Toronto’s Brickworks
The idea of local has definitely struck a cord with Torontonians with events such as the 3rd Annual Picnic at the Brick Works being a sold out event. This event is a collaboration between Slow Food Toronto, a part of an international organization that supports good, clean, fair, and local food principles, as well as Evergreen, a not-for-profit organization that is revitalizing the Brick Works in Toronto. The event, which is billed as an “eco-gastronomic event” aims to highlight the benefits of supporting local producers and showcases about 70 local chefs/vendors that support these producers.
…All of a sudden restaurant menus were touting local tasting menus or reminding me that their fish was caught from so-and-so lake or that their meat came from some local farm…
This year’s theme was “locally globally”. Visitors were able to sample a variety of internationally inspired foods that were made with local ingredients. “We really want to celebrate the fact that we have such a rich array of culinary traditions that are alive here in Toronto,” says Paul DeCampo, Co-chair of the picnic “that all provide delicious food that can be rooted in our local production.” There were dishes representing all parts of the globe from Africa to the Caribbean to Europe and South Asia that all really highlighted how far you can take the idea of local cooking.
Going Corporate
All this talk of local has been fine and dandy for the most part. I mean consumers get presumably fresher produce while also supporting the local economy. Good stuff, right? It all seemed good until the commercialization of “local” really started to set in. I was flipping through the TV channels one day when I came upon “The 100-Mile Challenge”. That’s when I knew the idea of “local” was headed south. The show is based on “The 100-Mile Diet” and is hosted by the authors. It’s a reality/challenge show where contestants learn about local eating from the hosts and complete various challenges over the course of 100 days. I knew that if the idea of “local” was already picked up as a television idea that a bigger and badder beast was just around the corner…
3 Comments
If this article is an example of what is to come as this site grows, I look forward to reading the future posts!
You make an excellent point – the general concept of buying local has many benefits, whether it’s better tasting food, or supporting the local economy, or saving money on a better product. However, once this turns into an industry and marketing tool, it defeats itself, as people will become immune to the allure of local once they realize that the term local is being abused and no longer means what it once did.
This was an excellent article and it started a great discussion about “buying local” between myself and the chef at Buster Rhino’s. I have started to see even more products that aren’t local but are being labelled as such. Buying local is one thing, buying Canadian is something different.
Great article! I like the concepts of the local and slow food movements but to me they’re completely different from the organic/gmo-free movement.
The former seem to refer to the act and enjoyment of eating, with local also having economic benefits but organic as well as gmo-free are more about the human health benefits/risks ie. ingesting chemical pesticides as well as the health/environmental benefits and risks that the land is exposed to.
Ideally organic and gmo-free would be the “understood” standards of the local and slow movements and ideally the mainstream would educate themselves and become aware of the profit-only motive of the big food corporations.