FARMS AND FARMERS!
A commitment to personal and environmental health and a desire for honest food is not snobbery. If you made the dog shit in my yard taste appealing, I still wouldn’t want to eat it.
Excellent point in that this local and organic thing is tough to pay for and growing your own costs a lot too. Those who say we just have to arrange our priorities are oblivious to those who really do not have a choice. We are making strides though and the more that buy local creates demand. I detest the “green washing” but I detest the snobbery that DOES exist.
Food snobbery is not exclusive to the local movement. Vegans, vegetarians, grass-fed beef, you name it; there is some level of food snobbery in any food movement.
Heck, I lived with vegetarians who cut absolutely no slack to meat eaters.
It’s just human nature.
The local food movement is BS. Food should be grown where conditions make it most economical and efficient to grow it. If we stopped shipping food around the country, the highways and train tracks would still be buzzing with traffic.
Really? I have never witnessed anyone reach an epiphany as a result of Carl’s Jr. french fry’s.
I rather enjoy food snobbery however.
In Bisbee one of the elementary schools has a garden so that kids learn early how food is grown. They learn a lot of things from tending a garden, for that matter. Just to mention a few things: Cooperative gardens, learning how simple it is to grow at least some of your own food, local farmers dedicated to growing healthy food–its all necessary, not just one thing. We can’t expect farmers to make nothing for their labor. If huge agribusiness can get subsidies, so should small farmers.
You smell shit in the air….probably lingers around your gas hole
I think it’s a catch 22 kind of issue. To really produce the amount of food necessary requires more farmers and/or bigger farms (that aren’t just growing durum wheat and cotton). For there to be more farmers and bigger farms usually requires a demand – a local demand, in this case. So, where/how do you begin?