Slow Food - Restaurant Embraces Farm to Table Trend

Slow food ~~ Restaurant embraces farm to table trend

By Angela Daughtry, News-Leader
Slow food ~~ Restaurant embraces farm to table trend

By Angela Daughtry, News-Leader


Maybe it's about time we all just kind of slowed down.

Scott Schwartz, owner of 29 South, an upscale restaurant in downtown Fernan-dina Beach, is embracing a trend that may soon become a necessity: the Slow Food Movement.

Schwartz, along with his wife, Nan Kavanaugh, has become part of the international movement by partnering with regional farmers to bring his customers the freshest ingredients. The restaurant, which opened in 2006, also grows its own fruits and vegetables on the South Third Street property.

And not only does the movement offer better products for customers, it also supports the local economy and helps the environment.

According to the Slow Food website, the organization was founded in 1989 "to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people's dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world."


The locally grown approach, which has been popular in California since the 1970s, has not quite caught on in this area, but Schwartz says he hopes other restaurants will get on the bandwagon.

"Our mantra is to buy locally if it's available," says Schwartz. It takes a little more effort, he says, and can be more expensive - but the taste and quality of fresh ingredients make it all worthwhile. It's the difference, he says, between lettuce picked in the morning, or lettuce that's been sitting in a truck for days.

Schwartz has partnered with local and regional farmers including Conner's A-Maize-ing Acres in Hilliard and Ocean Breeze Farm on Amelia Island, which both grow vegetables without synthetic chemicals or pesticides. The restaurant is also keeping some laying hens at Conner's, so customers can have the freshest of eggs. It's worth the hour drive to pick them up, says Schwartz, because eggs in grocery stores are often at least a month old.

Another partner is DelKat Family Farm of Hilliard, which raises all-natural beef and pork products without using antibiotics, medications or growth hormones. The farm's black Berkshire pigs, says Schwartz, are known for their superior flavor and marbling. The couple cures and smokes their own bacon at the restaurant.

"It's expensive, but worth it," says Schwartz. "We control everything, including letting (the animals) run around the yard. They're happy, not like when they're in pens on a commercial lot."



The restaurant also partners with Sweet Grass Dairy of southern Georgia, a 140-acre farm that offers award-winning cheeses from their own goats and pasture-grazed Jersey cows. Sweet Grass also uses no growth hormones or stimulants in their cows, so the ingredients are much more pure than store-bought.

29 South also offers their customers local shrimp whenever possible, and has just added a beekeeper, Naked Bee Honey Farm of St. Augustine, to the roster of partners.

One of the couple's most significant projects, however, is a large fruit and vegetable garden they have started on the restaurant property. The beds contain many types of lettuce, plus peas, radishes, kale and herbs, among other cultivars. They have also started a scuppernong arbor and are raising blueberries and Myer lemons. The couple hopes to make blackberry preserves to go along with the restaurant's signature pork chop dish. They also hope to make wine from the scuppernong grapes ,which will be given to customers as gifts.

Making the area into a garden, Schwartz says, killed two birds with one stone. "We had all this land," he says. "It was used as a parking lot and part of it was overgrown with weeds. We also had an issue with the city asking us to mow it."

Kavanaugh has been coordinating the garden project. She says that two servers, Megan Burns and Tim O'Conner, who work in the restaurant, had worked on a small organic farm, and helped her design the crop plan. The garden, says Kavanaugh, couldn't have been done without their guidance. The couple estimates it cost about $3,500 to start the garden, an amount that covered costs for cement blocks, mulch, compost, plastic weed barriers, seeds, a watering system and design consultants.

"Gardening is so nuts and bolts," says Kavanaugh. "It's so simple. It's just sun, water, seeds and weeds. There's very little to it."

Another important part of the movement is to preserve heritage breeds of both animals and plants. Schwartz used the example of the Creole strawberry, which was almost wiped out until someone saved some seeds. The Slow Food Movement's Ark of Taste program, which catalogs food products, has a seed bank that aims to preserve the best-tasting crops and save them from cross contamination by genetically modified products.

According to the Slow Food website, "Ark products range from the Italian Valchiavenna goat to the American Navajo-Churro sheep, from the last indigenous Irish cattle breed, the Kerry, to a unique variety of Greek fava beans grown only on the island of Santorini. All are endangered products that have real economic viability and commercial potential."

The result, says Schwartz, is meats, fruits and vegetables that taste the way they're supposed to taste.

"Your grandparents and parents will say it's the way it used to taste," say Schwartz.



Schwartz says he likes how the program supports the local economy, and also how it addresses the ecological consequences of shipping products over great distances. "It's a ripple in the pond, but when you look at how it affects the pond, it's unbelievable," he says.

"This is raising the culinary bar," says Schwartz. "We still have a long way to go, but we learn something new every day."

For more information, log on to www.29southrestaurant.com or www.slowfood.com.

adaughtry@fbnewsleader.com

Story created Feb 05, 2009 - 08:33:23 PST.




Maybe it's about time we all just kind of slowed down.

Scott Schwartz, owner of 29 South, an upscale restaurant in downtown Fernan-dina Beach, is embracing a trend that may soon become a necessity: the Slow Food Movement.

Schwartz, along with his wife, Nan Kavanaugh, has become part of the international movement by partnering with regional farmers to bring his customers the freshest ingredients. The restaurant, which opened in 2006, also grows its own fruits and vegetables on the South Third Street property.

And not only does the movement offer better products for customers, it also supports the local economy and helps the environment.

According to the Slow Food website, the organization was founded in 1989 "to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people's dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world."


The locally grown approach, which has been popular in California since the 1970s, has not quite caught on in this area, but Schwartz says he hopes other restaurants will get on the bandwagon.

"Our mantra is to buy locally if it's available," says Schwartz. It takes a little more effort, he says, and can be more expensive - but the taste and quality of fresh ingredients make it all worthwhile. It's the difference, he says, between lettuce picked in the morning, or lettuce that's been sitting in a truck for days.

Schwartz has partnered with local and regional farmers including Conner's A-Maize-ing Acres in Hilliard and Ocean Breeze Farm on Amelia Island, which both grow vegetables without synthetic chemicals or pesticides. The restaurant is also keeping some laying hens at Conner's, so customers can have the freshest of eggs. It's worth the hour drive to pick them up, says Schwartz, because eggs in grocery stores are often at least a month old.

Another partner is DelKat Family Farm of Hilliard, which raises all-natural beef and pork products without using antibiotics, medications or growth hormones. The farm's black Berkshire pigs, says Schwartz, are known for their superior flavor and marbling. The couple cures and smokes their own bacon at the restaurant.

"It's expensive, but worth it," says Schwartz. "We control everything, including letting (the animals) run around the yard. They're happy, not like when they're in pens on a commercial lot."



The restaurant also partners with Sweet Grass Dairy of southern Georgia, a 140-acre farm that offers award-winning cheeses from their own goats and pasture-grazed Jersey cows. Sweet Grass also uses no growth hormones or stimulants in their cows, so the ingredients are much more pure than store-bought.

29 South also offers their customers local shrimp whenever possible, and has just added a beekeeper, Naked Bee Honey Farm of St. Augustine, to the roster of partners.

One of the couple's most significant projects, however, is a large fruit and vegetable garden they have started on the restaurant property. The beds contain many types of lettuce, plus peas, radishes, kale and herbs, among other cultivars. They have also started a scuppernong arbor and are raising blueberries and Myer lemons. The couple hopes to make blackberry preserves to go along with the restaurant's signature pork chop dish. They also hope to make wine from the scuppernong grapes ,which will be given to customers as gifts.

Making the area into a garden, Schwartz says, killed two birds with one stone. "We had all this land," he says. "It was used as a parking lot and part of it was overgrown with weeds. We also had an issue with the city asking us to mow it."

Kavanaugh has been coordinating the garden project. She says that two servers, Megan Burns and Tim O'Conner, who work in the restaurant, had worked on a small organic farm, and helped her design the crop plan. The garden, says Kavanaugh, couldn't have been done without their guidance. The couple estimates it cost about $3,500 to start the garden, an amount that covered costs for cement blocks, mulch, compost, plastic weed barriers, seeds, a watering system and design consultants.

"Gardening is so nuts and bolts," says Kavanaugh. "It's so simple. It's just sun, water, seeds and weeds. There's very little to it."

Another important part of the movement is to preserve heritage breeds of both animals and plants. Schwartz used the example of the Creole strawberry, which was almost wiped out until someone saved some seeds. The Slow Food Movement's Ark of Taste program, which catalogs food products, has a seed bank that aims to preserve the best-tasting crops and save them from cross contamination by genetically modified products.

According to the Slow Food website, "Ark products range from the Italian Valchiavenna goat to the American Navajo-Churro sheep, from the last indigenous Irish cattle breed, the Kerry, to a unique variety of Greek fava beans grown only on the island of Santorini. All are endangered products that have real economic viability and commercial potential."

The result, says Schwartz, is meats, fruits and vegetables that taste the way they're supposed to taste.

"Your grandparents and parents will say it's the way it used to taste," say Schwartz.



Schwartz says he likes how the program supports the local economy, and also how it addresses the ecological consequences of shipping products over great distances. "It's a ripple in the pond, but when you look at how it affects the pond, it's unbelievable," he says.

"This is raising the culinary bar," says Schwartz. "We still have a long way to go, but we learn something new every day."

For more information, log on to www.29southrestaurant.com or www.slowfood.com.

adaughtry@fbnewsleader.com

Story created Feb 05, 2009 - 08:33:23 PST.