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In This Issue
September/October 2010
vol. 59, no. 1
From the Editor
An Iowa Sampler
If you’ve been to a farmers’ market lately, and I’m betting you have because the state now hosts well over 200, you’ve seen the signs. Fresh this and local that and invitations to shoppers to know and greet vendors by name. Despite the lingering and confounding irony that the state that proclaims to feed the world continues to import more than 80 percent of its food, regular visits to these markets offer strong evidence that change is afoot. More than ever, Iowans are scrutinizing what we serve at the dining table. Informed consumers are seeking — demanding — variety, quality, and choice. (And good value, of course. We are Iowans, after all.)
Fresh-and-healthy is in. Grass-fed, free-range, pesticide-free, antibiotic-free, preservative-free, sun-ripened, just-picked, vitamin-rich, high-fiber, low-calorie, high-protein, low-fat. We want flavor and nutrition, and not just in our own kitchens. Increasingly, all those adjectives are showing up on restaurant menus. Heck, the Iowa State Fair is now offering salad-on-a-stick.
Local is in. More and more Iowans want to know not only how their food is grown, produced, and delivered but where and by whom. “Food miles” has entered our lexicon. We’ve grown an allegiance to a shared sense of place. We’ve entered an era of meet and eat. Community through food is savory on the collective palate.
All this bodes well for Iowa, I think. The locavore revolution isn’t unique to this land between two rivers, but its impact may perhaps be greatest on states such as ours — states heavily invested (economically and culturally) in agriculture, states knitted together by small rural communities. While Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack prescribes as one of the pillars of a thriving rural economy “research to ensure our farmers remain world leaders in providing a reliable, cheap, safe, and abundant food supply,” it may just be a resolve to buy fresh and local that helps save rural America, including our stressed communities in Iowa. Local food systems, channels of production and consumption that keep food dollars flowing through Iowa communities, can fuel local economic development.
But there are still more reasons to consider the geography of our diets. In a blog I recently read, the author offered a sort of Top 10 list, a collection of incentives for eating local. My favorite: “Buying locally grown food is fodder for a wonderful story.” That got my attention. A meal is all the more enjoyable, she explains, when you know a story about your food. I heartily agree. And that’s why The Iowan will keep telling good stories about Iowa food, stories like the one of fresh and local artisan cheese that begins on page 22.
Of course food isn’t the only grist for a good story mill. In this issue alone we taste the mystery and awe of secrets and sounds from the cosmos (page 30). We chew on sustainable farming methods (page 18) and better water quality (page 64). We savor fresh starts (page 16) and lakeside music (page 46). We relish the lives touched by Iowa education (36) and the broncs ridden by Iowa cowboys (48).
Bon appétit!
— Beth Wilson, Editor
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