50 miles

Has anyone every heard that eating local honey helps control seasonal allergies? This is a huuuuuge debate in my office lately, since I think it's hogwash, but I'm interested to know about the scientific backing, if there's actually any out there...


The point, though, is not seasonal allergies. Since mine are terrible this time of the year, the subject was at the front of my head... like, literally... when I told a bar patron last month that her cocktail, (made with vodka, rose cordial, sour apple juice, and honey,) was composed of ingredients sourced within a 50-mile radius. After I shot down her local honey shtick, we had a talk about locality that went basically like this:

"If you guys are all into fancy drinks, why don't you guys have raspberries or strawberries or anything? I like berries."

"Well, they're not quite in season yet. Not it this part of the West, anyway."

"You can get them at Win-Co."

"I know."

(awkward silence, which I really enjoy sometimes.)

"So you don't have anything on the menu that you can't get from like the Co-Op or something?"

"The goal is to feature things on the menu from our area that are in season because we're trying to develop a true Idaho-style of cocktail making, and because it's better for our city's economy."

Barring limitations with local liquor and citrus fruit, it is completely possible in Boise to work with ingredients that are mostly local. What happens when we do this is very multifaceted. We create a style of cuisine and drink that is truly regional, and we save fuel and money by working with purveyors that are close. Building relationships in a direct-source system is easier, too. Most suppliers will even agree to bringing products in reusable containers that can be taken and then refilled, thus reducing waste and saving money and resources.

The idea is not new. Cloverleaf Creamery in Idaho is now delivering milk to restaurants and grocery stores in reusable glass bottles, just like it happened before giant commercial dairies took over most of the cows and land. In feudal France, communities would trade and source all of their food within a day's walk. Everything that the home produced and was used in some way. (As an aside, I've always thought it strange that chefs trained in French techniques in modern-day America will put a pot of sauce on a natural gas burner and let it go for 12 hours as if they were cooking in a kettle over a fire of burning refuse, as in the origins of French cooking.)

As we build local community awareness of food systems through sustainability education, farmer's markets, and grocery co-ops, we should be watching the bar to follow suit. I am obviously not perfect at this; there are still plenty of components in my menus that could be traded out for something closer or omitted based on seasonality altogether... everything is a journey, and in a world obsessed with globalization, the jouney to a local food economy is a long one. Check out Farmer's Markets USA for information about a market in your area and to learn about community-based food systems.