We came to the area as part of the 1960's Back-to-the-land movement and have worked toward a self-suppporting, sustainable lifestyle ever since. From the time our children were small and we raised dairy goats, rabbits, sheep and pigs, as well as the gardens, orchard and poultry we still have, we have gone from producing about 85% of our own food to about 70%. Given this advantage and all the fine food available in the large agricultural, multi-climate bio-region the Challenge allowed, it looked like an easy task. Nonetheless, there were many distinct changes we had to make.
September is a month of abundance in the garden, lots of food and lots of variety. Usually we eat Asian style stir fry with rice several times a week. But now we had no ginger root, no soy sauce, white pepper, fish sauce, peanut oil or other Asian seasoning. And no curries.
In fact, the greatest challenge of all was the lack of salt, pepper, spices (cumin especially!) and flavorings (vanilla), followed by butter (too lazy to make), flour, and other whole grains. I now know why people were ready to risk sailing off the edge of the earth looking for a shorter route to the Spice Islands!
Even with my salt "exception" I was reluctant to use it. I added no salt to food after cooking and, in fact, only used salt at all about 4 or 5 times the entire month. I experimented using only herbs and various homemade blends and condiments for seasoning. But no Spike, no pepper... this really was a challenge. I discovered that in our locale we have the ingredients to mainly eat Mediterranean cuisine. Some Mexican, but cumin was definitely lacking.
It would be wonderful if we had a local chicken producer. We ate our one meat bird (the rest perished en route from the hatchery) in August, not knowing we were going to take the challenge. A month without chicken is - well, different. We ended up eating much more beef than usual and, due to the Asian Stir-fry issue, less vegetarian meals as well!
On the other hand, we made many discoveries. From great local wine, meats, condiments, restaurants and new producers. Find this information is in my earlier posts.
We discovered that waitresses at restaurants, and sometimes the cooks, do not know where their food comes from, even if it IS local. It would be interesting to find out how much of the food trucked in is actually from farms in our bio region.
While I was glad to be a "Loophole Localvore", with the leeway to eat both locally harvested and locally produced foods, I found myself feeling guilty using foods with non-local ingredients. We ate less bread, less tortillas as the month wore on.
Now, back to "normal", we find we still eat mostly local food. Last night was stuffed bell peppers and cucumber salad, with only the butter, salt, and pepper being non-local ingredients.
I am probably going to continue to make sour cream and mayonnaise, newly inspired by how easy and delicious they are. We will definitely be more aware of who local producers are and which restaurants serve their fare as well.
All in all, there is a wealth of wonderful food available within our garden, our county and our seven county bio-region. We are truly blessed with abundance here.
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