Local food week: an introduction

This is where I am. Auckland, New Zealand.

New Zealand grows things. It exports shellfish and wine and pine trees, and it farms cattle and sheep for meat and dairy. My entire domestic ancestry, going back six generations, is comprised of farmers -- dairy and sheep farmers in Northland, the Waikato, and in the South Island.

A funny thing happened to my family tree about forty years ago: people stopping being farmers. My extended family is now less than 10% horny-handed sons of the land, and instead features scientists, therapists, businessmen, retailers, travel agents and designers.

80% of New Zealanders now live in urban areas, where the production, processing and delivery of food is for the most part a mystery. Instead of the Anglo-Saxon words of the field: 'cow', 'sheep', or 'deer', we only use the French words of the table: 'beef', 'mutton' and 'venison'.

Given this divide, it doesn't seem important where food comes from. Besides, we can get food from almost anywhere in the world; an orange, an otherwordly treat in 1880's New Zealand, is easily obtainable now. Coffee, a product that is impossible to grow in our moderate climate, is one of the most popular drinks. The massive and extended process that brings foreign goods to far-flung markets like ours is almost unimaginable, yet we walk into a store and there it is, as if placed by an invisible hand.

In my cupboard right now there are coffee beans from Brazil, sugar from Indonesia, oatmeal from Australia, oil from Italy, wine from France, rice from Pakistan, and chili from China. It was all simply, miraculously, available to me.

What if I opted out of this huge machine? What if I only ate food that came from a local source with a name and a location? Is it even possible anymore?

This is my experiment for the following seven days: to only eat food that was grown and processed within 100 miles. This describes a circle reaching from the Bay of Islands in the north to Te Kuiti and Tauranga in the south. This is my local food zone, and everything I eat must have never been outside this area, as confirmed by the company I buy from, and it must have a source, a region I can find on a map.

I have absolutely no idea what we make locally. I guess I'll find out.