If you read my last post it will probably come as no surprise to you that some baking recipes will soon be posted on RedWattle. This seems to be a good time to shed some light on exactly where I stand on local eating, especially how it pertains to baked goods. Some of you may have a friend who promises to get you baked locally when you're in town. You may even know how to make local bacon. But do you bake locally?
I claim to be a locavore, but I'm certainly not a purist. I don't insist that all of my food come from within a 100-mile or 300-mile radius from my home. If given a choice I do try to pick the most local, environmentally sustainable, or humane option available(not necessarily in that order). As I write this post I'm sipping on a cup of coffee, so clearly I'm not a hardcore locavore. I did choose the South American coffee over the African available at the coffee shop, however.
For baking I apply the same principles. The eggs I use are almost always local and from pasture raised chickens. I try to use local dairy products from grass-fed cows whenever possible, but since I only have a once a week dairy delivery there are times when I need a mid-week dairy purchase from the store. If that's the case I try to get the best option available at the grocery store. For dairy and other animal products I always put treatment of animals over all other criteria. I will choose milk from a pasture-raised cow from across the country over a local feed-lot cow. Other than treatment of animals, however, quality of the product is the next most important thing to me. This usually points me to local products anyway, since minimal shipping and handling occurs.
Local flour and local sugar is much tougher to find than local dairy and eggs. I usually buy King Arthur flour, a Vermont based company. I was hoping this meant that most of the flour came from the Eastern US. After contacting the company I learned that this is not the case. They buy flour from mills across the US and some in Canada. Though it is good that their flour at least comes from North America, this is probably the case for most of the flour purchased in the US. Maybe if I contact a local mill directly I can find local flour, though past attempts at this have led me nowhere.
Local sugar is difficult to acquire as well. There is plenty of sugar produced in the US from sugar cane in the south and sugar beets in the north. Narrowing down exactly where the sugar that you purchase in the store is produced is no easy feat, however.
In general I stay as local as I can with what's available to me. For now that means buying flour and sugar without knowing exactly where it was produced. If anyone knows how to find these products locally I'd love to hear about it. Otherwise I'll just enjoy supporting local eggs and local dairy for my baked goods and try to support US flour and sugar whenever possible.