I have almost enough food in the refrigerator for next week’s menu. I just need to make a loaf of bread, get mushrooms and a couple of things not in the yard or farm stands, and fish for one night. The advertisement for our local grocery store in the weekend paper has a huge ad on the back for local foods. It says, “Locally Grown: We’re proud to support the finest local growers so you can enjoy the freshest produce around. Guaranteed!” Awesome! Well, wait a minute – how come the “imported 5-lb box of clementines” and the “tropical mangoes” are pictured?
Upon closer inspection, only three of the ten items in the ad have a tiny “locally grown” symbol by their price. This will take some investigation at the store. The paper also shows rockfish filets on sale so I will check them out and find out if they are wild caught and where. We made our rounds on the outside aisles of the grocery store. The only thing I purchased from the center aisles was some non-stick spray for the grill. The rockfish filets were nowhere to be seen. I asked the butcher and he said he hadn’t packed them yet, but he recognized me since we’ve talked food and fish on previous occasions and said, “They aren’t what you think.” I took that to mean they were farmed, imported, or both. He was busy working with other customers but luckily I have a local fish market I can stop at on the way home. On to find the LOCAL produce! Of the three featured “local” items in the paper, the portabella mushrooms were sold out, the asparagus were from New Jersey (fairly close – we live in Maryland), and the zucchini only said “USA.”
When we were checking out, I saw the assistant manager so I asked him where the local zucchini originated. He said, “Local can mean anywhere between here and Georgia.” That’s disappointing because Georgia is at least 600 miles away and there are plenty of farms in Maryland, and if you’re growing zucchini now you know they’re coming out of your ears. At least I learned not to fall for the “Local” advertisement again from the major supermarkets.
