Eating Locally & Seasonally: A Community Food Book for Lopez Island (and All Those Who Want to Eat Well)
By Elizabeth Simpson and Henning K. Sehmsdorf
S & S Homestead Press
With an emphasis on local, seasonal eating, this book follows the Weston A. Price FoundaΒtionβs plea for everyone to βstrengthen your commitment to support local farms by spending at least 50 percent of your food dollar purchasing raw milk and raw milk products, eggs, poultry, meat and produce directly from local farmers and artisans.β As WAPFers know, eating locally is better for our community because it fosters a relationship with our local farmers who are using organic and sustainable methods for growΒing and raising our food. It also helps secure their livelihoods, as well as our continued access to diverse and healthy options for our families. And itβs better for us because food that doesnβt travel long distances and has a shorter time from the soil to our table retains more nutrients (and tastes better, too). According to the authors, βWe should never eat foods that are better traveled than we are.β
Filled with helpful explanations about the nutritional benefits of and ways to use different types of foods, Eating Locally & Seasonally will be an interesting read for any real foodie. Itβs chock full of helpful hints and delicious recipe suggestions that will keep you cooking and learning new and interesting facts about your food. It easily serves as a companion to the two authorsβ larger book, Fifty Years of BiodyΒnamic Farming: Essays from the Field (a must for gardeners, farmers and those who dream of homesteading), and it is a helpful guide for those wanting to eat more local, seasonal and sustainably grown foods. Although it may be especially pertinent to those living on Lopez Island, this bookβs usefulness stretches far beΒyond the beautiful island found north of Seattle.
Chapters cover topics such as why to eat locally and sustainably and how to preserve your harvest, with sections on vegetables, herbs, wildcrafting, tree fruits and berries, dairy, eggs, poultry, seafood, meat, bread and grains. The short chapter on wildcrafting alone is worth the purchase of this book, with information that preppers will especially appreciate.
Because eating locally and sustainably means eating seasonally, the authors include a seasonal calendar that tells you which projects to attack when, as well as when to plant certain seeds and which specific recipes to make in a given season. Itβs all about timing! During the quieter and darker winter months, the authors suggest, you can rest and plan for the upcomΒing days when everything will be much busier. All along, they encourage you to celebrate the seasons and be present in each moment.
The only negative to point out is that a few recipes recommend grapeseed oil for its milder flavor. However, this is not a WAPF-recomΒmended oil because it is very high in omega-6 fatty acids and is industrially processed with hexane and other carcinogenic solvents. Instead, you could substitute olive oil and small amounts of sesame oil.
As you read this book, you might be reΒminded of Nourishing Traditions. Eating LoΒcally & Seasonally, too, is much more than a cookbook, with interesting and entertaining nutritional and historical foodie information sprinkled throughout each chapter. If you not only enjoy eating good food but also love talkΒing, thinking and reading about food like I do, youβll enjoy this book! Thumbs UP.
This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Summer 2024
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