OLS - Week 2

We decided to celebrate the 4th of July Scottish-style this year: American barbecue classics made with Scottish produce!


Burgers, deviled eggs, pickles, and potato salad.


And strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Ingredients:

Burgers:
- Hamburger rolls: whole wheat and white flours (did I mention they're locally grown AND milled?), free-range organic eggs, honey, (non-local: salt and yeast).
- Burgers: organic ground beef
- Organic onions
- Organic lettuce
- Tomatoes
- Homemade mayo: egg yolk, canola oil, (non-local: lemon juice)

Deviled eggs:
- Free-range eggs, homemade mayo, chives, (non-local cayenne pepper)

Pickles:
- Organic pickling cucumbers, organic garlic, semi-local blackcurrant vinegar, (non-local: dried dill, mustard seeds, salt)

Potato salad:
- Organic new potatoes
- Cucumber
- Vinaigrette: canola oil, semi-local blackcurrant vinegar, (non-local: salt and mustard seeds)

Strawberry shortcake:
- Shortcake: white flour, organic butter, cream, honey, eggs, (non-local: salt, baking powder)
- Strawberries
- Whipped cream: whipping cream, honey, (non-local: vanilla extract)

You might notice that the majority of the ingredients for my local meals are not organic. This is because buying local ingredients has always been a priority for me (outside of the challenge) over organic. I think organic is great, but not perfect. Locally-sourced foods do the most for the environment by reducing food miles. Incidentally, locally-sourced foods also inherently tend to come from smaller farms (meaning more money stays in the local economy, and you support "real" farmers. I'll try to post sometime about why people who manage mega-farms don't count as farmers in my book). Organic certification is always great for farmers' profits (organic tends to command a higher price), but certification is expensive and is often out of the reach of smaller farms. Also, some people argue that paying for organic certification supports the USDA (the certifying body) -- and some see that as a bad thing. Anyway, those are my reasons for the priorities that I have. But from a purely hedonist point of view, its hard to argue that anything is better than a very local strawberry eaten right in the field. If you've never had this experience...well, get thyself to a pick-your-own strawberry farm (or raspberry, blueberry, apple, etc).