Food festival promotes eating locally

Author: Kaity Potak

Gray skies and rain showers did not stop Middlebury community members from gathering on the Green to celebrate this fall's Harvest Festival on Sept. 6. Featuring everything from homemade ice cream and a harp player, to a whole host of workshops geared toward educating and encouraging local eating, the festival showed community spirit at its finest. The festival's slogan of "Eat Local, Eat Well, Eat Together" perfectly epitomized the essence of this event.

A pot luck lunch kicked off the day, inviting Middlebury citizens to socialize under the tent on the Green and listen to live music from the gazebo. Oblivious to the foreboding weather, children rode tricycles down the hill at alarmingly fast rates, painted colorful banners with which to adorn the Green and enjoyed slice after slice of homemade pie.

"We had forty pies here today. Forty!" event coordinator Kristin Bolton gushed. Such festivities were, however, simply the backdrop for a much larger cause. The combined efforts of the Addison County Localvores, members of the Middlebury Co-op, the Addison County Relocalization Network (ACoRN), and other organizations and individuals are part of an initiative to support eating locally, saving energy, supporting local businesses and encourage self-sufficiency.

Other than the celebrations going on outside, there was a full schedule of workshops taking place in Saint Stephen's on the Green Episcopal Church. Workshops with titles such as "Breaking Ground - Your First Garden," "Harvesting Wild Edibles," and "Eating Locally Throughout the Year" were, as Shari Brown, a founding member of the Eat Local Challenge, said, "a way to focus people's attention on the idea of eating locally, a way to shift their awareness." Joanna Colwell, another founder of Middlebury's Eat Local Challenge, supported Brown's explanation by adding, with a huge grin, "we're here so that we can get people rammed up to eat locally!"

The Eat Local Challenge, which was begun here in Middlebury three years ago, is a well-established project in Vermont and throughout the country that asks those involved to commit to eating locally. Throwing the word "challenge" into the title offers a touch of intimidation but the initiative is much less a set of demanding rules than it is a personal decision to be more aware of what one eats. Those involved set themselves challenges that range from trying to make two meals a day from local products to swearing that 80 percent of their diet will be local (from within 100 miles of home). As both Brown and Colwell attest, the Eat Local Challenge is not about the specifics of making a vow, though.

"Where did we even come up with that 80 percent? Where did that number actually come from?" said Shari Brown.

"Well, actually, I think I just made it up. I mean, it seemed reasonable at the time," Joanna Colwell said. Whatever the deciding factor, the Eat Local Challenge, which the Harvest Festival helped to bring to the forefront of everyone's attentions, certainly seems to be gaining ground. In its opening year, the organizers were happy to see 70 people become involved. That number has grown steadily, and continues to do so this year, as information is shared like gossip, pages are added to the sign-up sheets throughout town and pamphlets are picked up like hotcakes. Or perhaps, like pieces of freshly baked pie.

As the afternoon wore on, conversation was suddenly interrupted and attention refocused as kids swarmed toward the big white tent outside to take turns cranking the old-fashioned ice cream maker. The fiddle player on the gazebo offered foot-tapping music that mirrored the excitement, and with the apple barrel looking pretty low, it seemed pretty apparent that despite the rain, the Harvest Festival certainly accomplished its goal and managed to get people "rammed up to eat locally."