100 Mile Meal

[InABox]

Yesterday at work I ran the idea of a 100 Mile Meal special by the owner and when I explaned the amount of carbon make form doing things like geting in pepper from Chili and stuff. He like it so I'm working on a few ideas today....any way's I just wanted to know what you all thought of the 100 Mile Meal and if any of you do anything like that?

[Psycho Chef]

The protiens will be tough depending on where you live. 100 mile radius from my place yeilds a world of stuff but not the case for everybody.

[InABox]

Well I'm in Chatham Ontario so i've got a shot load of farm land and the great lakes all in 100 miles

[Psycho Chef]

The protiens around here can be tough. On LI we have ducks and fish. Thank God for the Hudson Valley.

[bughut]

In the uk we're working to 20 miles. I guess its relative, as the us is larger???
Theres a chef in London who only sources his food from the underground system. For example if he cant buy chickens within the system, then it's simply not on the menu. Absolutely everythng, even spices and salt is accounted for. They made a tv programme out of his experience.
Great success by all accounts

[InABox]

Today I started working on a list of local ingredients. So far I have 31 Fish from Lake Huron and 25 from Lake Erie. There are also 4 Beef farms within 100 miles. I'm haveing truble though traking down hog farms I know there are a few just out side of town thought, just need to find there names. Lol. But for real I'd like to know some of your favourt local foods, and if there are any other great lake chefs out there it would be nice to talk about what it is that you like to do with your fish and stuff like that.
Just to clarify, I'm only going to be using fruit, veg, starch, and protin from within 100 miles. So with that said I'll still be useing salt, pepper and other spices that come from outside the 100 mile.

[InABox]

I've compiled a list of edibe Fish from within 100 Miles of Chatham On. With Lake Huron being 80 miles and Lake Erie being onle 17 Miles. So for any of you in Mishagan or Ohio if your interested in this idea I thought I'd post the list, just incase you weren't sure on all the fish.

Lake Huron
Brook Trout
Burbot
Round Whitefish
Ruffe

Lake Erie
Bowfin
Brown Trout
Chinook Salmon
Coho Salmon
Freshwater Drum
Lake Sturgeon
Lake Trout
Lake Whitefish
Longnose Sucker
Muskellunge
Northern Pike Pumpkinseed
Rainbow Trout
Smallmouth Bass
Walleye
White Bass
White Perch
White Suker
Yellow Perch
All the Lake Erie fish can also be found in Lake Huron. I think that this is a large list to chose from. With that said. Does anyone have any favourits from the list. I'd love to know what you like to do with your fish?

[tessa]

well no more blonde than usual but what is a 100 mile meal

[shel]

It's agreat idea, although in some areas that 100-mile radius might need to be expanded a bit. Around here, in the San Francisco BayArea, it seems pretty easy to work within the 100-mile radius. Many restaurants here use only local ingredients - dairy, produce, meat, poultry, and even some fish. Some ingredients are, of course, more difficult to come by, and one must search a bit to find local producers. Fortunately, there are numerous sources to help locate these producers. There's a very strong Buy Fresh Buy Local movement here.

Shel

[foodnfoto]

Ummmm....you guys feel OK eating fish from Lake Erie?
With an unhealthy dose of
Dioxin
PCBs
Lead
Mecury and others?

See this article from the EPA:
http://www.great-lakes.net/humanheal.../critical.html

[shel]

Originally Posted by foodnfoto

Ummmm....you guys feel OK eating fish from Lake Erie?
With an unhealthy dose of
Dioxin
PCBs
Lead
Mecury and others?

See this article from the EPA:
Human Health: Fish consumption -- Critical contaminants

I was wondering about that myself. Personally, I wouldn't touch fish from that area until further investigating their safety and wholesomeness.

Shel

[InABox]

I would note that all of tha lake eire fish can also be found in lake huron, and that is within 100 miles.

[shroomgirl]

i do local meals but extend to 120 miles....
trout
lots of pork
beef
chickens are difficult to find
eggs
chevre, fresh, blue and aged from a farmstead cheesemaker 2.5 hours away....he counts in my book.
right now, haricot vertes, peppers, broccoli, chilis, end of tomatoes, cukes, eggplant, end of corn, end of watermelons, winter squash....large assortment, garlic, onions, herbs, okra, apples, pears, scallions, cider, cider vinager, sadly no oil....at least none I'd eat, some grains....corn mainly.
pecans....tiny sweet, sorghum, tempeh/tofu, honey, milk products are 3 hours away.....but make it into STL....local enough for me, potatoes, sweet potatoes....sunflower, radish sprouts, pea shoots.....ok that's all I remember from last Sat's market. Bet raspberries will be in soon....grapes had a bad year as did apples......estimates of 1-5% of the crops. oh yeah black and red beans....shiitakes, oysters then any wild I find....chanterelles mainly, sometimes a maitake or chicken of the woods.
Grape juice, raspberry juice, cider, beer.....um Anheiser Busch is downtown STL as well as a specialty brewery 1 mile from home.

In the middle of winter I've made bison black bean chili with frozen tomatoes, local chipotles....cornbread, chevre (frozen) with pesto (frozen), peach crisp again frozen peaches, sorghum bars, deviled eggs.......

or pork with shiitakes, butternut soup, if I can get my hands on hoop house greens then a salad but Jan-Mar is usually really brown food.....
sweet potato spice roulade cake with sweetened chevre icing and toasted pecans.

Been doing this a while, can you tell.
Biggest secret is putting food up for the winter....peel and freeze tomatoes, pickle beets/cukes/onions etc, pesto....easy to freeze and tastes great thawed, fresh chevre....personally I can't tell the difference, dried beans....that's an easy one if you find farmers interested in raising bush beans.....garlic, onions last a while as do butternuts/winter squash.....
let's see, freezer has a whole lot of peeled sliced peaches....I've got sorghum left from last year and am still working through the honey.
Pigs are year round, chevre production stops in Dec and starts in April, Veg usually goes through Thanksgiving but may go into Dec.....by Jan it's pretty much gone....except for apples and squash. There is nothing like seeing the first batch of asparagus, rhubarb, peas, broccoli on the market.....Spring really means alot when you've gone without for a while.....true celebration.