Charlottesville Food (8 page)

Gail Hobbs-Page with her farm dogs.
Photo by Casey Ireland
.

Whether young or old, transplants or natives, farmers in the Charlottesville MSA have maintained a tradition of Virginia agricultural excellence that began with Jefferson's own horticultural dabbling. Both the quality of the land and the intellectual fertility of the city itself have created a hospitable climate for modern—and old-fashioned—farms. The area has been host to a variety of national and localized trends, whether the prolonged success of the family farm or the old-is-new allure of homesteading. Chickens, pigs and cattle grow more naturally, enhance the landscape more fully and just plain taste better under a free-ranging plan guided by permaculture and sustainability. Connecting farming as an occupation with family life has been a major concern for local farmers, whether they are just starting out or have incorporated business and family for generations. Inquiring, developing, advancing and innovating are the marks of a central Virginia farmer, one who chooses agriculture as both a career and a lifestyle.

A notion of food as inspiring togetherness, whether at the table, in the community or within the family, starts on the farm before it gets to the kitchen. Marbled cuts of beef, crisp greens, plump figs and ripe cheeses offer meals in themselves and exude flavors that represent seasons, terroir and the hands of an individual. Before an ingredient gets to the City Market or grocery store, a farmer has planted, raised, grown or tended it with both practicality and ideology. Given that a cook is only as good as his ingredients and a gourmet store is only as luxurious as its products, the farm has proven to be a crucial first step in forming a regional culinary heritage. The variety, quality and uniqueness of Virginia's agricultural output is only matched by the treatment these products get by restaurateurs and retailers.

Chapter 3

Food Hubs

Getting Regional Ingredients to the Home Cook

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HE
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OCAVORES OF
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HARLOTTESVILLE

After Timbercreek Organics has cured its salty-sweet prosciutto at Kite's and Gail Hobbs-Page has finished packaging a creamy round of Bloomsbury cheese, an extra step is needed before the home cook can transform these ingredients into something magical. Even if the farmers or producers themselves sell their own products, such direct marketing to the customer requires them to put on a new hat: that of the retailer. From vegetable stands in parking lots on Preston Avenue to the endless treasure-trove of local international grocer Foods of All Nations, consumers can purchase a variety of different Charlottesville food products at a variety of price points from retail settings as unique as they are delightful.

At every stall of locally produced goods at the City Market and behind the glass at cheese counters, butchers and wine stores resides an expert—or at least someone with a good story to tell about a product. The clerk at the Organic Butcher may tell you how to cook a challenging cut of pork, while another at Mona Lisa Pasta offers suggestions for a sauce to top hand-cut squid ink pappardelle. People in Charlottesville may shop at Whole Foods, Harris Teeter and Kroger to get necessities, but it is the locally owned and run grocery retailers who earn the most committed following. These shops appeal to Charlottesville's love of community; they provide the old-fashioned pleasure of walking into a shop and being recognized by name. It's an offering of a particularly juicy plum, a sample of cheese or an after-hours wine tasting that makes Charlottesville's food retailers so successful and so well loved.

The eponymous sign at Feast!
Photo by Kevin Haney
.

An understanding of the market for local goods in Charlottesville naturally precedes a discussion of the various kinds of retailers from whom customers can purchase these goods. The wealth of some of Charlottesville and Albemarle County's citizens is locally understood and nationally acknowledged, with
Forbes
magazine listing Charlottesville's wealthiest as the thirteenth most prosperous group in the nation.
⁷⁹
With an average of 5.2 percent of this income set aside for charity, it's clear that there's a sizable contingent of individuals and families with a considerable disposable income and various ways to spend it. The music venues, theaters, arts community and restaurant scene are incredibly vibrant in central Virginia, drawing in both tourists and those hoping to create a home in the midst of mountaintop views and high culture. The University of Virginia and its teaching hospital draw in doctors, professors and highly educated individuals who are well versed in current affairs at both a culinary and a global level.

Perhaps it's no surprise then, given the trend toward organic, sustainable agriculture that has occurred within the last decade, that a community aided by the wealthy, enlightened by the educated and charmed with a southern appreciation of good meals and good fun has an abundance of citizens who deeply care about their food. To eat locally and sustainably, despite the war cry of traditional, back-to-our-roots marketing, is often to eat expensively. Which is not to say that there aren't plenty of affordable options for lower-income families hoping to eat local or individuals seeking to make these options more accessible. Stephanie Andregg-Maloy of the City Market works closely with Charlottesville organizations for the elderly and the underprivileged youth to make market goods available to people from all walks of life. Similarly, it's possible to shop at a gourmet grocery store like Feast! and get healthy local food for under ten dollars, thanks to the smaller packaging of produce and products. According to several farmers and producers in Charlottesville, local, organic foodstuffs can be accessible to a variety of incomes with budget adjustments. However, a large portion of the audience purchasing free-range duck, farm eggs and homemade Boursin cheese appears to have a larger budget to adjust.

A monthly selection of
Edible Blue Ridge. Photo by Kevin Haney
.

In 2006, Meg McEvoy, a journalist for popular newspaper
C-VILLE Weekly
, wrote an article titled simply “The $5 Tomato.” In this article, McEvoy discusses in no uncertain terms “a certain kind of Charlottesvillian” who “moves through the small sections of imported crackers and little jars of tangy tapenade…hunting for food in her native habitat” in the hallowed aisles of Feast!
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This woman picks up an heirloom tomato, weighs it and takes it, with satisfaction, to the register, where it rings up for $5. Even in 2006, McEvoy notes that “this rarified world of high-end organic and artisanal foods has exploded locally”—even more crucially, she finds that “to truly understand the trend, you've got to leave the market, get back in the SUV, and head out of town.”
⁸¹

The paradoxical economics of paying more for an unsophisticated, lumpy, hundred-year-old variety of tomato have been capitalized even further in other parts of the country. In 2010, Sotheby's Auction House in New York City held an auction for crates of heirloom vegetables drawn from nearby farms and growers. The starting price per box? A mere $1,000. The benefit auction, titled “The Art of Farming,” was a first for Sotheby's and took place in the Manhattan showroom of the auction house.
⁸²
The contrast between heirloom pumpkins and a world-renowned auction house is a startling one, just as the $5 price of a single tomato seems a surprising food choice, if not an exorbitant one.

What Sotheby's and the “certain kind of Charlottesvillian” understand about these high-priced, old-fashioned varieties of produce, a knowledge all too limited to those with disposable income or a higher level of education, is the economics of taste. The citrusy tartness of a Green Zebra tomato, the rich smoothness of a heritage pumpkin and the surprise beauty of fresh-picked carrots, with their smell of Queen Anne's lace and knobby irregularities, are treasures of memory and the taste buds. The thought of a relished childhood BLT is most closely invoked by the smell of a homegrown beefsteak rather than a hothouse, imported hybrid. The remembrance of a great-aunt's strawberry preserves is replicated more easily in a jar bought at a roadside stand than on the sugar-free aisle of a nearby super-saver. The connection between food and memory, between farmer and customer, between the land and the bounty it provides is an all-powerful tie all too distant from modern consumerist patterns. What people in Charlottesville understand in regard to the food they get and the places they get it from is the complex, unadulterated pleasure of buying local products and the economic satisfaction it brings to the individual and the community.

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OURMET
G
ROCER

Grocery stores abound in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area, both individually owned and big-box. Gas stations in disguise offer handcrafted cappuccinos along with a tank of regular, while larger, more traditional-seeming operations offer bouquets of local tulips along with cans of Folgers. No matter what size or company, all grocery stores in the area know to cater to the epicurean interests of many of Charlottesville's citizens. The gourmet store, a popular sight in the area, caters to the tastes of discerning palates even more directly, whether proudly marketed and displayed on Main Street or tucked away off the Rockfish Gap Highway en route to Crozet. While it may be difficult to purchase boxes of dishwasher detergent or bags of dog food in these shops, those looking for cheeses, wines, local produce and a variety of artisanal products find their needs well met.

These gourmet stores are perhaps the most local of them all, run by Charlottesville natives or happy transplants with stories, smiles and never-ending culinary knowledge. This is the place where one is most likely to find the freshest herbs, most interesting
salame
or best dried pasta outside of the farmers' markets. Particular markets have cult followings, whether it's the die-hard dolma lover who picks up two dozen from Mona Lisa Pasta each week or the Crane Crest Real French Dressing fanatic who purchases two cases every holiday season from Feast! at the Main Street Market. Gourmet markets offer customers two commodities: delicious ingredients and the share of knowledge on how to use them.

Feast!, the market and eatery of Kate Collier and Eric Gertner's creation, has become a staple of the Charlottesville gourmet scene since opening its doors in 2002. A vaguely industrial space, housed in the larger structure of the Main Street Market, Feast! has both a welcoming and a utilitarian feeling. The uncluttered layout of the store, with its deli and cheese counters, dry goods section, wine rack and produce stand, facilitates easy browsing—and easy tasting. Samples of everything from duck liver pâté to house-made pimento cheese dot the entire store. When visiting, a shopper can almost make a meal out of the bits of cheese, spoonfuls of caramel and handfuls of nuts strategically placed in various sections. A walk-up café allows customers to try ingredients they wouldn't have otherwise been exposed to. Fresh sweet corn, slivers of extra-aged gouda or house-spiced nuts excite customers' taste buds and allow Feast! to showcase the best local ingredients in an accessible manner.