100 Mile Meal

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.

Ducks and Fish

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

20 miles

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

sooo ummmmmm with out sounding too blonde

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

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

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

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

Shel

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.