Local Food in Unusual Settings

Yes, even local food can turn up in the most unusual of places.

Example #1

Royce Roberts, our Sous Chef here at Native Bay, called me early in the afternoon. He was standing in the woods and was pretty sure that he had stumbled upon a jackpot of laetiporus sulphureus -- better known in the culinary world as "chicken of the woods" mushrooms. I drove to meet him and, sure enough, we identified and harvested 8 pounds of these beauties (pictured above). Chicken of the woods have an incredible flavor and are named for their texture, which very much resembles that of chicken when cooked. At the restaurant, we often have to pay over $25/pound for these treasures and those usually come from across the river in Minnesota. But here we are with eight pounds of them for free, and they'll be hitting the menu tomorrow.

These mushrooms represent a tiny fraction of incredible wild foods that are growing in our region as we speak. In addition to at least 6 other varieties of fungus that are edible and ready to pick right now (and you thought morels were the only worthy variety), we've been fortunate enough in the last week to get our hands on wild grapes, plums and apples. Additionally, there's a host of other foods growing out in the wild that are just free for the taking. (I suppose now is a good time to add a word of caution that if you aren't certain the wild food you've found is edible, particularly with mushrooms, don't mess with it. This is a good way to get yourself sick or dead.) Just goes to show, fantastic local food isn't just at the farmer's market or the grocery stores.

Example #2

Speaking of which, I was on my way to my girlfriend's house to cook a big, fat vat of soup for dinner (all local, of course) when I passed a young boy sitting with a produce stand on a main drag here in downtown Chippewa. I turned around and stopped to chat with him. The boy was selling produce that was straight out of he and his mother's garden (he claimed that she did the planting, he did the watering and they shared in the weeding). Let me state publicly that there is hardly an experience that can bring you as much joy in our modern world as buying produce picked only a couple of hours earlier from a twelve-year-old on the side of a busy city street. I bought two huge cucumbers, three jalapenos and a pair of beautiful red bell peppers (the latter two ingredients of which immediately went into the soup pot -- which was delicious, by the way) and gave the kid $5, even though he only tried to charge me $3.


These are just a few small examples of what makes the Eat Local Challenge so exciting. I'd love to hear some other folks' experiences thus far...