Mango picture used under GNU license, courtesy of Fir0002

One of the most interesting things for me about the foray into Bloggalandia is the people.  See, there’s all this space in the great, wide world, and the internet just sort of tessers you right over it a la Wrinkle in Time.  In a click, you can be in someone else’s lap, living room, what have you.

I’ve been enjoying your living rooms.  I’ll steer clear of your laps, however.

Don’t take it personally.  I’m sure they’re lovely.

But I digress.  What I meant to say is that, regardless of my position relative to your living rooms OR your laps, I have greatly enjoyed the ability to find common ground with people whom I never would have met otherwise.  Mangochild, frequent poster here and author of her own site, Living in a Local Zone, is one such person.  I was amazed when I took a gander at her blog some time ago and saw the extent to which she had committed to eating locally throughout the entire winter.  She puts squirrels to shame, both for her superior industriousness and for the beautifully varied diet she has socked away in her home.  I wanted to know more.  What kind of person is able to do this?  Does she have a “real” job, or has she opted out of the formal economy to embrace this lifestyle?  How did she know what to store, or how much of it?  Does she ever get sick of potatoes ’round about this time of year?  How feasible is it for other people to do some or all of what she’s doing?

So I cornered the poor gal.  And I asked her if she’d like to talk about some of this over here at Simple Spoonful for some of the curious folks who may be just starting to scratch at this idea of local eating, or preparing all their own food, or both.  If you’ve read many of her friendly and thoughtful comments on this site, I doubt you’ll be surprised to hear she was gracious enough to consent to an e-mail interview.  Over the next few days, I will be posting her responses.  Check it out…she’s new to a lot of these concepts, but she has made incredible strides toward food independence over the last year.  It’s good stuff.  But enough of me.  Let’s let Mangochild talk, shall we?

1)  Okay, dish.  Who are you?  What area of the country do you live in?  What do you do besides store produce and cook delicious things?

I am from Connecticut, an attorney practicing labor and employment law in a mid-sized firm in a good-sized city, and loving it! But a big part of me is also tied into the earth I live in.  I’ve never been part of a community as such, since as a child and teen (and even in college/grad school) I stayed mainly to myself.  Yet there has always been that interest in where I live in the broader sense and how/why I impact that place either for good or bad — or in ways that aren’t per se either, but just, well, there.  I remember that “recycling awareness” began when I was about 6 or 7, and I have been hearing about that angle pretty much ever since.  Somehow, though, that angle doesn’t really attract me; it really is more about being what some call a steward of the earth, not just reusing, etc., but replenishing and making conscious decisions about my lifestyle — whatever those may be and whatever may be right for me at any particular time in my life.

2)  When and why did you decide to become a locavore/localvore?  How do you define that for yourself?  (How far away will you source food, and do you allow any exceptions?)

I guess a little background is needed before I get into the question.  I have been a lacto-vegetarian all my life, as have my parents.  I eat milk and limited milk products (cottage cheese and yogurt) since for religious reasons I can’t eat any animal byproducts.  My parents both grew up eating locally by default.  They both grew up in India, and eating what they got in the markets that day was the norm.  They knew the farmers, and in my mother’s case, her family owned a farm.  But when they came here, that naturally changed given food supply and acquisition methods here in the States.

As for me, I have always tried to eat seasonal foods, simply because they taste better than, for example, strawberries in January.  Mostly, however, that meant “seasonal where grown,” not seasonal and local.  In other words, I ate citrus in the colder months because that was when they were coming ready off wherever they were grown.  But as for really being a dedicated localvore, that happened in early September 2008.  I just took the plunge, partly from seeing all the bounty of the farmers’ markets I liked to visit, and partly because it hit me how much our food supply travels, the effects of that energy, and the fact that small farmers are being pushed out.  What my parents were able to experience might not be as possible for my children and grandchildren, and that troubles me.

My local zone is defined as 100 miles from my house.  I am lucky that we have so many wonderful dairies and farmers here in central Connecticut, so I have a good base for my foodshed.  And my radius reaches into most of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and parts of New York state as well, so there are many options.  Although we are in New England with its supposed limited growing opportunities, I am happily surprised at how much can be produced.  I also have a local producer of grain, so I can bake breads and eat local hot cereal.  A corn mill is in my zone, bringing in a lot of new dishes into my cooking.  And thanks to a plea for information (read: venting post) on my blog, I have gotten a source of local dry beans!

I don’t eat commercially packed food at all — though now that I think about it, I really never have done much of that.  While I might have had, say, dry cereal as a mix from the oatmeal staple, we never really had the frozen/prepared meals, energy bars, packaged snacks, dry soups, etc. that I see in stores.  It just wasn’t part of my upbringing.  We did have commercial bread and soup, but then again, my mother made fresh flatbread and dahl every night for our dinners.  So now, being local, it was an easy shift to completely avoid packed food, make my own bread, and eat only local oats/grains, dairy, etc.  without the other items.  It took a bit of planning at first to figure out breakfast (source for local oats/grains and a method to bake/prepare for the week ahead), but really, it wasn’t hard.

Exceptions: I use the Marco Polo exemption for spices if needed, but I do try to grow/get local herbs when I can, and definitely in the warmer months.  I also take an exemption for mangoes, which I explain on my blog.  Basically mangoes are such a part of my upbringing and my health history that I haven’t gone a day without a fresh mango in…. 9-10 years at least.  Other than that, I am fully local in my personal life.

That said, I do have two more exceptions to my local eating, one professional, and one personal.  When I have to go on business lunches with clients or colleagues, I will eat non-locally since I consider that part of my job.  However, I don’t go out to eat non-local food whenever a colleague asks me to grab a bite; it is reserved for real “working needs,” and even then, I don’t go wild.  Similarly, I will eat non-local food that is prepared specifically for me and given to me with love from people who truly want to share that meal with me.  Like the work situation though, it is a very limited thing — I won’t ask for it and won’t accept something that’s a general or casual gift, such as a fruit basket in the office, or a colleague who brought in leftover baked goods from the holiday to be eaten up.

Intrigued yet?  Keep your eyes peeled for another installment from Mangochild.  Next time: glimpse her awe-inspiring food stores and hear how she planned for the long northeastern winter.