A LOCAVORE'S WINTER DIARY
Mid-November
Carole Clark
ccSCOOP Guest Food Writer
It is the time of the locavore’s challenge! The locavore, or localvore, is someone who eats foods that are produced locally—usually with a 50-mile radius of where they live. Locavores buy from neighboring farms or farmers markets, sometimes grow their own foods, and patronize restaurants that buy locally harvested products. Locavores believe that fresh foods taste better and are more nutritious. Local foods are also environmentally friendly since foods trucked from far distances use more fossil fuels and nonrenewable resources. |
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The growing locavore movement in the United States also supports local food production as a means of strengthening local economies by protecting small farms and food-related businesses. Come the cold and snow, being a locavore becomes decidedly more challenging, and locavores are always on the look out for foods that are produced close to home.
Here in Columbia County, temperatures have fallen, snowflakes have appeared, and the barren brown farm fields are frosted, some littered with the errant pumpkin or stray apples. No more quick trips to the farm stands and farmers markets, which, for the most part, have closed for the season. Locavores, who choose to consume foods that are produced in Columbia County, are in an intense search for the remains of the autumnal harvest of fruits and vegetables. Local dairy, meat, eggs, and poultry are available all year, but many locavores favor a plant-based diet. |
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For the vigilant locavore, earnest foodie, and serious food shopper, there will be a great variety of produce for sale on this Saturday, November 22—the last day of the Hudson Farmers Market. The market is held at the corner of Sixth and Columbia streets from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Braising greens, salad greens, winter squash, potatoes, turnips, beets and broccoli rabe, cabbage, kale and apples, pears and mushrooms will be offered. Saturday is a good opportunity to buy local produce for your Thanksgiving dinner and to stock up on produce you can store for a while. Turnips, beets, rutabaga, cabbage, celeriac, and carrots can keep for months in the vegetable crisper of your refrigerator. Potatoes can keep until spring in a cool and moist place—in the vegetable crisper with the wet cloth at the bottom or some damp, cool place outside the refrigerator. Onions and garlic need to be kept cool and dry. You can store them in paper bags in the refrigerator. Acorn squash and butternut squash can be stored outside the refrigerator, in a dry place where the temperature is about 50 degrees. A spare bedroom where the heat’s turned down is ideal. A Thanksgiving staple, sweet potatoes are the most fragile of the potatoes and don’t keep very well. They should be kept in a warm and moist place and used within a month or so.
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Homegrown vegetables from Hudson Bush Farm
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As a veteran locavore, I am in search of local root vegetables in this time of year to complement my own just dug Jerusalem artichokes. My favorite preparations are root vegetable soup and roasted root vegetables. For Thanksgiving, my family loves roasted Brussels sprouts and root vegetable salmagundi. Another favorite is a mixed winter squash casserole, a lovely Thanksgiving alternative to my mother’s sweet potato pudding with melted marshmallows. If anyone misses the crusty, gooey marshmallows, they can go outside to the grill, thread a skewer with marshmallows, and pretend they’re toasting them over a campfire. With chocolate and graham crackers, you could even have a dessert alternative to Thanksgiving pumpkin pie: s'mores!
Even after the Hudson Farmers Market closes for the year, there are still places to buy local produce. Love Apple Farm in Ghent will stay open until November 30. Golden Harvest in Valatie stays open all year long, as do the Hawthorne Valley Farm Store in Harlemville and The Berry Farm in Chatham.
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