Ask someone where the food they're eating came from and if they respond at all, they're likely to give the name of a supermarket or restaurant. The idea of knowing the source of your foodstuffs these days seems cute or old fashioned to most people. Yet, if you are concerned with what it is you are putting in your mouth and body, that knowledge of provenance is at least a partial guarantee of the wholesomeness of your food.
I grew up in a small town that, before it morphed into any suburban town USA, was a farming community. Many of those farms remained in existence when I was young and through the summer months I knew the guy who grew my tomatoes, green beans, lettuces, and corn, amongst other things. There is a reciprocal trust there of consumer faith rewarding the producer with repeat business. It is something that is lacking with the giant corporate farming industry. It becomes especially alarming when there is a widespread outbreak of food borne illness. All too often it ends up being traced back to a breakdown in the integrity of the long chain from some far away farm field or meat processing plant to the end user. These types of calamities have given rise to a movement of consumers who as much as possible want know once again who is responsible for producing the food that they and their families eat.
This wave has also picked up chefs and their restaurants who believe that the season and market dictate what is on their menus, not whimsy and trends. To further this, the bond between food producers and chefs has given rise to the farmer as celebrity. Chino Farms in Santa Fe California, supplies produce to some of the finest restaurants in the Bay Area and has their name on menus to prove it. Laura Chenel did the same thing for goat cheese, and Niman Ranch for prime meats. Although we may not initially think of wine as an agricultural product, it is and it has not been left out of this movement. Last weekend Joe Canal's in Woodbridge hosted a Harvest Celebration and featured a tasting of wines from Women Of The Vine.
Women Of The Vine is a book by Deborah Brenner. Women Of The Vine is also a brand that she founded, a cooperative of women viticulturists and winemakers, producing different wines under one label with a common mission. That mission is to bring recognition to women in the wine industry who strive to produce a product that is in keeping with the spirit of farm to table. They are women viticulturists and winemakers who like my farmer guy up the street when I was a kid, make a wholesome product that you can snuggle up to and feel good about.
Our Harvest Celebration also featured the New Jersey restaurant A Toute Heure from Cranford, N.J.. The wife and husband team of Andrea and Jim Carbine run a small, intimate, and totally food savvy room at 232 Centennial Ave. in Cranford, N.J.. The restaurant is menu driven and the menu is all about the season. Andrea is a very earthbound chef who like many others before her, has no issue citing sources on her menu that name the producers of the raw products she uses.
Guests enjoyed the food and wine and hopefully took away something about the farm to table concept.
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