Authors shows Hoosiers the places to go for fresh, locally produced ...

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Authors shows Hoosiers the places to go for fresh, locally producedfoods Story Discussion Font Size: Default font size Larger font size
BY JANE AMMESON
Times Correspondent | Wednesday, August 06, 2008 | No comments posted.
Serious foodies will want to keep a copy of "Homegrown Indiana: AFood Lover's Guide to Good Eating in the Hoosier State" (IU Press2008) in their car.

Authored by Christine Barbour, a political science professor atIndiana University and founder of Bloomington's Slow Food chapterand Scott Hutcheson who apart from his day job in economicdevelopment for Purdue University, writes the popular food blog,The Hungry Hoosier, the book features over 400 places to getlocally produced food. The book coincides with the growing trend ofsustainable local agriculture.

"In a day when most food travels an average of 1,300 miles fromfield to dinner plate and some produce comes to Indiana from as faraway as China," write the authors in their forward, "there issomething reassuring about knowing that we an supply almost all ournutritional needs with food that is grown or raised right here inour state."

The reasons are obvious.

Local food is fresher and also can be more unique. And HomegrownIndiana tells how to find small farmers in Northwest Indiana whoproduce a wide cornucopia of foods.

Organic heirloom tomatoes don't travel well but they tastedelicious and local growers include J n J Organic Farm in Kouts.

Hiatt's Pork and Poultry, a fourth generation farm in Rochesterwhose products have been sold at the South Bend Farmers' Marketsince 1917, offer -- beyond chickens, duck and turkeys -- geese andbags of chicken feet (they make a great rich soup stock).

Divided by areas, the Hutcheson and Barbour find the urban/ruralmix of Northwest Indiana "to be the perfect recipe for a growingfoods movement that ranges from freshwater caviar and a world classspice house to organic heirloom tomatoes and award winning cheese."

Hutcheson, who says that he enjoyed throwing his family in the vanand traveling the back roads, authored the food finds mentioned inthe book for Northwest Indiana.

"The Chesterton European Market was one of the first places Ivisited," says Hutcheson, who lives in Lebanon.

The market helped him meet vendors who are dedicated to Indianafood ways.

"I'd meet one person and that would lead to another," Hutchesonsays. "It just snowballed."

Many of Hutcheson's finds were new to me, even though I grew up inNorthwest Indiana.

On his travels he stopped at the Birky Family Farms County Marketin Valparaiso whose roots date back to 1919 when Jake and EmmaBirky first started raising high-quality pork containing noantibiotics, growth hormones and animal by-products.

Other local finds are Collins Caviar in Michigan City whichprocesses fresh water caviar; Cr