From Farm to Table

Farm to table... unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve been hearing about this movement dedicated to producing food locally and delivering that food to the consumer, who is now being called a locavore. Locavores celebrate locally produced food and products that are not moved long distances to market. We’re talking locally grown fruits, vegetables, herbs, and locally raised animals.

After years of importing ingredients from around the world, even having certain mushrooms or exotic fish flown in overnight, chefs are embracing the farm-to-table movement. For this, the conscientious consumer is grateful: less flying and driving means less fuel consumption; local produce is not treated with chemicals to protect it during delivery, nor is produce picked while still “green” so that it can ripen during transport; and, simply, local produce is fresher and tends to taste better.

Many local farms have seen a dramatic increase in business thanks to this farm-to-table movement, including home cooks who shop regularly at farms and farmer’s markets and, especially, restaurant chefs who often cite on their menus which farms are providing key ingredients in each dish. Farmers must get a very special feeling when they see something prepared by a local chef and can recognize that squash blossom, that cut of meat, that perfect oyster as something they harvested earlier that same day. Here are examples of that rewarding experience from four local chefs.