Fill your Thanksgiving table with local foods
Karen Stark has a challenge for all suburbanites: eat only locally produced meats, grains, fruits and vegetables this Thanksgiving.
It certainly sounds like a daunting task until Stark, a Geneva mom and coordinator of the town's winter farmers market, explains that within a 100-mile radius of the 'burbs you can find farmers raising free-range turkeys and beef, growing sweet potatoes and pumpkins and milling flour for biscuits and pie crusts. Cast the net a little wider and you can enjoy wild rice from Minnesota and cranberries from Wisconsin bogs and chestnuts from Michigan.
"We're fortunate being here in America's bread basket," Stark says. "I don't know of an ingredient that you couldn't get."
The notion of eating locally has been gaining momentum recently.
Explains Jim Slama, founder of Oak Park-based familyfarmed.org on the group's Web site, being a "locavore" supports local farmers and allows the regional economy to thrive; eliminates the need for long-distance trucking thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions and keeps you healthier because the sooner after harvest you consume food, the more nutrients it retains.
It's a no-brainer, right?
Stark sure things so and this year her group is backing up the challenge with some cash. It's offering one winner a $100 certificate to redeem with vendors at the Community Winter Market at the Inglenook Pantry in Geneva. And to make it even easier to for us to meet the challenge, market vendors on Saturday, Nov. 21, will have available a host of ingredients needed to create a bountiful feast.
Turkey hogs the spotlight on many holiday tables and there are a couple of options for local birds. Ho-Ka naturally raised birds from Waterman, west of Aurora, have been available in local stores for several years.
Portia Belloc-Lowndes, director at Heritage Prairie Farm in Elburn, puts a Bourbon Red on her table.
"Bourbon Reds were becoming extinct; to save a species, you have to eat a species," Lowndes says. She explains that Bourbon Reds (named for Bourbon County, Ky. and the bird's red plumes) are considered a "heritage breed," a term comparable to heirloom vegetables. Promoting heirloom vegetables and heritage turkeys maintains genetic diversity necessary for species to survive.
"This tastes like the turkey I grew up with; it's so much more flavorful. It hasn't been bred for the breast meat," she says.
Much has been made of the broad-breasted turkeys raised for the light meat; turkeys that cannot fly like their wild cousins because their wings are not strong enough to lift their double-muscled mass.
Indeed the 600-plus Bourbon Reds raised on Jim Caveny's farm in downstate Monticello can fly and eat fresh grass though they're contained in large pens to keep them safe from coyotes and raptors.
"Bourbon Reds were probably the most popular turkey eaten in the U.S. before the advent of broad-breasted turkeys," Caveny says. "There's clearly a keen and growing interest in people knowing where their food came from - how it was fed, how it was processed - and they want to know their farmer."
But the bottom line of his success comes down to taste. Says Caveny, "If they didn't taste good, I couldn't sell them."
<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Recipes</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=337554">Honey Riesling Bourbon Red Turkey </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=337560">Fall Cabbage Slaw</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=337559">Bread Stuffing</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=337558">Butternut Squash Apple Ginger Soup </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=337557">Cranberry-Apple Chutney</a> </li> </ul> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=337563">Thanksgiving - we do the math, you do the cooking<span class="date">[11/18/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=336896">As local food gains, local planners face decisions<span class="date">[11/18/09]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <p class="factboxheadblack">Where to buy local</p> <p class="News">While many suburbs host farmers market in the summer and early fall, only a handful operate such markets in the winter. If you want to get your hands on local turkey, squash, beets and more, here are some places you can go.</p> <p class="News"><b>Community Winter Market</b>, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays November through May. Inglenook Pantry, Geneva. <a href="http://genevagreenmarket.org" target="new">genevagreenmarket.org</a></p> <p class="News"><b>Grayslake Winter Farmers Market</b>, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays through December in downtown Grayslake. <a href="http://grayslakefarmersmarket.com" target="new">grayslakefarmersmarket.com</a></p> <p class="News"><b>Winters Farmers Market</b>, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays Dec. 6 and 20; Jan. 3, at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe. <a href="http://chicagobotanic.org/farmersmarket/index.php" target="new">chicagobotanic.org/farmersmarket/index.php</a></p> <p class="News"><b>Green City Market</b>, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays through December outside at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, 2430 N. Cannon Drive, Chicago. 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Jan. 16, Feb. 13 and 27, March 13 and 27, April 10 and 24 inside the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. <a href="http://chicagogreencitymarket.org" target="new">chicagogreencitymarket.org</a></p> <p class="News"><b>Immanuel Lutheran Church Indoor Farmers Market</b>, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 21, at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 616 Lake St., Evanston. <a href="http://ilcevanston.org" target="new">ilcevanston.org</a></p> <p class="News"><b>Portage Park Indoor Thanksgiving Market</b>, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 22, at the Portage Park Field House, 4100 N. Long Ave., Chicago. <a href="http://friendsofportagepark.org" target="new">friendsofportagepark.org</a></p> <p class="factboxheadblack">Locavore challenge</p> <p class="News">Eat locally this Thanksgiving, or come as close to 100 percent local as you can, and you could win a $100 gift certificate to the Community Winter Market in Geneva.</p> <p class="News">To participate, submit a 250-word essay discussing the experience of purchasing local ingredients as well as eating the meal to <a href="mailto:genevagreenmarket@gmail.com">genevagreenmarket@gmail.com</a>. The deadline is Dec. 1.</p>