This is the inaugural installment of a segment called Hunt and Gather.
I am going to briefly touch on the concept of "source to plate".
I have not read Michael Pollen's "Omnivore's Dilemma", but I have caught striped bass out of the back of a boat and I will challenge all sashimi devotees not to fall for a slice of raw striped bass belly drizzled with lemon juice, held with the calloused hands with which you landed the fish minutes before.
I define "source to plate" as the continuum and resources involved that bring your meal from earth, air or sea to your stomach.
And why should we care?
There are a lot reasons: environmental, economic, medical... but for our purposes, the answer is simple.
The shorter the distance between the harvest and your plate, the better tasting the meal is.
Writer Bill Buford has made an obsessive and quixotic second career out of shortening the distance from the farmer to his plate.
The superior quality of a "source to plate" meal comes from the sharpness of flavor that immediate freshness brings to meat or vegetables. Equally important is the context that local food provides to what is on your plate. By the sea in the summer, fresh mussels and sweet corn. Fall in the hills, apples and squash. Little Italy in September, friend dough and heartburn.
It is at this point in essays like this that the reader is instructed to forsake the chain grocery store and commanded to join a food Coop or rely on the local farmer's market for all sustenance.
"Only eat food from within 100 miles from your home."
"Buy only organic vegetables and grass fed beef."
"Don't buy beef, just buy grass."
The ability for most of us to command source to plate is difficult to impossible. I catch a couple of fish a year, don't hunt and the vegetables I grow are anemic and hard to come by. Equally, our opportunity to buy directly from farmers is challenging and often expensive.
The intent of the "source to plate" series is not to be didactic or scolding, but to explore the relationship between producer and consumer and to encourage a familiarity with the sources of our food.
Upcoming installment: "Fresh mozzarella salted with the tears of a widower"
1 comments:
As witness to the events of that "source" making its way to my "plate" and subsequent digestive track, I have to ask two questions... both of which pry at the journalistic integrity of the LBP:
1. Why isn't Dave's video linked to this article?
2. Why are there no documented shots of the fish post digestion?
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