How Chattanooga's restauranteurs have embraced local sourcing
It’s hard for me to talk about the “farm-to-table” movement without remembering the weekends my family would pile into our 1971 Pontiac Grand Prix and ride to the “curb market” just off of 11th Street.
Farmers lined the concrete docks, sitting on the back of their trucks, acknowledging you with an almost imperceptible nod as you eyed bushel baskets of Silver Queen corn, purple runner beans, and carefully filled pint baskets of bright yellow summer squash, deep red tomatoes, watermelons, cantaloupes, and other seasonal vegetables.
This usually meant I would be conscripted to help string, shuck and otherwise prepare these vegetables for canning, freezing or “puttin’ up”—but I loved it. I loved wandering the aisles of the curb market, I loved choosing just the right produce from the piles of potential candidates, and I loved sitting on my grandmother’s screened-in porch on red, lattice rockers and prepping vegetables until my hands “just tuckered out.” I loved it because when I dug into a meal that included that Silver Queen corn or those bright yellow squash, I had a connection from the farm to my plate.
I didn’t become aware of the phrase “farm-to-table” until I visited Chattanooga’s now shuddered “212 Market” in the early ‘90s. I was unaware of Alice Water’s groundbreaking restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley. I had given virtually no thought to Carlo Perini’s Slow Food Movement. At that point, I didn’t even know who Jeremiah Tower was. Like most of us, I had lost my connection to the sources of my food. Sure, I intellectually knew food came from farms, but over time I had become removed from it in the most practical of ways—I couldn’t tell you how my dinner got from the farm to my plate.
Now, almost thirty years later, you would have to have been living under a Golden Corral-shaped rock to not feel the effects of the farm-to-table movement. National chains like McDonald’s and Wendy’s jumped on the locally-sourced food marketing bandwagon long ago, and some local restaurant menus go to absurd lengths to reassure diners of the provenance of their ingredients, detailing the type of feed, parental lineage, birthday, favorite color and name of the chicken you’re having for dinner (last night I ate Colin—he was delicious).
But in spite of attempted hijackings by corporate marketing departments and the absurd lengths some restaurants have resorted to, farm-to-table has very honorable roots. When some of the first restaurants began listing the names of farms on their menus in the early ‘70s, it was to help people re-establish the link between the farms, seasons, and flavors of the food being served. They wanted to credit every link in the chain of events that led to the meal being served.
The philosophy at the heart of the farm-to-table movement is the belief that food should be produced by local farms and delivered directly to restaurants. “People love feeling a connection to their food, and seeing a farmer’s name on the menu gives them that connection,” says St. John’s Executive Chef Rebecca Barron. “We mistakenly believe that it’s this new, hip thing, but consider Alice Waters: the grandmother of farm to table cooking. She’s been a living example of it at Chez Panisse since 1971.”
There is, however, no single agreed upon definition that restaurants have to adhere to in order to label themselves a farm-to-table or farm-to-fork establishment.
Ocia Hartley, owner and Executive Chef of Syrup & Eggs explains that, “The words “fresh” or “natural” do not mean local, I want to see the name of the farm and perhaps which specific items your business supports using. We use the local products that make sense cost wise and will elevate the guest’s eating experience. Chattanooga maintains reasonable prices on eggs, local pork, mushrooms, herbs, and flowers that all come from within 30 miles of our restaurant.”
But after thirty years, has the farm-to-table label been drained of any real meaning? Have restaurants and supermarkets overused the term, turning it into another hollow buzzword like “naturally flavored” “responsibly grown” or “farm fresh?”
Has farm-to-table simply become a trend capitalizing off the concerns of consumers who have become “woke” to issues with sustainability, supply chain transparency, animal welfare, and the effect of local food chains on local economies, food nutrition and health?
Reducing farm-to-table to simply a trend doesn’t do the movement justice. Using locally sourced ingredients, like the ones I grew up picking from the curb market and roadside vendors, was the norm prior to the wave of processed, convenience foods taking over grocery store shelves. Americans became enamored with convenience over nutrition while obscene amounts of fat, sugar, and salt made their way into the typical American diet behind a deceptive veil of effortless preparation. When the inevitable health and lifestyle consequences began to surface after decades of unhealthy eating, a new attitude came to fruition and farm-to-table began making real food cool again.
The farm-to-table movement has essentially mimicked the trajectory of the modern organic food movement, which really began to get traction in the ‘70s and has experienced phenomenal growth in the years since. For decades, organic food was a niche product confined to a small section in the supermarket, where patchouli reeking hippies and bubble boy moms would shop for cruelty-free chia seeds and free-range Himalayan mustard seed sprouts. Fast-forward to 2018 and “all organic” supermarkets are commonplace across the country. We’re seeing a similar trajectory for locally-sourced, farm-to-table foods.
In fact, the National Restaurant Association (the other NRA) reports that one in five consumers are willing to pay more for local food, 41 percent say locally sourced ingredients influence their choice in restaurants, and items related to locally sourced foods have been in their top 5 consumer spending categories for the last five years.
In our region, the concept behind the farm-to-table movement has been an easy sell to most customers, but creates challenges for restaurants that want to embrace it.
“It’s a lot of work to have five farmers’ numbers in your phone in addition to your broadline produce provider,” explains Nathan Lindley, owner of Public House in downtown Chattanooga. “It’s easy to say but hard to do. However, smart diners know the difference between a local tomato that was picked two days ago and has never seen a refrigerator versus a hot house tomato that was gassed to make it turn pink.”
Buying locally produced food requires a lot of extra effort from chefs and owners, while placing additional demands on local farmers. Purchasing local food means developing a supply chain different from the one used for procuring widely-distributed foods, requiring both buyer and seller to be open to new ways of doing business. Buying locally raised meat, for example, typically depends on creating personal relationships with the farmer and butcher that require close coordination and frequent communication along the supply chain—this is in addition to the long list of other duties pulling at the time of a busy restaurant manager or chef.
Restaurants also face the limitations of the local food supply because of seasonality. While farms in California are able to produce year-round, for regions such as the South (along with the majority of the US) not every farm can produce crops or supply animals year-round. This means chefs must juggle the time and resource intensive process of dealing with multiple suppliers throughout the year and adjusting menus to adapt to the reality that the local versions of some products, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, are sometimes only available during certain times of the year.
To meet these challenges, some restaurants have begun to start their own farms to provide ingredients for their restaurants, calling this approach “farm-to-table 2.0.” In urban areas, this can mean gardening in nontraditional spaces, like rooftops and small, empty areas of the restaurant’s lot using hydroponics and aeroponics to grow a variety of fruits, grains and vegetables. Although this requires some special equipment to keep plants stable and healthy, it can also produce high yields that can more effectively meet the demands of a popular restaurant.
Here in the Tennessee Valley, the difficulties and challenges of offering locally sourced foods is not just worth the extra effort, it’s part of the tradition that so many of us grew up with—those exciting trips to the curb market; the overall clad elderly gentleman I only knew as Mr. Dotson that would come around to my grandmother’s house in his sputtering Chevy 3100 pickup, drop the tailgate, and offer up beautiful produce straight from his farm; the days spent at my extended family’s farm, picking corn and digging potatoes until my hands were sore and my fingernails spackled with mud—those memories are front and center when I eat locally produced foods and they remind me once again of the connection I have to my food, whether I call it farm-to-table or not.
Mike McJunkin is a native Chattanoogan who has traveled abroad extensively, trained chefs, and owned and operated restaurants. Join him on Facebook at facebook.com/SushiAndBiscuits