His message was much the same this year when he spoke at the Monterey Bay Aquarium\u2019s Sustainable Foods Institute a few weeks ago.\u00a0 Speaking on a panel called \u201cThe Future of Food: Scaling Down,\u201d Chef Keller made the distinction between geographically local and temporally local food.<\/p>\n
That is, he personally considers local food to be anything that he can get at his doorstep within one day of harvest \u2013 even if that means flying that product overnight from across the country.<\/p>\n
Here are some excerpts from Keller\u2019s comments on the panel:<\/p>\n
When I started cooking, 32 years ago sustainability wasn\u2019t something that was talked about. And, being a chef, the kind of chef that I wanted to be, was about quality number one: quality of product, quality of execution, quality of experience for the guest.<\/p>\n
It all rested on the highest quality that I could produce. For me as I went through my career, I came to understand where our product came from and where the best products came from, the term local changed for me. So it wasn\u2019t about a geographical location, it was about quality of the product.<\/p>\n
If we could get great lobsters from Maine everyday at my back door, then for me that was a local product. If I could get the best lamb available from Pennsylvania, then that to me was a local product.<\/p>\n
Now certainly, in saying that, all of you are probably thinking \u201cWell, this guy\u2019s crazy \u201c\u2013 because he\u2019s talking about sustainability, local geographical products, not leaving a carbon footprint by shipping things across the US, and there are certainly many things to be said for that.\u00a0 But there\u2019s also something to be said for supporting some of our purveyors who have products that are coming across the continent for us, people like Keith Martin, who is my lamber in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
His protocols, his holistic way of raising his animals is something that I want to continue to support, because I really believe in the way that he\u2019s doing [it]. And eventually he will have an impact on the entire industry, and raise the standard of the entire industry. So, I\u2019m willing to leave a small carbon footprint by shipping his lamb from Pennsylvania to Yountville or to New York or to Las Vegas because we use his lamb in all of our restaurants to continue to support what he\u2019s doing. So, I buy from people I have great respect for.<\/p>\n
So, ultimately, Keller is justifying the greater environmental load that his purchasing produces by the possible long-term benefits that supporting quality farmers might create. Keller has also said, \u201cPrice isn\u2019t important to me, I just want the very best available.\u201d As such, he admits to having an elitist philosophy \u2013 which is partly why he has been so successful in the culinary world.<\/p>\n
And I am the first to admit \u2014 in the sphere he inhabits, his views work.\u00a0 Extremely well.\u00a0 At the same time, I would strongly caution against implementing this \u201c24-hour local\u201d food rule for the rest of society.<\/p>\n
There are several reasons for this:<\/p>\n
1) Building a Diverse Community: If everyone bought their food like Thomas Keller, we might have good quality farms but at the same time we wouldn\u2019t have the infrastructure to support them.\u00a0 Our agricultural infrastructure is currently targeted toward the large players in the market. It is difficult, for example, for small meat producers to find a certified processing facility in their local area, or for small farmers to find distribution networks for their products.\u00a0 The more we buy from our local foodshed, the more incentive there will be for these localized networks of infrastructure to be (re)created.\u00a0 In the process, we will make it\u00a0 easier for sustainable food producers to go about the business of growing good, healthy food. <\/p>\n
2) Diversity on our Local Farms: If we choose to buy our specialty foods from across the country, we are simultaneously decreasing the food-dollars that go to our local farmers \u2014 dollars they might invest in growing those very same products closer to home.\u00a0 Farmers need an economic incentive to grow a variety of plants and animals.\u00a0 This agricultural variety will directly increase the ecological \/ environmental health of our farm ecosystems, and at the same time encourage better health as we increase the number of foods in our diets. <\/p>\n
3)\u00a0Energy Use: Economist Jeff Rubin has a new book called Why Your World Is About to Get A Whole Lot Smaller which addresses these issues directly.\u00a0 Rubin\u2019s premise is that the current decline in oil prices is going to be short lived, and was caused in large part by our current recession.\u00a0 Once the economic recession is over, oil will again be well over $100 \/ barrel \u2013 which will have a dramatic impact on how we grow and ship food.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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