On the tray, fresh crab, shrimp, mussels, drawn butter, ciabatta bread, cole slaw and fruit salad all demanding my attention.
All this food is local and sustainable. Though heavy with protein, the meal is nutritious. The vegetables and fruit come from local farms and can be frozen for winter availability. The seafood is caught by Tony himself, on his boat, on the morning of this meal.
This kind of local food, freshly prepared, should be available every day.
The truth is quite different. In urban areas, food displayed in supermarkets has traveled many miles, often frozen and thawed; meat and seafood may come from many sources; vegetables from many farms. Today's housewife is conflicted about the safety of the food she purchases and serves her family.
Many diseases and bacteria infections have been associated with food production. Remember the latest peanut butter and spinach and tomatoes e-coli outbreaks?
What to eat is a major problem.
How did we manage to send a man to the moon?
37 comments:
Local food is always best :-)
Wizz
This my idea of a perfect meal. Completely delicious, healthy and local. You are right.
This looks wonderful! I'm all for local food, too! Cheers!
Great post. We are doing a unit on sustainability and food in my class right now. The students watched Food Inc, analyzed the arguements, and are now drafting a persuasive essay on one of the topics.
But me? I want to go have the seafood pltter in your neck of the woods.
That looks sooooo good! The best we can do around here is Red Lobster ... and somehow I don't think it's the same!
Believe it or not, I don't care much for crabs--too much work, and I don't like clams. I do like lobster though!
That does look good. We have a seafood store here in Wharton where they have their own boat and sell their own catch.
I have always eaten fresh, not frozen or canned and that is what I cooked for my family. Other groceries I always tried to find the product with the least additives because feeding my family organic was beyond me financially. Now I am trying to eat not only fresh but local and in season. I don't buy food from other countries except Mexico which is closer to me than parts of the USA. You would think that it would be easy to buy produce grown in your own state. Not. Why can't I buy food grown in Texas? Because they can get better prices for it elsewhere. I am finally starting to grow some of my own food.
It is a great responsibility to choose wisely. I am getting fussier and fussier about what I buy, but still there are hidden lurkers and labels being misleading etc.Feeding my children is one of the greatest stresses of my day.
BTW, your platter looks so YUMMMMMMMYYYYYYYY.x
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, no offense, but you can keep the seafood! :) I will, however, take that bread roll! :)
That looks like a wonderful meal. I could eat that sort of thing all the time. Yum! Fresh, local-grown/caught is certainly the best.
I don't have a clue how we managed to send people to walk on the moon. Everywhere you look today is division, poor quality, bad customer service. I'm happy about your meal.
I think where we blow it is by not taking part in it....
what i mean by this is that we have become very distracted by a multitude of activities that we no longer know how to manage our food/diets ourselves and expect to have everything and anything available all year round.
If we ate what was in season and what is real food then we wouldn't have a lot of these concerns.
Maybe we're just greedy ;)
xx Robyn
I'm sure we are what we eat, (mores the pity for us city dwellers.)
You are so lucky to have the pristine fresh sea food.
Nuts in May
I suppose the safest is food we grow or raise ourselves. Not many are in a position to grow their own. Sustainability is important. Especially in water.
Oh Rosaria, that last question had me laughing. Me are half arse backwards, aren't we?
(I first read a bit of this while eating a fistful of candy. Sorry.)
xo
erin
(And before I click out, I think our food issues are all a part of a larger social problem that is becoming the fabric of our days, to be satisfied in our whims instantly. It has become a deserved thing - a dangerous thing.)
That fresh seafood platter looks divine! Yummm! Nothing like fresh and local and I am lucky in that way, too.
Fresh seafood is so yummy. Up here, 2000 kilometers from seashore it is not easy to find. I recall some scrumptious meals in our Prince-Edward Island province and in North Carolina's Outer Banks. I still salivate just writing about them...and with a nice Clos Ste-Odile, ah.....
Shouldn't have read this so close to lunch. It looks absolutely fresh and delicious. That is how we are supposed to eat! Locally grown and caught. What a treat and luxury... but it shouldn't be (a luxury).
Oh man, that looks divine! Wish I was back in Oregon right now!
We happen to live in an area chock full of growers, and I try to buy as much from the stands and famer's market as I can. There's something unappealing about fruit from thousands of miles away.
Saturday Farmer's Markets are the best!
That looks SO delicious! Yum!! Maybe I'll plan a seafood menu for dinner tomorrow. Hmmmm ....
hello, lakeviewer. we share the love a newly senior angel and i am glad to make your acquaintance.
i live in an area where most of the food is local: farms with vegetables and fruit and eggs. i agree with robyn that it's best to somehow be involved with the food we eat.
do you know trader joe's? it's certainly not all local but the food is healthy, reasonable, and quick ( need quick sometimes).
xoxo
kj
You are SO right!
Aloha from Hawaii my Friend
Comfort Spiral
YUM!! You are so lucky to live where you do, where the seafood and produce are profuse and fresh always and you are not dependent on megalithic super-grocery stores for your supper (even when they claim to carry organic produce & "local" could be anywhere). Sign me up for Michael Pollan's next lecture, but don't be too hard on the space program. After all, it gave us Tang ;)
That seafood platter sure looks tempting! :-)
Last night, I had dinner at a small place in the country. I was working on a project in the area and was happy to be able to have dinner there. The brother of the owner has a vegetable farm, and their cook does a fantastic job, preparing a medley of the finest spring harvest fit for a three star restaurant. I was a little taken aback though by his interpretation of Penne all'Amatriciana which was lacking tomatoes and was served with cream sauce instead! Well, he couldn't know that I was expecting the traditional Italian tomato sugo. I am contemplating of sending him a recipe, though, straight out of Ada Boni's "Talismano della Felicità ". *smile*
P.S.:
I am sorry for coming by so infrequently lately. I am back in school, my days are filled with projects and studying, besides being there for my family.
This looks so wonderful. I love seafood platters, especially when they are grilled, not fried. When I was in Florida last week for my cruise, the little hotel I stayed at the night prior to departure had the most fabulous Alaska snow crabs, two, for $8.99!!! The legs and the body. It was so incredible, I ordered two dinners.
((drool)) I adore shellfish, but have developed an allergy to it. Gosh, I could snarf up that tray of goodies in nothing flat!
Great post. Love the seafood platter. May have to make a trip to Bandon in May, when we are back in the area. It is so hard not to buy those grapes from Chili. Mostly I resist, but I have to admit to occasionally indulging. You live in such a rich place for organic fruits and veggies, not to mention seafood. Here in the mountains not much survives the winter - everything comes from somewhere else. Spring brings the farmers markets and more local foods. Can..not..wait!
Do you have a 100-mile radius initiative where you live? It is sometimes hard to eat food grown within a 100-mile radius, though. People ate only seasonally before processed, frozen and packaged food.
Seafood is my absolute favorite, and I'm so glad I live on the Pacific Ocean.
That platter looks wonderful!
I am very selective at the store. Local preferably, organic always.
Thanks for mentioning this!
That looks scrumptious! We're fortunate enough to live in an area where fresh local food is readily available, at least late spring through autumn. winter poses a challenge, but I freeze what I can from my garden to help.
OH YUM! i found it hard to read your post since i couldnt stop staring at the food. seafood is my favorite.
Local food always tastes so lovely here... but I'd be so scared to see how and where it's made!
Yummy! Often, photos of food leave a lot to be desired...but your photo looks absolutely enviable...and I see a Black Butte Porter, too! Oh, how I miss the brews of the NW, especially Pyramid Apricot Ale and Hair of the Dog Adam!
I love the last line :)!!
I quite agree with you. I've read a lot about this problem and there are so many factors and organizations involved. How to stem the problem? What can we do to make our government care more about the food that we eat?
Here in Italy, when I used to go to the local fruit, veggie and seafood market I assumed it was local. Boy was I wrong. I realized that they tell you what you want to believe.
It's a problem all over the world.
p.s. you live in a great place and you have a blog that really makes people think! I look forward to reading more.
Rambles with Reese
Post a Comment