Be a Locavore
It's green, socially responsible, and budget friendly
By Caryn Sweeney
One of the best salads I have ever eaten was in a market town in Niger, West Africa. Eager to see some of the country, I had accompanied a former Peace Corps volunteer to her village. Enroute, we stopped for food in a local market. My hostess cheerfully informed me that it was “salad season.”
Salad has a season? I wondered. Having grown up in Illinois I certainly had seen my share of farmland, but the intricacies of agriculture and food were lost on me. Food, after all, came from the grocery store. I never paid much attention to how it got there; I just knew if I wanted salad in January, I could go to Safeway.
The salad was delicious. Who knew lettuce had flavor?
In North America, recent books such as The 100-Mile Diet, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle have reflected a growing trend in “eating local,” that is, eating foods that are grown, harvested, and purchased close to home. The movement recently received additional momentum after tainted wheat gluten from China led consumers to look more closely at their food’s origins.
Following a “locavore” diet requires a little bit of effort. It involves research, asking questions, and purposefully seeking out-of-the-way places.
Eating locally and seasonally gives you the real flavor of a place, if you’ll pardon the expression. This is as much a travel truism as “many carry-on bags look alike.” Anyone who has ever eaten a croissant in Paris or a pizza in Naples knows that food is an integral part of cultural immersion.
I once traveled with a corporate executive to China. After several days of Epicurean delight in Shanghai, we headed for the impoverished interior to visit a training project. He said he was ready for the trip with Powerbars in his bags, because he planned on refusing all food. He didn’t trust it, not with bird flu threats and unknown sanitary conditions.
Any traveler is wise to take precautions when eating in a foreign land. However, eating a Powerbar in a hotel room will never match the experiences of being invited to share boar with a town mayor, or accepting tea and snacks from a grateful school principal, or purchasing a steamed bun filled with pork from a busy vendor as Chinese men and women ages 10 to 100 are doing their morning exercises around you. That experience will last long after the taste of a Powerbar or a little stomach upset (the risk of which can be reduced through some simple guidelines, see sidebar below).
Eating locally can also save you money, especially if your habit while traveling is to eat at tourist-friendly restaurants. Besides, enjoying fresh, local cuisine is as much a part of a travel budget as admission fees and bus tickets. Plan for it, relish every bite, and marvel at the bonding and understanding that can happen over a shared meal.
Eating locally not only makes for a rich travel experience, it’s better for the communities that host you. It puts money into the pockets of local farmers, encourages sustainable farming practices, is more nourishing, and doesn’t encourage the use of fossil fuel to ship preserved and under-ripe products from place to place. As Friends of World Heritage note, “choosing to support locally owned businesses…means that you’ll have a one-of-a-kind experience and your money will go directly to the community.” That lovely restaurant in Bangalore may serve the most amazing filet mignon, but you may be sure it was imported. And, who goes to India to eat steak?
Importing food and traveling by airplane are two of the major contributors to fossil-fuel consumption and its ecological impacts, particularly by wealthier nations. Insatiably curious travelers could even calculate the “food miles” they managed to save by eating locally and contrast this with the carbon offset costs of their international flights, taking pride in making a personal contribution, however small, to ensuring the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro and the canals of Amsterdam may be enjoyed by future responsible travelers.
My work for an international non-profit organization sends me abroad often, so I frequently have to take my local-eating show on the road. Here are some tips I have learned along the way:
Research before you go. What is the city, the region, or the country you are visiting known for? In Rio de Janeiro, the local dish is feijoada, a stew of beans, pork, and beef. I looked it up before I went and while there asked around for the best place to have it. Pre-departure research has never been easier than it is now. A few web searches, a query posted on a travel message board, and a quick perusal of a budget guidebook in a bookstore are all it takes.
Once you get there, ask around. The front desks at hostels or tourist information booths are often conditioned by years of experience to direct you to tourist-friendly establishments. Instead, speak with bus drivers, porters, waitstaff, and policemen on the street—where do they eat? Where do they get the best feijoada? Chances are, you’ll end up in a terrific little local place serving delicious and affordable food—or better yet, you’ll end up seated in someone’s mother’s kitchen speaking tortured Portuguese and crying over how good your meal is.
Find the markets. If you’re adept in the local language, talk to the vendors. Connect to the food you will eat just as you would someone on the bus or in a museum. Find out where the food is grown.
In fact, the market may be the best least-known tourist destination anywhere. I don’t mean the well-known commercial handicraft markets, but the tucked-away markets where the locals buy their food, their fabrics, their metal cooking pots. Ask around, and don’t be daunted by the fact that people will wonder aloud what on earth a tourist would want there.
Staying in accommodations with cooking facilities or with a homestay family may give you the chance to buy your food at a market and prepare it yourself. This is a wonderful experience, but not necessary to eat locally. Every country has its version of “fast food.” In West Africa, corner stands sell bowls of rice and sauce or eggs on baguettes for those rushing along at mid-day. In China, filled dumplings are enjoyed by suited businessmen and women on their way to work. On beaches in Brazil, vendors bring tropical fruits, local cheeses, and caipirinhas right to you.
Even in restaurants, ask questions about your food. Where are the ingredients from? How was it prepared? What goes well with dishes like this? Jot down anything interesting, and you may bring home a new technique or interesting ingredient combination to play with in your own kitchen when you return.
By doing a little research and being open to adventure, you can make eating well and locally a part of any responsible budget travel experience.
This bio was accurate at the time of publication: Caryn Sweeney works for the Academy for Educational Development in Washington, D.C., where she is involved in a variety of international development projects. She is a graduate of Boston University and holds a master’s degree in International Development. She studied abroad in the U.K. as an undergraduate. Contact her at casweeney@gmail.com.
Tips for staying healthy while eating
locally abroad
Eating locally is an easy and rewarding way to support your host communities while really experiencing a culture. However, the fact remains that when you’re a visitor, your stomach is in unfamiliar territory. Fortunately, there is a happy medium between eating anything put in your hand and eating only food boiled in Purell hand sanitizer. You can greatly reduce your local food and beverage-borne illness risk with some of these tips:
• Wash fruit and vegetables purchased at a market with filtered water, or even carry some very diluted bleach solution (one teaspoon (5 ml) bleach to one quart (1 liter) of water, and peel or cut away any bruised or exposed parts of produce.
• Choose hot foods from street or market vendors that are just out of the oven, pot, or oil. If the food has been sitting out, ask the vendor to reheat it for you, or to make you a fresh item.
• In remote locations, choose either completely sealed bottled water or go for the soft drinks in glass bottles. The portable plastic bags of water may look tempting, but the chances are good that it is untreated well water.
• You can pick up bugs from even the most hygienic-appearing establishment. Prepare in advance by packing Immodium, oral rehydration solution, and a prescription of cipro for severe cases of gastrointestinal upset.
• Bring the Purell sanitizer. Use it before you eat if you don’t have access to soap and water for handwashing. The cook’s hygiene won’t help if your own hands are carrying germs.
• Finally, if you are immuno-suppressed in any way, err heavily on the side of caution.
—Caryn Sweeney