For extra income, my mom grew and sold strawberries from our farm during my childhood.
Our stained hands evidenced the work and the localness of the product. The juicy strawberries left their mark, accentuated on nights when we stemmed the farm’s seconds. The brilliant, red juice coated our fingertips and ran down our wrists and forearms, which we dabbed on paper towels that lined the work surface.
I learned young that “low-mile” strawberries bleed, characteristically tender and juicy without the need to travel farther than a few miles from the source. I particularly remember the customer who lived down the road. Her striking red lipstick, fitting for the fruit, contrasted beautifully with her whitening hair. She would buy a quart at a time to make pie.
In honor of those childhood memories, my family picks local strawberries every June from either our own family patches or a nearby berry farm. But that is not to discredit the firmer varieties that travel well and maintain freshness longer in the grocery store’s produce department. I appreciate that our fellow farmers on the warmer East and West coasts allow my family to have strawberries from as local a source as we can get when the Illinois berry season passes.
Shop local: Heartfelt Harvest
Local is Relative
Local means something different to each person, sometimes in each season and sometimes with each food. By spring, my grandma kindly shares her backyard asparagus harvest. During the summer, green peppers, onions, tomatoes and red raspberries grow just feet from our home kitchen. For peaches, we take a family road trip to southern Illinois. Absent a strawberry patch at home last June, I located a berry farm in my home county, and my family enjoyed jam all year long on homemade bread.
But when I want winter citrus, I rely on farmers in Florida, Texas and California. I feel good about that chain store purchase, too. Regardless of the route that farm-to-table foods take, farmers throughout the nation express a shared mission and a sincere commitment to their land, families, employees and communities while they proudly grow food.
Illinois is home to more than 76,000 farmers who care about what they do and supply to markets that work best for them. Some farmers sell their produce at farmers’ markets, fostering a special farmer-buyer relationship. Other farms use their high-traffic locations for on-farm sales and agritourism. Many farm families sell their produce, meat, milk and crops to processors, who produce food under name-brand labels that line grocery store shelves.
Likely, we eat local more often than we realize.
See more: Shop Local If You Dig It at Fresh Digs in Effingham
