Locavores: California’s Latest Trend Goes Global

For lover’s of America’s East Coast, the idea of California as the leading Global influence from the states seems laughable. After all New York City has given life to Punk Rock, to Abstract Expressionism, to Jazz. It is New York’s streets that have coloured the popular imagination through film and TV, through Art and literature. It was the residents of New York that ran screaming through the streets in 2001, losing two towers and prompting two wars.

California has never laid claim on any of these distinctly New York touchstones. Author Jay McInerney once characterized California as the most American of cities, it’s inhabitance as far from old europe’s influence whilst remaining on the US mainland. Perhaps it’s this thirst for the ‘new,’ this hyper-modernism that has helped cultivate a unique culture of it’s own that spread throughout the Western hemisphere.

When the Beach Boys brought Surfing to the USA it starting in Califor-ni-a. When sunbeds, sushi, oxygen bars, organics, rollerblades and flight miles came to the West, they all landed first in the US Sunshine State. And so it is with Locavores – is this the latest trend to become a California export?

The locavore movement is focused on sustainiability, on eco-friendly agriculture and especially on locally sourced ingredients. From the same well of West Coast environmentalism that introduced the ‘slow food’ movement, locavores aim to reduce the reliance on mechanized agriculture to reduce their carbon footprint, and to promote in-season plant consumption.

They have some powerful foodie allies in this goal. Famed celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has thrown his influence behind a move to force UK restaurants to serve locally sourced seasonal produce. Is this the end of the all-season Strawberry?

In parallel with adherence to free markets and globalization the all-season market and fruit and vegetables has developed, producing all-year stocks from ever further reaches of the globe.

What do you think – is the locavore movement a ‘hippy-fad’ or is locally sourced seasonal food the ‘new normal’?