Farm-to-Table Dining

In the culinary world, green is the new black.

Because of its environmentally friendly connotation, farm-to-table has become an immensely popular buzzword; it promises sustainability, fresh flavors and high-quality ingredients. Chefs around the globe are creating entire menus around this concept. Their menus change seasonally, sometimes even weekly or daily, which challenges chefs to be creative.

The basic tenets of farm-to-table cooking include using locally sourced, environmentally friendly ingredients and humanely raised animals, as well as involving as many local vendors as possible. By fostering and maintaining connections with local farmers, as well as promoting their product on restaurant menus, chefs bring everyone involved in the industry closer together, while reducing their carbon footprints and food’s impact on the environment.

Green eating has many famous champions, but none more popular than Michelle Obama. In 2009, Obama planted a 1,100-square foot organic vegetable garden on White House grounds. While Obama was a vocal proponent of sustainable food, the roots of the farm-to-table movement extend much farther back than her tenure in the White House.

In 1971, Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. It was the first restaurant of its kind in the United States, using only fresh produce from local farms. Influential eateries such as Herbfarm in Washington State and The Kitchen in Boulder, Colorado opened soon after, but it was not until the early 2000s that the movement began to gain traction in the culinary world.

Dan Barber opened revolutionary farm-totable restaurants Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York City in 2000. Through his activism and feature on the Netflix original docuseries Chef’s Table in 2016, he placed farm-totable on the map as a major culinary movement.

Extensive media coverage such as this has created the expectation that a restaurant should now have some kind of connection with regional farmers and suppliers. While increased popularity of green eating is not necessarily bad, the integrity of the farm-to-table movement may have been compromised by its trendiness. Technically, for a restaurant to call itself sustainable or farm-totable, only a very select few ingredients have to be sourced locally and sustainably.

“There’s been some misuse as a marketing ploy, but the bottom line is if you make real connections with the farmers and you promote the work they do, it reflects in how your food tastes,” said Keith Garman, chef de cuisine at Alden & Harlow in Cambridge.

A hallmark of farm-to-table cuisine is its simplicity. The idea is that the ingredients are so fresh and natural that they do not require extensive preparation in order to highlight their flavors. As Garman said, truly sustainable restaurants and ingredients speak for themselves in terms of taste and quality.

Farm-to-table chefs are combining a refined dining experience with food education. By showing customers the possibilities of a fresh beet, for example, beyond putting it in a salad, chefs like Garman hope to inspire people to take the experience of eating at a farm-to-table restaurant and put it in practice at home.

“Healthy, well-prepared food is a subtle way of teaching guests about the great things that are offered locally,” said Garman.

By playing up the natural flavors and textures of farm-fresh produce and meats, chefs are bridging the gap between finished plate and source, a distance that has been widening for the past several decades. A goal of the sustainable food movement is to close this gap, to remind consumers that farms still exist and to highlight that they are not simply a part of America’s agrarian past.

“There’s a Wendell Berry quote that goes, ‘eating is an agricultural act’ […],” said Sophia Hampton, a student at New York University and the mind behind the sustainable food Instagram account @farmtodorm. “It implies that food can’t be compartmentalized into stuff at a farm and stuff on a fork, but rather it’s all connected. This movement is getting people to think about the connections between their food choices and their environment.”

It may seem that a farm-to-table way of eating is inaccessible to the average college student. But this is not the case.

“Cooking for yourself is a rewarding way to make choices about where your food comes from,” said Hampton. “When you cook, you automatically become a more conscious eater because you’re responsible for everything that goes onto your plate.”

For BU students who live on campus, the weekly farmers market in front of George Sherman Union is the perfect opportunity to pick up fresh produce. There are also farmers markets in Copley Square, Allston and at the Boston Public Market. These run from the early summer to late fall, but that does not mean consumers have to give up sustainable produce in the off-season.

“Even if you don’t have a farmers market nearby where you can get ingredients, most grocery stores now sell organic or local produce,” said Hampton.

College students also have ample options to eat and drink sustainably off campus.

Restaurants such as Henrietta’s Table, which has been serving environmentally friendly cuisine for decades, and Alden & Harlow offer affordable small plates and drinks.

“When developing the concept of Henrietta’s, we wanted to grow this idea of getting the freshest, most responsibly grown product available,” said Peter Davis, head chef at Henrietta’s Table.

Therefore, at Henrietta’s, even alcohol is locally sourced. The drinks menu includes Cambridge Brewing Company seasonal beer and an extensive, entirely New England-produced martini list.

Copley Square also has several options, including its seasonal farmers market, national salad chain Sweetgreen and Dig Inn.

“Dig Inn grew from the idea that good food should be available to everyone,” said Adam Eskin, Dig Inn’s CEO. “Our model aims to showcase incredible, seasonal produce, while developing a business model that leaves the world a little better than we found it.”

Dig Inn and its counterparts prove that the sustainable food movement does not have to be restricted to white tablecloth restaurants. Its farm-to-table-for-all ethos translates into affordable dishes heaped with locally grown produce and organic proteins.

It used to be the case that finding a genuine farm-to-table restaurant was the subject of extensive research. Now, a simple Google search will pull up a plethora of options for a variety of budgets and tastes. An increased demand for a greener option in the face of global warming and climate change appears to be the reason for a larger supply of farm-to-table restaurants.

“People are starting to get it, that we’re caretakers for the world,” said Steve Kurland, a partner and general manager at EVOO, a sustainable restaurant in Cambridge. “If you get a better product, you serve better tasting food […] People believe that we’re doing the right thing.”

As the farm-to-table movement grows and gains momentum, environmentally conscious chefs are always looking to do more, to increase transparency between where food comes from and how it ends up on consumers’ plates.

“I think that in the future, the radius of how close the food is coming from is going to get smaller,” said Garman. “I wouldn’t be surprised to find more restaurants growing their own food. There will be more urban farming, with chefs adapting to the city while still getting the produce in the right way.”

It will no longer be unusual for chefs to have their own farms or rooftop gardens from which they source ingredients. Heightened awareness of where food comes from is becoming the heart of green eating. It will not be enough to know that the butter came from a farm 40 minutes outside of Boston; soon, more eateries will follow the standards of Menton in South Boston, which informs customers of the name of the cow that produced the butter—in this case, Babette.

Food is ultimately a shared experience between the farmer, the chef and the consumer. While it is helpful to eat sustainably, the community and college students in particular must also support and begin initiatives to increase sustainability in our food and agricultural systems.

“College students are integral to the movement towards sustainable cooking and eating—you’re at an educational milestone and required to think critically about the world around you,” Eskin said. “Good ideas and thoughtful actions should be cultivated, starting with a shared meal.”

Therefore, farm-to-table eating is simply a delicious call to action.

BY KADY MATSUZAKI | PHOTOGRAPHY BY CALLIE AHLGRIM | DESIGN BY GABRIELLE DIPIETRO