Eating Locally Throughout the Off Season

As a follow up to our article in the Guide To Good Health publication, we have put together some resources for eating locally after the farmers markets have closed down and the ground is frozen.

Preserving your food for the winter: The National Center for Home Food Preservation has a very comprehensive list of preservation techniques and instructions on how to carry them out. You have go to their web site if you want to learn how to preserve your food or even if already know a few techniques.

They talk about the different methods of canning: methods you should and shouldn't use, methods for different types of produce, safety methods, and even a troubleshooting guide.

They talk about more than canning! Here is their list of topics:

• Can


• Freeze


• Dry


• Cure & Smoke


• Ferment


• Pickle


• Make Jam & Jelly


• Store

Buying Fresh Local Products: My mouth is watering thinking about the last organic grass fed beef burger I ate from Ron Gargasz's farm. I can only imagine how much I would be drooling had this burger been in chili and I had just come in from some outdoor activity that occurred in two feet of snow... I'm just glad that you can purchase local meat in bulk. I got an 1/8 of a cow from Ron and it only filled up 3/4 of my small freezer. There was 18 lbs of ground beef in 1 lb bricks. They looked smaller than what you usally get in the store, but that's because it's not shot full of air and layed out over a pan of styrofoam. So you can easily fit 1/8 of a cow into your freezer.

Other local products that you can buy during the winter are bread, flour, eggs, cheese and milk. Someone from a local apple orchard told me they preserve apples over the winter by placing them in a storage container and continually removing the gas that contributes to the decay of apples.

Some farms have greenhouses that they operate throughout the winter. Off the top of my head, I can think of Mung Dynasty and Milestone, both local to Pittsburgh. Mung Dynasty grows a variety of sprouts, while Milestone grows specialty produce through a hydroponic system.

Patronizing Local Restaurants: Although we should all strive to eat at home as much as possible, if you are going out to eat, there are several restaurants in the Pittsburgh area that use local food within their menu. A big one in my mind is the Big Burrito Group and they have several different types of restaurants. Also Six Penn Kitchen in downtown Pittsburgh is a beautiful restaurant and they are owned by the Eat n Park Hospitality Group. Both chefs from these restaurants came to our first Farm to Table conference.

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette has a good article entitled "Restaurants here serve up trend of buying —and eating —locally", written by my favorite local journalist, Marlene Parrish. Marlene states:

There are about 50 restaurants and chefs in Western Pennsylvania buying fresh, local and seasonal products. Purchases can be as homespun as potatoes and onions or as upscale as micro greens and cheeses. These chefs are agents of change, because by working together with farmers, they allow their customers to experience local food in a way that they couldn't do in their own homes.

We have more local food resource listings on our Farm to Table page. If you have a favorite, send her in and we'll post it on our blog or on the Farm to Table page.