I wrote this back in late April/early May and have neither edited it nor published any version of it since.  I’ve left it here in its unedited form (read: straight up rant version that a lot of writing starts with) because this is a topic I feel passionately about, and that’s conveyed in the words below.  Please forgive grammatical/spelling errors, but I wanted to share it now finally.  Thanks for coming on this journey with me 🙂

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Everything that’s happened has exposed the food supply rigidity in our country; for example how we’ve cornered our farmers into producing large amounts of corn and soy, etc.

So when all this (covid) happened, and we needed to pivot our supply chain, we couldn’t.  As a result good food is now being dumped because, in a nutshell, we didn’t have the flexibility to shift tracks when we needed to.

In response, I’ve seen a lot of emerging messages talking about buying and supplying only local.  The idea sounds romantic in theory, however we need to really think on that one; how viable is this option?  It was a few years ago but even at the small/middle size restaurant I used to work at we sourced almost everything local.  We made everything from scratch; stocks, sauces, you name it.  It was incredible to be a part of that process and see it work; and see how much work it took to accomplish.

But, we were small enough to do it and we weren’t a chain.  We got chickens in every week, about 40 of them, and broke them down into what they needed to be to serve.  We got a lamb in every week and broke it down.  We sourced local veggies and made a seasonal menu.

It sounds beautiful, but it worked because we were a small/medium restaurant.  We probably wouldn’t have been able to do it on a large chain scale, both because it would have been a massive workload and I’m not sure the local suppliers would have been able to keep up.

More, the second reason.

One of my points here being, it’s easy to say “buy local” and then feel all warm and fuzzy inside cause we said it, but is that realistic in all cases?  Do we support local farms enough, do they produce enough, to be able to supply all of our favorite restaurants?

This is the cake and eating it too, part.  We don’t want any of our restaurants to change their menus; we don’t want any of them to disappear.  But we want them all supplied locally.

We want all dishes available at all times of year, instead of eating seasonally.  Local farmers aren’t going to be able to give us strawberries in February so…. are we ready for that?

Are you ready to say: I fully support going local, which means there may be less dishes available, when they sell out they sell out, and I’ll have to eat seasonally?

Because that’s a good part of what it means; fully supporting their growing schedule.  It means smaller protein portions because there just isn’t the local supply to take on the crazy 8-10 oz serving sizes we do for some reason in this country.  It means eating different kinds of veggies we may not be used to on a winter growth schedule.  It means supporting restaurants that do this, even if the dishes aren’t the classic ones we’ve come to enjoy.  It means paying the real cost of producing food, not artificially low production costs driven by large chains that independent farmers can’t compete with.

It means, our favorite dish won’t always be available at our favorite restaurant at a moment’s notice.  At our fingertips, all the time.

That constant availability is one of the reasons for the rigidity of our food system right now, and we’re starting to see the results of that inflexibility.  However we can’t fully blame the system for it, because in the end they flex to what we want.

So, if we’re ready to go out to eat, and just enjoy what’s in season, then we can support this.  If we’re ready to say, yes, I’ll support local farms, I’m willing to eat what’s available locally, and not demand the same dishes daily, then we can support this.

If we want to return to a world where every chain restaurant across the nation has the same menu, then we can’t.  Then we’re back to the world of mass supply chains that fall in on themselves (and really hurt one of our most valuable assets, farmers) when a national/global change like this pandemic happens.

We’d be going back to a world of health problems and disconnection, back in the rat race of destinations instead of enjoying the journey.

This is a GOOD movement.  Let’s get behind it, and try to support what it really means– eating real food.  Seasonally.  At a chef’s discretion.  Let’s let eating out be an enjoyable, but unpredictable experience.  Is predictability really all that important?  What’s the cost of it?

I believe, fully in my heart, that if we could all shift our mindsets- to both pay realistic prices and be open to daily, seasonal menus, we could do this.  AND I think it would be better for us!!!  Not to mention fun.

I’m not sure eating out was ever meant, or started, to be a partial or complete substitution for home-cooking.  It would be cool if we could shift our mindset and view it as the treat it is, and leave the (seasonal) predictability at home.

But.  That’s not where we are right now, and like I mentioned some of it is our fault as consumers.  We demand low prices, lower than is what’s reasonable for what we’re eating, and we want everything available all the time.  And we want it all local to make ourselves feel warm and fuzzy inside.  (But secretly, we’re ok if it’s not local as long as we get to have a plethora of options on our menu right?  As long as we can switch restaurants and cuisines to suit our pallet at a moment’s notice?)

This change is going to start with US.

It’s not, hey you farmers and restaurants go figure it out, its us.  They are going to do what they can to meet demand to stay in business, so we need to change our demand.

We need to say, you guys support local farmers, and we will support you, even if it means changing our expectations and how we eat.  We need to say, I will eat seasonally, and be ok if a restaurant 86’s a certain dish because it’s sold out, because local farms can only support so much.

Right now at least, until we can get this process ironed out.  But we are the people who switch the iron on in the first place.  We are the driving force, the safety net, the parent who says yes climb that as high as you can, and stands underneath silently just in case.