This strawberry season, buy local

Hello again to readers who have seen this column, which focuses on local food, in The Oxford Press and The Miami Student, and welcome to newcomers. The column started 11 years ago, when the editor of The Oxford Press visited the newly opened MOON Co-op Grocery. Impressed by the store, he offered MOON a weekly column.

Oxford is fortunate to have two large supermarkets that meet many of our needs. But around 1,000 local households banded together as owners of MOON Co-op because the large supermarkets were not meeting the community’s need for local, organic, and other Earth-friendly products.

Oxford is also fortunate to have a weekly Farmers Market, held Uptown every Saturday morning throughout the year. Many farm stands and urban farmers markets permit reselling of products acquired elsewhere, such as from out-of-town wholesalers, but that’s not the case in Oxford. Larry Slocum, long-time Market Manager, likes to say that Oxford’s Farmers Market is special, because all of the vendors must either “make it, bake it, or grow it” themselves.

Locally grown and raised food is healthier and better tasting than supermarket alternatives. Strawberries, which have been in season here for the past couple weeks, are a great example.

Conventionally-grown strawberries have the dubious honor of being named the most pesticide-infested produce in America, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture tests and reported by the Environmental Working Group. More than 90% of supermarket strawberries are grown in California, where an average of 300 pounds of pesticides are applied per acre of strawberry field according to that state’s data.

This raises the question of the relative merits of consuming national brand organic or local not-organic strawberries. My vote is local for several reasons.

First, our local growers consider chemical application to be the very last defense against an attack on the crop initiated by a pest or fungus. They won’t say “never,” but they have not sprayed in the decade I have been writing this column. 

Second, local strawberries are fresher and more nutritious than supermarket strawberries, which are picked at least several weeks before you see them. The owners of Driscoll’s, which controls 60% of the U.S. organic strawberry market, make no bones about the fact that its berries are bred and grown primarily for appearance, not taste.

Finally, there really is no such thing as a purely organic strawberry, because there is no source of organic strawberry plant cuttings. A so-called “organic” strawberry was not sprayed as it grew, but the plant on which it grew was a conventional source.

Our first batch of Oxford Farmer’s Market strawberries from Brad and Shelly Brubaker’s Little Creek Farm overlapped with the last few store-bought California organics. The local berries were sweeter, more aromatic and softer, but not mushy.

For a completely local strawberry shortcake, place the strawberries atop a toasted scone baked by Kate Currie and a dollop of creme fraiche or yogurt made locally by Snowville Creamery (all of the above are available at MOON Co-op). 

Local strawberries will soon be finished for the season, so enjoy them now. But never fear; cherries, raspberries and plenty of other locally grown fruit will follow this summer. Eating locally means paying attention to constantly changing seasons.