Local April: A Quest to Eat Food from the Northeast for 30 Days
Have you ever slowed down in the grocery store to think about how all that abundance of food got there? Or wondered if it would be possible to support more small farmers, only to realize how hard that truly is? Farms are all around us, but for various (and complicated) reasons, it’s NOT always easy to buy + shop locally when it comes to groceries, especially at affordable prices. Now, I’m not an expert on our entire food landscape, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that many of the systems are very, very broken.
So… I’m on a little quest to see if I can eat hyper locally for the entire month of April. How did I decide to do this? Well, a couple of weeks ago we started a Spring Pantry CSA box (community supported agriculture) through Siena Farms here in Massachusetts. Most of the weekly produce includes sturdy root vegetables and some greens that can be grown in a greenhouse or over-wintered (like kale). But the box contains a lot! Enough basic produce to easily feed the two of us each week. We do need to supplement it with protein, grains, dairy, etc. But for the most part - our weekly grocery bill has gone way down.
All of this made me wonder…could I supplement everything else we need for the week by buying locally? As I write this, April is just around the corner. It seems like a good time to test this out and see what I learn! But first, a few caveats and definitions:
By “local” I mean Northeast — so I might get tofu from Maine; grains from New York; eggs, meat and cheese from Massachusetts (and so on).
We paid for our CSA for the entire Spring season up front - which is a huge privilege. I will break it down week by week, though, to share transparently how much each week ends up costing (including the weekly supplements). As of now (without supplements) it’s $31.25 per person, per week; roughly $2.08 per meal, assuming we get 15 meals out of it.
I love cooking, and I have time to cook most days (sometimes I prep a lot ahead of time on Sundays). But this is also a massive privilege. So many people these days have 2, 3 or maybe more jobs. Factor kids into the equation, and time is a real luxury.
I am giving myself a little grace by allowing myself to use whatever else is currently in the pantry and in the fridge. Any NEW food that I purchase as of April 1 will need to be local.
We may eat out a couple of times - and if so - will try to strive for restaurants that get most of their ingredients locally. For one family weekend trip… we’ll have to pause this for two days.
This won’t be perfect and probably won’t be easy, but I want to try. I keep reminding myself that this is how people ate for centuries! And I am taking lots of winspiration from Andrea Bemis, farmer and blogger at Dishing Up The Dirt, who did this a few years ago. Here’s her original post if you want to check it out (they even made a short film about it!). I’ll share everything along the way in case you, too, want to give it a go! As a start, here’s some information on finding local food and farms. Happy April, friends.