Charlottesville Food

Published by American Palate

A Division of The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright © 2014 by Casey Ireland

All rights reserved

First published 2014

e-book edition 2014

ISBN 978.1.62584.165.0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ireland, Casey, author.

Charlottesville food : a history of eating local in Jefferson's city / Casey Ireland.

pages cm

Summary: “From the early days of ThomasJefferson's Garden Book at Monticelloto the hustle and bustle of the modern City Market on Water Street, Charlottesville has an illustrious culinary history. The city's cuisine ischaracterized by a delight in locally raised ingredients. The locavorementality appears at all levels of Charlottesville's food industry, includingthe nationally acknowledged methods of Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms, thesourcing of local pork for Chipotle's Charlottesville location and theaccessibility of regional ingredients everywhere from Whole Foods Market toonline favorite Relay Foods. Author and food enthusiast Casey Ireland explores how Charlottesville's residents have created a food culture that is all their own”--Provided by publisher.

Summary: “A history of food culture past and present in Charlottesville, VA”--Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references (pages ).

print edition ISBN 978-1-62619-027-6 (paperback)

1. Local food--Virginia--Charlottsville--History. 2. Cooking--Virginia--Charlottsville--History. 3. Charlottsville (Va.)--Social life and customs. I. Title.

TX360.U63C435 2014

641.59755'48--dc23

2013050304

Notice
: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For my parents and sister, lovers of good meals and good books
.

Contents

Foreword, by Jed Verity

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Monticello and Thomas Jefferson: The Origin of (Heirloom) Species

2. Outstanding in Their Field: Farming's New Wave

3. Food Hubs: Getting Regional Ingredients to the Home Cook

4. Charlottesville Dining: How Lowbrow Sustenance Becomes Highbrow Meals (or Vice Versa)

5. Virginia Vinoculture and Breweries

Notes

Bibliography

About the Author

Foreword

A few months ago, I went to Portland, Maine, to visit family and friends. Over truffled mac and cheese with a massive glistening pillow of lobster meat on top, my cousin asked me if the farm-to-table movement was as strong in Charlottesville as it was in Portland. I nodded vigorously and told her that
Forbes
magazine had referred to us as the “locavore capital of the world” and that we've also long enjoyed the honor of having more restaurants per capita than anywhere else in the country. At this, the locals at the table let out a collective guffaw. Portland, they said, is well known to have the most restaurants per capita in the country, and the local food movement is not really even a “movement” there because it's the way it's always been. We all took sips of our locally produced pale ales and cabernets and smiled tight smiles at each other.

Reflecting on this later, I decided that both of us must be wrong. Surely there are more restaurants per capita in New York City than in either Portland or Charlottesville. And what are the chances that this local food craze sweeping the nation started in one of our small towns? Some quick Googling revealed that the current title-holder of “most restaurants per capita” is actually Juneau, Alaska, and that there is no consensus whatsoever about the origins of this modern incarnation of the local food movement (though Michael Pollan and Joel Salatin are surely founding fathers, with the latter giving central Virginia an edge over Portland, if I may be so bold).

So why are we sparring over mac and cheese, trying to claim some small victory in this local food arena for our little towns?

Until recently, my wife and I ran a restaurant reviews and food news blog in Charlottesville. We had hoped it would become a place for people to have conversations about food, and it did, but the character of those conversations was more often belligerent than convivial. How can you possibly think this restaurant is good/bad? How can you claim to know anything about food given that you've never been professionally trained? And, most pertinently, why would you patronize an establishment that makes no effort to source its ingredients locally?

It was this last question that hinted at an answer to the earlier question. Any issues of pragmatism wrapped up in the local food movement—fresher produce, support for the local economy, reduction of energy consumption by shortening distances between producers and consumers—have been moralized in the extreme, glorifying those who source and eat their ingredients locally and vilifying the rest.

To an extent, this is not surprising. Energy and the economy are powerfully charged, highly politicized issues. But it goes deeper than that. “Local” has come to be a synonym for other values as well. “Healthy” is one. We're worried that food corporations are more concerned about the bottom line than our bodies, piping in all kinds of chemical preservatives and flavor enhancers to make sure we buy what they sell, such that it feels wiser to eat a local biscuit with local bacon than a corporate salad with foreign fruit. Is it actually healthier to do so? Maybe, maybe not. In the paraphrased words of one of our readers, “If I'm going to go prematurely, I'll take a heart attack while eating a local breakfast sandwich over cancer from a fast-food salad any day of the week!”

This points to another modern synonym of “local,” which is “trustworthy.” Local farmers could be engaging in all kinds of sadistic, immoral practices just around the bend, but we trust that they're not. They're our neighbors and friends. Surely they're looking out for us more than the faceless executives just trying to make a buck. Right?

“Slow” is another one. Many people talk about the “Slow Food movement” and the “local food movement” in the same breath. In this age of fast food—and “fast casual”—and instantaneous communication with people around the world, we are feeling agile but fatigued, connected but disconnected. Local food promises old(er)-fashioned techniques, fewer ingredients, a simpler and purer experience, with that guy over there who has some good chickens and that family over there with all the goat cheese–producing goats. Pull up a chair, my friend, and let me get you a plate of food. We'll drink a beer from the brewery right around the corner and talk about old times.

Putting aside issues of whether fast-food salads really are carcinogenic, whether local farmers really care less about making money than corporate execs and all the other complex dynamics at play here, we can see in the good-natured debate between Portland locals and Charlottesville locals a contraction of the ever-expanding universe. We have now collectively realized the insane dream of being able to video chat with someone in the Himalayas in real-time, both of us drinking a Coke and eating chicken McNuggets. The spectacle of brand colonialism—walking off a rickety plane in the middle of nowhere in a far-off country to see a Coke umbrella—has lost its luster, if it ever had any. The thing that is special about us is the thing you can't get anywhere else. The people, the food and drink, the history of this place and the experiences to be had right here and now. These are the knowable things, the raw materials of our very being, and they can't be bought or sold anywhere else.

—Jed Verity

Charlottesville, Virginia

November 2013

Acknowledgements

This book is the result of the encouragement and opportunities given to me by Jed Verity and Erin Malec of Mas to Millers. Their guidance, experience and general know-how has been an indispensable part of the book-writing process. Greg and Debbie Ireland, Chelsea Ireland and Kevin Haney have given me incredible support—they've functioned as sounding boards, proofreaders, marketers and cheerleaders. Kevin's photography, eye for detail and unwavering dedication have been essential to the completion of this work and my sanity as an author.

The food community in Charlottesville is a knowledgeable and enthusiastic one. Without the backing of local farmers, retailers, restaurateurs and craftspeople, this text would have no stories to tell. Sincere thanks to Peter Hatch of Monticello for his easy wisdom; his vibrant personal background and incredible knowledge base proved integral to the historical foundations of this book. Every one of the individuals interviewed has been kind, resourceful and eager to help. I am forever grateful for the conversations, farm visits and friendships granted to me by this group of food-minded individuals during the past year.

Introduction

The local food scene in Charlottesville has taken off by leaps and bounds within the past twenty years. The once-scrubby City Market has morphed into a veritable Mecca of seasonal foodstuffs; the Boar's Head Inn, one of the only places to offer simple fine dining with regional flavor twenty years ago, is now one of many stellar restaurants putting out quality meals with local ingredients. Gabriele Rausse, local vintner and director of gardens and grounds at Monticello, tells a story of fancy dinners flown in from New York and frozen baguettes from Washington, D.C., purchased at Foods of All Nations.

Twenty years ago, gourmet retail standbys like Feast! had not yet burst onto the scene; the luxurious handmade lasagna sheets of Mona Lisa Pasta, raspberry jam of Agriberry Farm and delicate and precious quail eggs from Down Branch Farm were nonexistent during this period. While marked by an educated, somewhat cosmopolitan population in the city, Charlottesville possessed a food scene that was a far cry from its current luxuriousness today.

What happened over twenty years that led to the creation of such a vibrant, accessible and renowned culinary tradition? Trends in agriculture and cooking, often small in scale, alternative movements spearheaded by freethinkers and discontents, have trickled into the mountains and valleys of central Virginia from California, New York and the urban South. The rise of organic agriculture, farm-to-table eating and farmers' markets have all been absorbed with great success into the existing foodways of the Charlottesville area.

Wendell Berry, a founder of the organic food movement, proclaimed in 2008, “‘Organic' has become a label, as it was destined to be.”
¹
To Berry, “organic” as a descriptor has become “a completely worthless word now. It has been perverted to suit the needs of industrial agriculture.”
²
In the wake of organic's demise, a new label has appeared in the texts of Joel Salatin and the farms of the Piedmont: “beyond organic.” USDA-designated conceptions of organic growing, with their focus on fertilizers, feed and chemicals, remain an inadequate way of labeling a product influenced by permaculture, heritage breeds and biomimicry. The holistic, ecologically minded concept of “beyond organic” eating and farming has begun to fill the niches left by the large-scale successes of businesses like Horizon Organics and Earthbound Farms.