Locavore

Strawberries in January, fresh tomatoes year-round and New Zealand lamb at all times -- these well-travelled foods have a carbon footprint the size of an SUV. But there is a burgeoning local food movement taking place in Canadian cities, farms and shops that is changing both the way we eat and the way we think about food.

Locavore describes how foodies,100-milers, urbanites, farmers, gardeners and chefs across Canada are creating a new local food order that has the potential...
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Strawberries in January, fresh tomatoes year-round and New Zealand lamb at all times -- these well-travelled foods have a carbon footprint the size of an SUV. But there is a burgeoning local food movement taking place in Canadian cities, farms and shops that is changing both the way we eat and the way we think about food.

Locavore describes how foodies,100-milers, urbanites, farmers, gardeners and chefs across Canada are creating a new local food order that has the potential to fight climate change and feed us all. Combining front-line reporting, shrewd analysis and passionate food writing to delight the gastronome, Locavore shows how the pieces of a post-industrial food system are being assembled into something infinitely better.

We meet city-dwellers who grow crops in their backyards and office workers who have traded their keyboards for pitchforks. We learn how a group of New Brunswick farmers saved the family farm, why artisanal cheese in Quebec is so popular and how a century-old farm survives in urban British Columbia, bordered by the ocean on one side and by a new housing development on the other. We follow food culture activists as they work to preserve the genetic material of heritage plants to return once-endangered flavours to our tables. In recounting the stories of its diverse cast of characters, Locavore lays out a blueprint for a local food revolution.

From Locavore

:At farmers' markets across the city, heritage tomatoes, free-range eggs and organic purslane are sold out before noon.... And at the cheese shop, the rich but not-too-salty sheep's milk feta made on the outskirts of Toronto is so popular I never know when I'll find it again. Everywhere, it seems, demand outstrips supply for local produce.