Dedicated fresh food fans can skip the supermarket for an all-local Thanksgiving
Locavores by necessity, the Pilgrims and Wampanoags who shared the first Thanksgiving in 1621 gathered their feast of wild turkey, venison, corn meal bread or porridge, shellfish, pumpkins, squash and other foods from the fields, forests and firths around Plymouth colony.
Today, being a locavore — someone who obtains food from local sources — is a matter of choice, requiring more planning and effort than a trip to the supermarket.
But for anyone willing to take on the challenge, southeastern Connecticut is well equipped to supply most of the staples of the modern Thanksgiving meal, from the turkey to the mashed potatoes to the pumpkin pie.
“I don’t think the local food movement is a fad. It’s here to stay,” said Jamie Kleinman, assistant professor of psychological science at the University of Connecticut’s Avery Point campus in Groton, and owner with her husband, Michael Lee, of a 13-acre farm in Canterbury where they raise livestock, orchard fruits and vegetables. “There
are plenty of people who’ve always been doing it, but now, with social media, the access and awareness of it has grown.”
At Terrabyte Farm, the Kleinman-Lee household raises pigs, chickens, beef cattle and other livestock on a coop system in which member families essentially pay for the boarding and slaughter of their own animals.
The family consumes most of the fruits and vegetables they raise, but plans to expand output next year for sale at a local store, she said. Running the farm meshes with her research interests as a psychologist.
Taking the time and trouble to obtain food locally, then share it with friends and family, she said, is a doorway into community and connection that can build a person’s sense of social support.
“People are so starved for personal relationships, for face-to-face connections,” she said. “That’s what food has historically done for us. People like being part of the local food movement because they like the connections they make.”
While many of the seasonal farmers’ markets and farm stands that sell local produce and meats have closed by the time people are collecting ingredients for their Thanksgiving meal, many farm stores, organic groceries and outlets for locally prepared foods remain open.
From the western end of New London County at the Beaver Brook Farm store in Lyme, to the eastern end at the indoor farmers’ market at the Velvet Mill in Stonington (open Nov. 14 to May 14), and numerous spots in between, the opportunities for obtaining local fare abound.
The Day set out to assemble an all-locally sourced meal — including at least one item from each of the 13 towns in newspaper’s core circulation area. Nearly all the meats and produce were purchased at locations that stay open through Thanksgiving.
The centerpiece of the meal — an 11-pound “humanely raised” turkey — came from White Gate Farm in East Lyme, which sells its produce at Fiddleheads Natural Food Co-op in New London as well as at its own farm store on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
“So many people are into it now,” Pauline Lord, who started the 100-acre farm in 2000, said of the local food movement. “Now, you can’t find anyone who doesn’t have the idea that it’s good to eat vegetables, and it’s good to eat organic and local.”
Growing popularity
Rob Schacht, owner of Hunts Brook Farm in Waterford, said the growing popularity of local food is what has enabled his farm to become sustainable.
While most of his produce is sold in the spring and summer at farmers’ markets and through a community-supported agriculture program — an increasingly prevalent way for farmers to sell direct to customers through a subscription system — he supplies spinach, lettuce and other items to Fiddleheads throughout the winter.
Lord said she expects to sell out of the 100 turkeys she has for sale this Thanksgiving, as does Arthur Hiles, owner with his wife, Cherrie, of Red Fence Farm in Groton.
“We’ve got 28 to sell, and 16 are sold already,” Hiles said in mid-October, standing beside the fenced-in area protecting his gobblers from the coyotes he calls “shoplifters.”
“We do the slaughtering on the Friday or Saturday before Thanksgiving, and people pick them up on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday before Thanksgiving,” he said.
Among other sources for locally raised turkeys is Stonyledge Farm in North Stonington, where Belinda and Edward Learned and their four children also raise beef, pork, chicken, lamb, veal and produce that’s sold through the online market Connecticut Farm Fresh Express, at Fiddleheads, Mystic Organics & More and the Stonington winter farmer’s market.
Worth the extra cost
While local meats and vegetables can cost more than mass-produced varieties in grocery stores, more people are willing to pay extra, Belinda Learned said.
“I feed normal, everyday people — school teachers, nurses, firemen — regular people who want good food, not rich people,” she said. “They like it to be local and they like to know where it’s grown and who’s growing it.”
Jiff Martin, associate extension educator at the UConn Extension, advocates that people participate in the local food movement “by including local items when it makes sense in your budget.
“It doesn’t have to be everything on your plate,” she said. “You can participate by just having a local butternut squash on your table. And there are some things that we grow really well here in Connecticut that we have in quantity, like apples for the apple pie. Buying items like apples and squash in season is one way to keep the prices reasonable.”
People also need to realize, she said, that it’s not really fair to compare grocery store prices to those charged by a Connecticut farmer.
“The conventional food system optimizes the costs of labor and transportation, so that we end up with a cheap product,” she said. “We enjoy some of the lowest prices for food in the world.”
Farmers in Connecticut, with higher operating costs and a shorter growing season than places like California, Florida or Mexico, aren’t getting rich, she said.
In particular, items like turkey — which can sell for $6 to $7 per pound at a local farm, compared to $1.80 or less per pound at a supermarket — are often sold at an artificially low price by grocery stores as “loss leaders” — those that attract customers to the store to spend the bulk of their Thanksgiving budget, Martin said.
Kleinman, the UConn professor, believes there can be psychological benefits to paying more for local food.
When people spend more for a product that helps support a farm in their own community, “you appreciate it more for the time and the money that went into it.”
Paying $6 or $7 per pound for turkey, she added, really isn’t a high price to pay, when the low survival rate of turkey poults and the costs of labor, grain and water to feed them for 10 months are considered.
“There is an argument that meat should be expensive, that it should be something you use every bit of,” she said.
While fruits, vegetables, meats and beverages such as cider, beer and wine from southeastern Connecticut for the all-local Thanksgiving dinner were relatively easy to find, some items required widening the net a bit further.
For the cornmeal used in the corn bread stuffing and flours for the pie crusts and pumpkin bars, the closest source was Kenyon’s Grist Mill in West Kingston, R.I.
Wildowsky’s Dairy in Lisbon was the only provider found for the butter called for in the desserts and casseroles.
Randy Wildowsky, who’s owned the 300-acre farm since 2009, sells butter, meats, milk, ice cream and other products at a farm store that stays open seven days a week, year-round, and wholesales several of his products to Fiddleheads, McQuade’s Marketplace in Mystic and Salem Prime Cuts.
“It’s a lot of work to make butter, and it’s very tricky and time consuming,” he said, when asked why local butter is such a scare commodity.
Because of the local food movement, he said, more customers than ever are finding their way to his products.
“People are getting more educated about what they eat, and are willing to pay a little extra for what they’re getting,” he said. “There are a lot of people who are buying my stuff because they know what they want and they want to know where it comes from.”
The benefits of eating locally sourced foods extend beyond community building, Kleinman said.
They’re also often fresher, tastier and more nutritious than truck-farm varieties bred for uniformity and long shelf life, she noted.
And buying local can also be an expression of personal ethics.
By purchasing from the neighborhood farm stand, people are in effect acknowledging the environmental costs of shipping apples or pumpkins across the country, as well as reconnecting with the seasons.
Having a more limited selection of what’s available locally in a given season can actually be liberating for many shoppers, she said.
“There is the paradox of too many choices,” she said. “By eating foods that are timely and seasonal, that takes away some of the choices.”
Martin, the UConn extension educator, said the local food movement in Connecticut is still gaining momentum.
‘Ripe for growth’
“We have plenty of demand for local food, and plenty of income, and pretty favorable market and climate conditions,” with access to the New York and Boston markets, she said. “We’re ripe for growth in capacity.”
One of the most positive developments, she said, is the increasing number of public schools and colleges buying direct from farms.
“Parents and students are asking for it, and food service directors are looking to buy local and feature local items on their menus,” she said.
To further advance the local food movement, Food Solutions New England, a regional collaborative group, has set a goal of helping to foster the growth of agriculture in the six-state region.
“By 2060,” Martin said, “we want to be able to meet 50 percent of all of our needs in New England. There really is a lot of momentum behind the idea that we can be growing more and eating more locally.”
With the severe drought in southwestern agricultural regions and ample rainfall in New England, she added, climate conditions are right for a resurgence of local farming.
“We’re seeing a lot of farmers responding to the demand for local food,” she said. “But right now, there’s more demand than supply.”