The Best Local Food Ever.

Damascus to Radford

Damascus is 2 miles from the Tennessee state border!  New state! 

for 2 minutes... 

The western Appalachians are known for coal mining, while the people of the eastern range are more likely to subsist on agriculture.  The book I’ve been reading for the past week, Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, describes describes Kingsolver’s goal of eating local for a year, and how the climate of the eastern appalachians made it possible for her to live off the lands.  The book takes place in southwestern Virginia, which Kingsolver seems to emphasize quite a bit.  Since we’re in southwestern Virginia, naturally, I was curious as to where Kingsolver lives.  

Ten miles from Damascus, in a small town called Meadowview.  

I was so excited to learn this, and even more excited when I found out she had a restaurant!  Specializing in local foods, the Harvest Table has been open since September 2007.  I went there for lunch, hoping to get a chance to talk to Kingsolver herself about her thoughts on food waste and compost, but, unfortunately, I was unable to track her down.  Nobody at the restaurant would give me her phone number or address (something about journalism makes me feel like a bit of a stalker), which was just so bizarre.  Anyway.  

The Harvest Table (blue) is next to the Farmer's Guild (red), a general store.

This sign posted outside the Harvest Table requests local produce from farmers.

While I was unable to get a direct quote from Kingsolver, this passage in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle speaks for her thoughts on the subjects:

I have not learned to throw perfectly good food in the garbage.  Not even into the compost, unless it has truly gone bad.  To me it feels like throwing away a Rolex watch or something.  (I’m just guessing on that.)  Food was grown by the sweat of someone’s brow.  It started life as a seed or newborn and beat all the odds.  It’s intrinsically the most precious product in our lives, from an animal point of view, (188).

Barbara Kingsolver and I would get along splendidly, I’m sure.  

After lunch, I discussed the restaurant’s food waste and compost programs with Jared, one of the cooks.  He showed me the buckets outside of the restaurant where they collect all of the vegetable peels and other kitchen waste.  While they don’t compost directly at the restaurant, Kingsolver or her husband, Steven Hopp, collect the buckets regularly and take them to their own compost pile.  I was surprised to learn that the uneaten food scraps from customers’ plates go into the trash, rather than compost buckets; however, according to Jared, “most of the plates come back fairly clean.”

Compost buckets outside in the restaurant's garden.

I don’t understand how they wouldn’t come back clean.  The goat cheese and lettuce-topped pizza, coffee, and blackberry poundcake composed the best meal I’ve had on this trip.  And that’s a bold statement, considering all of the amazing almond butter and rice cakes I’ve consumed!

So.

Delicious.