No, really! I’m not talking eco-friendly (or bad grammar), I’m talking about the next great category of go-to foods, especially in fashion-forward restaurants.
Make no mistake, pork is still a favored food group and pizza fills in well between re-imagined burgers and the occasional anti-oxidant. But green things, of all sorts, are set to play a big part in the next frontier of food discovery, play and profit.
Kale aside, there’s so much growing out there – some that foodists have embraced for years (lardoons, ramps…) and some that scream rare and exotic. This is building towards a huge impact on restaurants and all sorts of food service enterprises, from school lunches to food trucks, fancy (award-winning) restaurants to roadside diners. I mean really, Mickey D is going to sell oatmeal! The world has gone to roughage! With entreaties from Michelle Obama and declarations from chefs like Jose Andres, we’re sure to see not just a trickle-down but a tsunami of vege-centric good cooking and eating.
Closer to home, it’s finally happened in yet another critical sector — and it’s a good thing. Even folks in the Napa Valley (a place I consider a restaurant neighborhood of San Francisco) have begun to publicly discuss reconsidering their approach to farming – and the heightened appeal of growing something besides grapes!
I was amused and upset a while back when the Press Democrat saw fit to give major headline news coverage to a newly opened organic farm in Rutherford. This is news? Well, okay. As I used to say, if it weren’t for Sonoma County, Napa couldn’t cook lunch! So the addition of a thoughtfully tended plot amidst the moguls and monoculture certainly adds something valuable.
Full article here
