I picked the coldest possible January day to pack up the car with a friend and our four dogs to take a food exploration trip to Lyndonville, Vermont. There’s something about the Northeast Kingdom that keeps me coming back for more.
Maybe it’s something about its rolling hills, farm after farm, uninterrupted by any sign of progress gobbling up the farmland for development. It could be because it seems to be a hub for food politics activities in Vermont, even in New England. Maybe it’s that good, fresh, often local food is easy to find, even on a 9 degree day in January.
The area is rich with cheese producers, many artisanal. Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro, Vermont not only produces a sublimely delicious, award-winning blue cheese, but several other cheeses that are sought after by east and west coast chefs. A couple of years ago, Jasper Hill took the leap and built a 22,000 square foot cheese cellar to age and ripen their own cheeses as well as those of area cheesemakers, large and small. Jasper Hill Farm employees carefully brush, turn and pierce the cheeses in the underground cellar throughout the aging process, allowing cheesemakers to save on payroll, knowing that their product will be expertly handled. A growing business, Jasper Hill Farm is an example of the commitment throughout the Kingdom to restoring the area’s economic health in the face of the region’s dairy crisis, while preserving the best of its agrarian culture.
On this coldest day, we were looking for the Lyndonville, Vermont winter farmers market. I’ve been curious about winter farmers markets, ever since the topic came up at a local food forum here in Concord, New Hampshire. Farmers present that evening in Concord were not too enthusiastic about the idea, saying that they like their winter time off, don’t want to deal with storing food, transporting it in cold weather or the overall drudgery associated with bringing food to our tables in the winter. After all, we have the grocery store and the coop, right? In my case, I’m lucky to have the one farmer in the area who is offering a winter CSA, which suits my needs perfectly.
But, farmers markets are fun, and I got to wondering what one in Lyndonville, Vermont might be like. It happens monthly and is quite well advertised online and in many spots around town.
Like anything else in life, it’s all about your expectations, and mine had gotten a little bit away from me. I had visions of cheese vendors, fresh eggs, meat, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, squashes, parsnips, a few crafts, honey, maple syrup–the list was long and colorful. Once inside the community center where the market was held, I discovered a subdued but cheery scene:
- a local coffee roaster;
- a baker;
- a couple of people selling jellies and jams;
- a meat vendor selling grass-fed beef;
- a farmer selling fresh eggs;
- a woman selling hand-spun yarn and various handknit items;
- a Jamaican man selling spices, rubs, chutneys, mango salsa and hot pumpkin soup;
- one (only one!) vegetable vendor with a scant offering of delicata squash, cabbage and purple onions;
- and a woman selling potholders and other handsewn kitchen things.
The most happening spot in the room was the Jamaican food vendor’s table, where people were tasting soup, rice, some kind of chicken dish, and packing up containers of hot soup and other exotically spiced foods before heading out into the cold.
I bought some of his delicious mango salsa to take home with me.
One of the vendors most eager to connect with customers was the sweet lady selling potholders and homemade blueberry jam. She stitches her potholders using the same 1950s pattern that her mother used. Not what I expected to buy, but they were too cute to walk away from, and her enthusiasm too genuine.
Looking around the room now, and realizing my obvious expectations, I understood that it just might not be that easy after all to pull off a winter farmers market, and maybe Lyndonville is doing an okay job with it. Sure, I’d have liked more offerings, and especially more vegetables. But the room had a quiet, neighborly buzz to it; it was obviously a local social event. It wasn’t about me; it was about the community.
I doubt that anybody in that room came there with the expectation of finding maple syrup, or would have considered being disappointed not to find it. I wondered if mine was somewhat of a tourist approach to a farmers market. If I lived in the area (something I find myself dreaming about fairly often), I would not have been able to complete my shopping there, but I’m sure now that shopping for staples probably would not have been my only expectation. More than likely, the Lyndonville farmers market would have been a friendly stop for picking up a couple of things and chatting with a few neighbors about the bitter cold weather, sharing a few stories and looking ahead to spring.
I’d have known that down the road, I could head to Hardwick, Vermont’s Buffalo Mountain Food Coop to find everything I needed. And, yesterday, that’s what we did. Packed into a tiny storefront, this coop offers local cheeses, wines, soy products, milk, eggs, buttermilk and, yes, lots of local vegetables, even in January. There, I found local potatoes, Brussels sprouts, garlic, cheeses and butter. I could have kept on shopping, but that was all that I needed. The source of every last piece of produce in the store was clearly identified to make intentionally shopping local easy. One sign for California cherries read, “Carbon Footprint Too Small? Try These Cherries from California…”
While in Hardwick, we stopped at the Galaxy Bookshop, where I picked up a copy of Lifting the Yoke: Local Solutions to America’s Farm and Food Crisis, by Vermont gardener and author Ron Krupp. Written in three parts, it’s a reader-friendly, easy to pick up and put down book on food issues. It covers: the globalization of food and farming; the “battle of the bulge”; and sustainable markets and regional solutions. It’s this kind of food activism and awareness, in part, that draws me back to Vermont, over and over.
I also picked up a copy of Vermont’s Local Banquet, a charming and information-rich, independently published magazine focusing on “fresh, local and wholesome foods grown and made in Vermont.”
The Northeast Kingdom attracts me in more ways than food and agriculture. The culture itself, at least as viewed through my (admittedly, smitten) eyes, seems to be one of a wise and hard-working people. There are no signs of nonsense anywhere. Yes, there are plenty of signs of a very tough economy, but cottage industries abound in spite of it and it appears that people make the best of their situations.
Even the welder at Lyndonville’s auto body shop, where the sign says “We don’t work on rusted frames,” turns that rusted metal into whimsical sculptures.
The point of my Northeast Kingdom food exploration was not to do my week’s grocery shopping, but really to find out what’s there in January and what it’s like trying to find it. I ended up discovering a lot, some that I expected and a lot that I did not.
Most importantly, I discovered that it’s important not to idealize any aspect of this business of finding good food. As beautiful as the San Francisco farmers market may be, and other well-established gourmet local food meccas around the country, bringing good food to the table involves a complex network of options like farmers markets, CSAs, good food coops and well-intentioned local food producers.
There is no one-stop answer. As a consumer, maybe I shouldn’t want there to be. The benefits of each of us becoming and staying integrated in the process of finding or growing food–knowing exactly where it’s coming from–can only strengthen a food system that so badly needs repair.
As shopping trips go, it was a lot of fun in a go-with-the-flow kind of way. I brought home some good things, too, which I’ll be sharing in the coming days with friends and family.
And, in the end, Charlie couldn’t have been happier with the shopping trip either. Even in January, there’s something yummy for everyone in the Northeast Kingdom.
If this ain’t fun, I don’t know what is…
