Becoming a locavore

Eating close to home requires creativity

By Serri Graslie, Journal staff | Monday, August 04, 2008

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Lisa Sherrodd’s habit of eating locally started 10 years ago when she traded a computer for a goat.

Sherrodd, a web developer in Hermosa, gave a family in rural Montana a basic computer to help expand their horse business. In return, they gave her an elderly female goat named Daisy.

Sherrodd said that she initially welcomed Daisy’s milk as an alternative to the hormone-laden products at the grocery store for weaning her twin daughters. As time went on, she became more conscious of the distance the rest of her food was traveling and the impact that distance had on the environment and the food itself.

Today, Sherrodd is on her way to becoming a full-fledged “locavore.” The term, deemed the 2007 Word of the Year by the Oxford American Dictionary, is used to describe those who strive to eat locally produced food.

As followers of the “slow food movement,” locavores believe that fresh, area food tastes better and is healthier than what is found in most grocery stores. Locavores often cite a statistic that says the average piece of food will travel 1,500 miles before it reaches your plate.

“It’s a little frightening what they do to that food to make it travel that far,” Sherrodd said.

What’s “local” is determined on a personal basis. Some define their “foodshed”—similar to a watershed, only with food—based on the agricultural fertility of their area. Others set strict limits of 100-250 miles from their home.

Sherrodd said she doesn’t set specific distances for herself since finding an abundance of local food is harder in South Dakota than in California, for example.

“It’s just such a short growing season here that you have to think ahead and be creative,” Sherrodd said. “You have to eat in season, but it gives you something to look forward to.”

Knowing that she probably couldn’t find local sources for everything, Sherrodd first committed to making one meal a week entirely of local ingredients.

The concept was introduced to her with the “One Local Summer” challenge last year.

The rules from the sponsoring blog, Pocket Farm, were simple: Use as many local ingredients as possible in the weekly dish; permissible exceptions are oil, salt, pepper and other spices.

After talking with the organizer, Sherrodd narrowed it down into a 4:1 ratio of local ingredients to outside products. She said she still hasn’t found locally produced grains or flour. Milk is also hard to come by, but she can occasionally get some from a neighbor.

There have been some surprising finds, however.

While out looking for other things, she discovered Hosmer Noodles at Pop’s Grocery Shoppe in Hermosa, honey at the hardware store and a lime tree from Lowe’s.

For vegetables, Sherrodd looks to the Black Hills Farmers Market, various roadside food stands and her own garden.

The Sherrodds’ home west of Hermosa allows ample room for her ever-expanding plot. This year she has planted potatoes, tomatoes, beets, turnips, radishes, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, arugula, cucumbers, zucchini, onions, herbs and more.

For meat, she relies on her hunter husband, Mark, to get deer and elk. Occasionally she will get chickens raised by local Hutterites. She also has a side of grassfed bison in her freezer from Gordon Howie, who raises the animals on a ranch outside of Rapid City.

And if Sherrodd is ever short on protein, there is always nearby Custer State Park to fish for trout.

She tries her best to vary the meals. Last year she focused on a different ethnic region each week and made everything from kaldomar (a Swedish dish made of meat wrapped in cabbage) to gyros and ratatouille.

Sherrodd says quiche is often a fallback dish because local eggs are easy to find.

She also can count on having zucchini; it is the most plentiful item in her garden and the only produce to survive the large storm that pounded Hermosa last August.

In addition to varying the meals, Sherrodd tries to keep in mind what her family will eat.

Her daughters—twins Lora and Kayla, age 10—love vegetables but easily tire of quiche. She continues to keep them interested with kid-friendly foods like homemade bison pepperoni and homemade pop-tarts with rhubarb jam.

For the most part, however, the twins are happy to try new things and are excited about eating locally. Sherrodd said they keep her motivated to continue the locavore lifestyle.

“I want to put healthful food in their bodies without a lot of chemicals,” Sherrod said. They tell their friends and some of them think we’re nuts.”

But the girls don’t seem to mind.

Lora loves baking and reading labels. Kayla ate an entire bag of spinach on the way home from the farmers market one weekend.

Sherrodd thinks it’s feasible for anyone to eat locally—at least in some degree— it just takes some extra work and patience. She has set up a Web site, www.blackhillsfoodshed.com, to connect with other area locavores and to offer resources for those interested in trying it themselves.

And while Sherrodd tries her best to provide healthy local food, she knows that it’s not always possible.

“You just have to do the best you can and be conscious of it,” she said. “If my kids eat some Skittles when they’re out with friends, I’m not going to freak out about it.”

SIDEBAR

The meal Lisa Sherrod prepared on Monday, June 30, was representative of a typical locavore dinner that’s easy to prepare in early-mid summer when local produce is not as plentiful. Her accompanying wine was the 3Rednecks Cabernet from Prairie Berry Winery in Hill City.

Salad    

Sherrod used homegrown lettuce and radishes; onions and tomatoes from the farmers market.

Zucchini Soufflé (from www.allrecipes.com)

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

4 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 onion, chopped

2 pounds zucchini, peeled and diced

Salt and pepper to taste

Paprika

Chopped fresh parsley

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift flour and baking powder together into a bowl. Lightly beat eggs, and mix them into the flour with the oil. Stir in the onion and zucchini, and season with salt and pepper. Pour mixture into a well-greased 9-by-13-inch baking dish, and sprinkle with paprika and parsley.

Bake in preheated oven for one hour.

“Buffalo Steak really benefits from an overnight marinade to make it especially tender. I left out the jalapeno because the kids won’t eat anything too spicy and because I didn’t have any, but I am thinking it would add just the right amount of spiciness for an adult palate and they do grow pretty well around here if you plant starter plants,” said Sherrod.

She used local eggs, frozen zucchini from last year’s harvest, onions from the farmers market and homegrown fresh parsley.

Cilantro Lime Buffalo Steak (modified from recipe on www.allrecipes.com)

6 cloves garlic

1/2 red onion, chopped

2 limes, juiced

1 medium jalapeno chili pepper

2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves

1 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves

3/4 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons honey

3 pounds bison steak (Sherrod used T-bone steak.)

Sea salt to taste

Puree the garlic, onion, limejuice, jalapeno, thyme, cilantro, oil and honey into the bowl of a blender or food processor until the ingredients are well incorporated. Marinate the steak with 1/2 cup of the puree in a resealable bag overnight in the refrigerator. Reserve the rest of the puree to use later as a sauce.

Preheat a grill for medium-high heat.

While grill is warming, remove the meat from the refrigerator and let sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. Discard any marinade left in the bag. Liberally season the steak with the sea salt, and cook to desired doneness, approximately 4 minutes per side for medium-rare.

Sherrod used grassfed bison steaks from Gordon Howie, red onion and garlic from the farmers market, local honey and homegrown limes, thyme and cilantro.

Rhubarb Ice Cream (from www.sugarlaws.com)

4 stalks rhubarb, about 1-1/4 pounds

1 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup skim milk

Trim the ends of the rhubarb stalks and chop them into ½-inch pieces. Place the pieces in a saucepan with sugar and water on high heat. Boil the rhubarb for about 10-15 minutes, or until broken down with a jelly-type consistency. Remove the rhubarb from the saucepan, and blend or puree in a food processor until smooth. Place the pureed rhubarb in the refrigerator to cool for at least 2 hours.

Add cream and milk to the rhubarb and churn in an ice-cream machine for about 40 minutes, or until thick and creamy. Serve immediately, or freeze for a less-melty consistency.

Makes about 2 pints of ice cream.

Sherrod used homegrown rhubarb