If any of the lore of the first Thanksgiving is certain, it is that those who dined that day got the harvest from their surroundings. No shoe-buckled pilgrim bought a pumpkin grown in Illinois, no Wampanoag Indian hunted in a grocery aisle for turkey plucked and frozen months before.
In that spirit, The Gazette set out to discover how much of a traditional Thanksgiving meal—the turkey, the pie, the stuffing—could be locally sourced in the Maryland and Virginia region. The answer, provided by our guinea pig and Garrett Park local food lover Rana Koll-Mandel—is most, if one is willing to do the research.
"Most things people have for Thanksgiving dinner, the turkey, the potatoes, the sweet potatoes or yams you can get locally. People grow potatoes in pots," Koll-Mandel said. But those who like sweet potatoes with marshmallows—a concept Koll-Mandel makes a blech face about—will have to make a concession. There is no local source for marshmallows, after all.
Concessions, said Koll-Mandel, are OK. As the co-chair of the local sustainable food and agriculture working group of Bethesda Green, a local cooperative that supports environmentally sustainable practices in business, government and daily life, Koll-Mandel tries to eat as locally as she can, but is not bound to a strict local diet orthodoxy. The Thanksgiving family favorite at her household, cranberry buttermilk muffins, would be disallowed if she were a stringent adherent to such a diet.
"I personally, I'm not a fanatic," Koll-Mandel said. "One of the things I can't get around here is cranberries, but I can still get them on the East Coast and that's OK."
The other tough part of a traditional Thanksgiving meal is the grain, which goes into rolls, pie crusts, stuffing and Koll-Mandel's cranberry buttermilk muffins. There are local sources around—Montoux Orchards of Purcellville, Va., sells flour some Sundays at the Dupont Circle Farmer's Market, and Stanton's Mill in Grantsville, Md., also produces local flour. But the problem of getting local grain is akin to the larger problems finding a local meal, Thanksgiving or otherwise, Koll-Mandel has discovered. To eat local, a consumer has to plan further in advance, eat what's in season and learn about it all.
"I think the difficulty is there still isn't a very complete way to find out where your food is coming from," Koll-Mandel said. "We actually don't grow enough food in Montgomery County to support the population. The demand is there, it's just a matter of supply. I think we're on the edge right now of things really shifting."
Koll-Mandel's friend Renee Catacalos, co-editor of the local Web site www.realpeopleeatlocal.com, agrees. In 2005, Catacalos, of University Park, began a month-long family experiment to eat only food from within 150 miles. Wheat and grains were the hardest things to find then too, but it has gotten easier since.
"Grains definitely are one of the challenges in the area, although now that the local food movement is taking off many farmers are starting to experiment," Catacalos said.
Catacalos said she is dining at her mother's house this year for Thanksgiving, but her own contribution will be locally-sourced.
"I have been shelling Maryland pecans from the Eastern Shore for the pecan pie my mom has delegated me to make," Catacalos said. Catacalos will also be using local maple syrup instead of Karo syrup in the pie, purchased from the Takoma Park Silver-Spring Food Co-Op.
Tony Cohen, president of the Button Farm in Germantown, said his own Thanksgiving table will be set with food from the farm—squash, sweet potatoes, kale for "kaleslaw"—and he will be foregoing cranberries for a Waldorf salad with Fuji apples from Lewis Orchards in Dickerson. Cohen said he plans to pick all of the produce Thursday morning.
"That's the exciting part," Cohen said. "It's really fresh."
Aside from assorted fruit—citrus and cranberries—and the grain, Koll-Mandel found spices and coffee are an unavoidable import. Catacalos wasn't surprised.
"For eons, there's always been the spice trade, there's always been trade between regions," Catacalos said.
Koll-Mandel said at her Thanksgiving table and for the rest of the year, she strives for a moderate position: to eat local as much as she can.
"I feel very passionate about these issues and I think each of us is learning not only how to understand the issues but also how to walk the talk," Koll-Mandel said. "What is missing is connecting the dots, connecting the dots between food health and climate change. It's a closed loop and none of us is going to get out alive unless we make a better system."
Rana Koll-Mandel of Garrett Park set out to get 80 to 85 percent of her Thanksgiving meal ingredients from local sources around Maryland and Virginia. Here's what she could find, and what she couldn't.
The Local Goods:
-Meat: turkey
-Squash: kabocha, butternut, acorn, pumpkin
-Flours: bread, unbleached all-purpose white, whole wheat, whole wheat pastry, cornstarch
-Other veggies: celery, parsnips, celery root, corn, leeks, onions, garlic, kale, fennel bulbs, broccolini Other fruits: raisins, apples, pears
-Fresh/dried spices and herbs: ginger, salt, sage, rosemary, garlic, thyme, oregano
-Dairy: butter, buttermilk, milk, half & half, heavy whipping cream, various cheeses, sour cream, cream cheese, eggs
-Nuts: pecans
-Misc: poblano peppers, dried ancho chilies, vegetable broth, chicken stock, yeast
-Drinks: white and red wines, apple cider
The Imports:
-Fruit: lemon, orange, lime, cranberries
-Fresh/dried spices and herbs: cinnamon, cloves, smoked paprika, nutmeg, pepper, allspice, anise seed
-Nuts: almonds
-Miscellaneous: bittersweet chocolate, maple syrup, vanilla extract, cannellini beans, brown, white and powdered sugar
-Drinks: coffee, tea
