Terroirism

No the title isn't a misspelling. It's a foodie concept from the French term "goût de terroir" or taste of place. It's the belief that some food from some place is better than any other example of that food from anyplace else. This came up yesterday at a meeting of the Agricultural Commission Study Committee. John Grant mentioned Hadley asparagus which once upon a time was considered to be the best in the world. I heard this forty years ago when I was in graduate school at UMass. Sadly, hardly anyone grows asparagus in Hadley anymore because of cheap competition from elsewhere. People aren't necessarily willing to pay a premium for the best because for most people asparagus tastes pretty much the same.

The folks in Vidalia, Georgia aren't going the way of the Hadley asparagus farmers anytime soon. People can certainly taste the difference between a Vidalia onion and the typical yellow onion. Vidalia's taste difference is all about terroir. The dirt in that part of Georgia is particularly poor in the miniscule amount of sulfur found in soil elsewhere. Sulfur is what the onion uses to make itself smelly and sharp. Other farmers have jumped onto America's desire for a sweet onion, and you can now get them year round, but each other variety is a little different from the true Vidalia.

The idea of terroir comes from the wine business in France where hundreds of small farms produce the same variety of grape. Differences in soil, slope, and orientation to the sun affect the grapes as do the varieties of yeast that cause fermentation. Hence, the different tastes of the great bottlers of the same types of wine-and the differences in vintages. In California with larger farms and, until recently a more scientific approach to winemaking, wines could be made with less influence of terroir. Viola! a more consistent taste and lower prices. With apologies to the wine snobs among us most people can't taste the difference in wine just like they can't taste the difference between Hadley asparagus and the California variety.

Many cheeses are like wine and depend on terroir. Most folks can taste the difference betweeen roquefort, gorgonzola, and Stilton blue cheeses

Maple sugar, it turns out, is also influenced by terroir since the final taste is achieved by bacteria in the syrup which varies from sugar stand to sugar stand. No one is suggesting vintage labels for syrup, but fans of the sticky stuff all have their favorite brands based on individual taste.

Locally, sweet corn varies dramatically from farm to farm depending on soil conditions. People who have tasted corn from many farm stands believe that Gerry's Farm in Brockton sells the best sweet corn around.

The other idea discussed at the Ag meeting was foodshed.  Just like a watershed provides water to a region, a foodshed is a certain relatively small region that can supply a large proportion of that area's food needs. One point of this for farmers in Easton is that they might do better producing, say, the best  cucumbers rather than being generalists and trying to produce a wide range of average farm produce. The foodshed idea depends on folks agreeing to "buy local" for higher quality, however. Otherwise the cucumber producers of Easton could be swamped by a freight car load of Florida cukes arriving right at harvest time. In that case they would have done better as generalists.

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