10 • E AT I N G N E I G H B O R LY Late June Just a few hours north of Massachusetts lie the working-class towns of central Vermont, where a granite statue on Main Street is more likely to celebrate an anonymous stonecutter than some dignitary in a suit Just such a local hero stood over us now, and we admired him as we drove past: stalwart as the mallet in his hand, this great stone man with his rolled-up sleeves reminded us of Steven’s Italian grandfather We were still on vacation, headed north, now hungry We pulled in for lunch at a diner with a row of shiny chrome stools at the long counter, and booths lining one wall Heavy white mugs waited to be filled with coffee Patsy Cline and Tammy Wynette sang their hearts out for quarters A handmade sign let us know the jukebox take is collected at the end of every month and sent to Farm Aid The lunch crowd had cleared out, so we had our pick of booths and our order was up in a minute The hamburgers were thick, the fries crispy, the coleslaw cool The turkey wrap came with mashed sweet potatoes Lily seemed so lost in her milkshake, we might never get her back The owners, Tod Murphy and Pam Van Deursen, checked by our booth to see how we liked everything—and to tell us which of their neighbors produced what Everything on our plates was grown a stone’s throw from right here The beef never comes from Iowa feedlots, nor the fries come in giant frozen packages shipped from a factory fed by the e at i n g n e i g h b o r ly 149 world’s cheap grower of the moment In a refreshing change of pace, the fries here are made from potatoes This is the Farmers Diner, where it’s not just quarters in the jukebox that support farming, but the whole transaction It is the simplest idea in the world, really: a restaurant selling food produced by farms within an hour’s drive So why don’t we have more of them? For the same reason that statue down the street clings to his hammer while all the real stonecutters in this granite town have had to find other jobs, in a nation that now imports its granite from China The giant building directly behind this diner, formerly a stonecutting works, is now a warehouse for stone that is cut, worked, and shipped here from the other side of the planet If ever a town knew the real economics of the local product versus the low-cost import, this ought to be it Buying your goods from local businesses rather than national chains generates about three times as much money for your local economy Studies from all over the country agree on that, even while consumers keep buying at chain stores, and fretting that the downtown blocks of cute mom-and-pop venues are turning into a ghost town Today’s bargain always seems to matter more The Farmers Diner is therefore a restaurant for folks who want to fill up for under ten bucks, and that is what they get: basic diner food, affordable and not fancy The Farmers Breakfast—two eggs, two pancakes, your choice of sausage or bacon—is $6.75 The Vermont-raised hamburger with a side of slaw, home fries, or a salad is $6.50 At any price, it’s an unusual experience to order a diner burger that does not come with a side of feedlot remorse For our family this was a quiet little red-letter occasion, since we’d stopped eating CAFO-produced beef about ten years earlier Virtually all beef in diners and other standard food services comes from CAFOs Avoiding it is one pain in the neck, I’ll tell you, especially on hectic school mornings when I glance at the school lunchroom calendar and see that, once again, it’s hamburgers or tacos or “manager’s choice.” (The manager always chooses cow meat.) But I slap together the peanut butter sandwich; our reasons are our reasons In Lily’s life, this was the first time we’d ever walked into a diner and ordered burgers Understandably, she kept throwing me glances—this is really okay? It was The cattle 150 a n i m a l , v e g e ta b l e , m i r ac l e were raised on pasture by an acquaintance of the owner When Tod asked, “How’s your burger?” it was not a restaurant ritual but a valid question We told him it was great Tod Murphy’s background was farming The greatest economic challenge he and his farming neighbors faced was finding a market for their good products Opening this diner seemed to him like a red-blooded American kind of project Thomas Jefferson, Tod points out, presumed on the basis of colonial experience that farming and democracy are intimately connected Cultivation of land meets the needs of the farmer, the neighbors, and the community, and keeps people independent from domineering centralized powers “In Jefferson’s time,” he says, “that was the king In ours, it’s multinational corporations.” Tod didn’t think he needed to rewrite the Declaration of Independence, just a good business plan He found investors and opened the Farmers Diner, whose slogan is “Think Locally, Act Neighborly.” For a dreamer, he’s a practical guy “Thinking globally is an abstraction What the world needs now isn’t love sweet love—that’s a slogan.” What the world needs now, he maintains, is more compassionate local actions: “Shopping at the hardware store owned by a family living in town Buying locally raised tomatoes in the summer, and locally baked bread Cooking meals at home Those are all acts of love for a place.” The product of his vision is a place that’s easy to love, where a person can sit down and eat two eggs sunny side up from a chicken that is having a good life, and a farmer that will too, while Tammy Wynette exhorts us all to stand by our man It’s also an unbelievable amount of work, I suspect, for Tod, Pam, and their kids Grace and Seamus, who start the day early on their farm and keep things running here until closing time The diner has had to create a network of reliable year-round producers, facilitating local partnerships and dealing with human problems, for better and for worse Supplies have to keep running even if a potato grower falls ill or the onion farm gets a divorce Trying to make a small entrepreneurial economy competitive with the multinationals is an obvious challenge Tod has met it, in part, by creating an allied business that processes all their breakfast sausage, bacon, smoked ham, and turkey, and also sells these products in regional stores e at i n g n e i g h b o r ly 151 With the Farmers Diner Smokehouse and the diner itself both doing half a million dollars in business annually, they can create a market for 1,500 hogs per year That’s just about how many it takes to keep a processing plant running A nearby bakery stays busy making their burger buns and bread The stonecutting jobs have all gone to China, but Tod taps every channel he can think of to make sure it’s Vermont farmers’ hogs, grain, potatoes, and eggs that end up on the white porcelain plates of his diner His unusual take on the ordinary has recently made the place worldfamous, at least among those who pay attention to food economies Here in town, though, it’s just the diner The average customer comes in for the atmosphere and the food: the NASCAR crowd, or elderly Italians and Ukranians from a nearby retirement home The old folks love the Chioggia beets and greens, farmstead fare that reminds them of home Some of his customers also enthusiastically support the idea of keeping local businesses in business But whether they care or not, they’ll keep coming back for the food How is local defined, in this case? “An hour’s drive,” Tod said Their longest delivery run is seventy miles Maintaining a year-round supply of beef, pork, chicken, and turkey from nearby farms is relatively simple, because it’s frozen Local eggs, milk, ice cream, and cheese are also available all year, as are vegetal foods that store well, such as potatoes, beets, carrots, onions, sauerkraut, and maple syrup The granola is made in Montpelier, the spaghetti and ravioli right here in town Fresh vegetables are a challenge The menu doesn’t change much seasonally, but ingredients do; there’s less green stuff on the plate when the ground outside is white The beer is locally brewed except for Bud and Bud Light, which, according to Tod, “you’ve gotta have We’re not selling to purists.” Obviously, at a diner you’ve also gotta have coffee, and it’s fair-trade organic The Farmers Diner does not present itself as a classroom, a church service, or a political rally For many regional farmers it’s a living, and for everybody else it’s a place to eat Tod feels that the agenda here transcends politics, in the sense of Republican or Democrat “It’s oligarchy vs non-oligarchy,” Tod says—David vs Goliath, in other words Tom Jefferson against King George It’s people trying to keep work and homes together, versus conglomerates that scoop up a customer’s money and move 152 a n i m a l , v e g e ta b l e , m i r ac l e it out of town to a corporate bank account far away Where I grew up, we used to call that “carpetbagging.” Now it seems to be called the American way Marketing jingles from every angle lure patrons to turn our backs on our locally owned stores, restaurants, and farms And nobody considers that unpatriotic This appears to aggravate Tod Murphy “We have the illusion of consumer freedom, but we’ve sacrificed our community life for the pleasure of purchasing lots of cheap stuff Making and moving all that stuff can be so destructive: child labor in foreign lands, acid rain in the Speaking Up The increased availability of local food in any area is a direct function of the demand from local consumers Most of us are not accustomed to asking about food origins, but it’s easy enough to First: in grocery stores, when the cashier asks if you found everything you were looking for, you could say, “Not really, I was looking for local produce.” The smaller the store, the more open a grocer may be to your request Food co-ops should be especially receptive Restaurants may also be flexible about food purchasing, and your exchanges with the waitstaff or owner can easily include questions about which entrees or wines are from local sources Restaurateurs understand that local food is the freshest available, and they’re powerful participants in the growing demand for local foods You can a little homework in advance about what’s likely to be available in your region Local and regional policymakers need to hear our wishes Many forums are appropriate for promoting local food: town and city hall meetings, school board meetings, even state commissioner meetings It makes sense to speak up about any venue where food is served, or where leaders have some control over food acquisition, including churches, social clubs, and day-care centers Federal legislators also need to hear about local food issues Most state governments consider farming-related legislation almost weekly You can learn online about what issues are being considered, to register your support for laws that help local farms In different parts of the country the specifics change, but the motives don’t As more people ask, our options will grow STEVEN L HOPP ... milk, ice cream, and cheese are also available all year, as are vegetal foods that store well, such as potatoes, beets, carrots, onions, sauerkraut, and maple syrup The granola is made in Montpelier,... food, affordable and not fancy The Farmers Breakfast—two eggs, two pancakes, your choice of sausage or bacon—is $6.75 The Vermont-raised hamburger with a side of slaw, home fries, or a salad is... Making and moving all that stuff can be so destructive: child labor in foreign lands, acid rain in the Speaking Up The increased availability of local food in any area is a direct function of the