Locavore Adventures: One Chef's Slow Food Journey

238 Pages·2012·4.71 MB·English

by  Mr. Jim Weaver

L A
OCAVORE DVENTURES

Rivergate Books
an imprint of
Rutgers University Press
New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weaver, Jim, 1962–
Locavore adventures one chef’s slow food journey / Jim Weaver ; with a foreword by Carlo
Petrini.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978–0–8135–5170–8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Weaver, Jim, 1962– 2. Cooks—United States—Biography. 3. Slow food
movement—Middle Atlantic States. 4. Locavores. 5. Slow Food (Organization). I. Title.
TX649.W43A3 2012
641.5092—dc23
[B]
2011012785
A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copyright © 2012 by Jim Weaver
Foreword copyright © 2012 by Carlo Petrini
Line art by Ellen C. Dawson
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the
publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ
08854–8099. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use”as defined by U.S. copyright law.
Visit our Web site: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu
Manufactured in the United States of America
This book is dedicated to the family and friends
whom I have dined with on my journey,
especially my beautiful wife and travel partner, Kimberly.

Contents
Foreword by Carlo Petrini ix
Acknowledgments xi
1
1 The “Ah-Hah” Moment, Slow Food Style
12
2 The Valley Shepherd Creamery
23
3 The Delaware Bay Oyster
36
4 On the Hunt for a Hot Tomato
46
5 The Griggstown Quail Farm
57
6 The Hat Lady
66
7 Getting the Word Out
75
8 Triumph of the Locavores
87
9 Salumeria Biellese
98
10 Foie Gras Adventure
112
11 Educating the Classes
122
12 Viking Village
137
13 The Best-Possible Canvas
148
14 Going Local and Digging In
157
15 The Brothers Moon and the Bent Spoon
173
16 Getting Your Hands Dirty
185
17 So Where Are We Now?
195
18 Conviviality
202
19 Off the Soap Box and onto the Chapters
213
Appendix: The Slow Food Manifesto
(cid:2) (cid:2)
vii

Foreword
I am extremely happy to introduce Jim Weaver’s book, for two important reasons.
First, it tells the story of the Slow Food movement in New Jersey and, by exten-
sion, in all of the United States. Second, this book is an important sign that some-
thing extraordinary is happening around the nation, due in part to the influence
of this movement, which I founded and lead.
Today we in the United States live in a period of great crisis, one that involves
not only food, energy, economics, and the environment but also our values. Along
with other observers, I am convinced that these crises do not represent the usual
cyclical moments of difficulty to which we have become accustomed in recent
decades. They are, instead, entropic, epoch making, and they will never pass if we
continue to apply the same patterns and models that brought them on in the first
place. To resolve these crises, we need new paradigms, new ways of thinking and
acting that break fresh ground and that allow us to mix tradition with modernity,
to combine what we know about the past with what we can imagine for the future.
I firmly believe—and I have evidence, thanks to the people who make up Slow
Food and Terra Madre, a worldwide network of the food community—that these
new paradigms are already affecting food and agriculture, as the media is starting
to recognize. Edgar Morin, a well-known French sociologist and philosopher, is
right when he says that “everything needs to begin anew, but everything has
already begun anew.”In the United States especially, I have seen a great change in
the past twenty years. A robust, grassroots agriculture has emerged that is respectful
of the environment and biodiversity. New forms of production have been intro-
duced to both rural and urban communities. Microbreweries, fresh-milk cheese-
makers, farmers’ markets, and community-supported agriculture (CSA) illustrate
how we are redefining the quality of American food while respecting the identity
and the humanity of the people who produce it and choose to eat it. Such changes
are an example for the rest of the world, for it is no accident that the strongest
reaction to a global system of substandard food should have originated in the
country that has given the greatest impetus to this twisted system. Slow Food’s
(cid:2) (cid:2)
ix