While some may think of the 100 mile diet (a commitment to eat only foods that originate within 100 miles of one’s home) as a new fad among those looking to go green, it is actually a centuries-old part of our American heritage. Thanksgiving, in particular, can be a wonderful exercise in eating local foods. After all, Thanksgiving originated as a celebration of the bounty of the land. The pilgrims grew or harvested all of their food from local sources, but is it still possible to put on a traditional Thanksgiving feast in New England while obeying the food sourcing limitations of the 100 mile diet?
Turkey, of course, is easy. In my case, I raised several turkeys from locally sourced poults, and I’ll butcher one of them for Thanksgiving. For those who don’t want to go that route, there are poultry farms all over the seacoast area, like Harrisons Poultry in Candia, NH, that will butcher and dress a turkey for your Thanksgiving dinner, just make sure to reserve one ahead of time to make sure they don’t run out.
There are also a number of vegetables that I can grow myself which will find their way into my Thanksgiving feast. Root vegetables, can be kept through the fall and winter with relative ease, so potatoes, beets, sweet potatoes, parsnips, onions, and carrots, can be pulled directly from the root cellar. In my case, that’s a mouse-proof tub full of sand kept in a shed. Certain squashes and pumpkins will also keep until Thanksgiving, but they can also be blanched and frozen for use all winter long. Seacoast Eat Local keeps an updated list of winter farmer’s markets in the seacoast New Hampshire area where those without their own gardens can buy what they need from local growers.
Other vegetables don’t keep this long after the short New Hampshire growing season. These need to be preserved in other ways such as freezing them. Green beans, peas, corn, and spinach fall into this category. Locally picked blackberries, blueberries, and apples for Thanksgiving pies can also be stored in the freezer. Herbs for cooking can be preserved from the summer herb garden by drying or dehydrating them.
*How to preserve vegetables like green beans by blanching and freezing
In New Hampshire, it’s hard to drive 20 miles without passing a dairy farm with a little farm store. Local butter and milk can be purchased easily. Ground beef for a meat stuffing is similarly available from local country stores or meat markets like Calef’s in Barrington, New Hampshire. Many of these small, family-owned stores even sell home-made breads, cheeses, pies, pickles and other traditional foods that will fit right in on your 100 mile diet Thanksgiving table.
For cranberry sauce, of course, New England is the right place. Cranberry bogs are abundant in Down East Maine or from Cape Cod, both easily within our 100 mile limit. Sea salt can also be locally obtained and ground at home for use on the table or in recipes.
Some things, however, are more difficult to find. Sugar is one of the more difficult items and is used in many recipes, especially the fruit pies. For strict adherence to the 100 mile diet, we’d need to substitute local honey or maple sugar for any sugars we’d use in cooking. It’s not a straight substitution and the flavors do differ somewhat.
Another category of difficult items for New Englanders is fresh salad vegetables. Tomatoes, lettuce and other produce can be and are grown indoors with artificial light in heated greenhouses in New England, but at that point you’re getting away from the point of the 100 mile diet which is to lower the carbon footprint of the foods we eat. Tomatoes can be readily preserved by canning them as can many vegetables and fruits, although their suitability for certain recipes may be affected by this kind of processing.
Coffee, while the beans may be roasted locally by companies like Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, is tropically grown, though locally grown teas are readily available. Processed beverages, in general, are a difficult category. Finding soda pop or beer that is made with 100 percent local ingredients will be nearly impossible although there are many that are made and bottled within a 100 mile range. A number of local wineries, like Jewell Towne Vineyards, in South Hampton, NH, produce good table wines. Citrus fruits and juices, of course, will not be available for our 100 mile diet Thanksgiving dinner. Apple cider from local orchards, such as the Carter Hill Orchard in Concord, NH, is a good locally produced beverage choice.
While the 100 mile diet may cause us to make some small alterations to our traditional thanksgiving feast, these changes are, for the most part, minor. If one is already following the 100 mile diet, these small limitations are not unique to Thanksgiving.