Trying to eat local in Dallas not so easy

Infrastructure for processing and transporting local foods just isn't there yet.

Prepping a course at Spiceman's

An urban oasis of fresh produce, Spiceman's F.M. 1410, lies in the heart of midtown Dallas on Fitzhugh Avenue. Owner Tom “Spiceman” Spicer, uses the converted demolished apartment lot to grow everything from micro greens to fiddle head ferns. On a sunny midday, Tom’s son Erik, a dead ringer for Kurt Cobain, grabs a crate of mixed greens and morels and declares that he’s off to “see Karin” — chef/food sourcing liaison at Southern-eats-staple Screen Door. Tom throws a few baggies of yellow foot chanterelle mushrooms on top of the pile and rolls his eyes as Erik bounds out the door.

Quaint though the farm-to-table delivery may sound, this packing up of crates and cruising from restaurant to restaurant is a daily occurrence for them and repeats itself at a high cost. The only thing burning as fast as the fuel during the process is the money it costs to individually transport the ultra-green produce to each kitchen multiple times per week. “Honestly, my bottom line is operating off of love right now,” Tom admits. “No one in their right mind would want to do what I do.”

And he’s not the only farmer feeling the hand-to-mouth heat. Gail Feenstra, food systems analyst for the California Federation of Certified Farmers Markets and professor at the University of California in Davis, says it’s a national fact that that the infrastructure for processing, certifying and transporting local foods is just not there. “The food chain has become incredibly consolidated,” she laments. According to Feenstra, recent studies have proven that there is indeed a hunger among the public for locally sourced food, but the people providing it can’t keep up the way things are. “The little guys are going out of business,” she says.

Besides costs, others cite the North Texas climate as yet another obstacle keeping area diners from diving fork first into an organic and local menu. Texas weather keeps some produce from growing in the Dallas area at all. Chef Bruno Davaillon of The Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek recalls a time when he asked Tom Spicer if he could plant some English peas for a dish he was working on for a new menu. Simply based on the weather of the area, Davaillon was forced to source the green side dish from the East Coast. He believes that it’s nearly impossible to entirely commit a menu to locally sourced food alone. However, as a chef, he values local push and realizes the crucial nature of the movement. Growing up in France, he fondly remembers visiting his mother’s side of the family on their farm and cooking food fresh from the garden and pasture. “In France it is only natural and to be expected,” he says. “If a vegetable is cut at noon and on my table that night, not only will it taste fresher but it will have a longer shelf life,” says Davaillon. He believes that more than anything, “going local” is a state of mind.

The Dallas Morning News’ resident food critic Leslie Brenner applauds chefs like Davaillon and Screen Door’s Karin Porter for their commitment to trying their best to source locally. But she also acknowledges that the movement in Dallas is both long overdue and has a long way to go. Brenner has an extensive background in food writing at the Los Angeles Times where she lived for years before making the move to Texas. She believes that a lot of the of local and organic food crazes hitting Dallas today are things that started taking place in New York and California as far back as the early '90s.

She believes that the strength of farmers markets and local produce in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City is due in large part to the strong relationship between chefs and farmers. “Chefs will ask the farmers to grow certain crops and the variety and quality improve a lot because of demand financially,” says Brenner. The Mansion’s Chef Davaillon agrees but believes that something more powerful like politics needs to get involved. “To thrive, there needs to be a collective effort from chefs and the communities everywhere.”

Brenner believes that some restaurants currently participating in the local movement are in it for the wrong reason: marketing. Grower Tom Spicer agrees that to Dallas chefs this is indeed nothing but a fad and way for them to crank up the menu prices. Brenner on the other hand argues that while marketing may be in the forefront of some minds now, it’s important to realize the concept of local sourcing is soaking into the consumer’s conscious, which ultimately leads to reform. “Chefs and diners are slow to evolve and resistant to change,” observes Brenner. “The culinary soul of the city is torn.” She says the Dallas market “wants to do fun, modern things but also wants to do things the way they’ve been done for years.”

Chef Karin Porter at the Screen Door admits that while for many restaurants around town, throwing the word “local” on the menu is indeed a marketing ploy, most of the chefs really believe in what they’re doing. “Menus with local give the waiters something to talk about,” she jokes. Her restaurant sources most of its food from within a 100-mile radius of the city: The green produce is from F.M. 1410, the dairy products are from Garland’s Lucky Layla Farms, and the famous grits come from Waco’s Homestead Gristmill. She says that while demand and exposure to this kind of sourcing is high, the prices for functioning like that are not much higher than outsourcing the product from different states. “We do Southern food,” she says. “It’s only logical that should be local and made from the things around us.” From produce growers like Tom Spicer to meat producers like Robert Hutchins and his Rehoboth Ranch, food is being grown all around the city.

On a Friday morning about an hour and half east of Dallas, two grey minivans kick up dust jostling down the quarter-mile driveway of Greenville, Texas’ Rehoboth Ranch. Amid the sound of kid goats bleating, nine Flower Mound Girl Scouts and their two troop moms spill out to a “Welcome to the farm,” greeting from Hutchins, the burly and denim overalled ranch-owner. The sixth graders have journeyed to the poultry, beef and goat’s milk producer to see where their dinner is coming from. Tonight, they’ll be dining exclusively on meat and veggies grown right there on the ranch. Troop leader Ellen Greer found out about the ranch and its tender meat at the Coppell Farmer’s Market a few weeks earlier when she bought them out of eggs and chicken. “I care about what I’m putting into my kids’ bodies,” says Ellen. “If I can get it organic, or better yet, local, then you bet I will.”

Hutchins, a former military man, started farming full-time on his 280-acre ranch in 2000 after returning from Southern California where he found the health benefits of eating local and eating animals that lived a relaxed and natural lifestyle far removed from the over-crowded, over-immunized and over-stimulated life on corporate farms. Now, he, his wife and eight out of his 12 kids raise grass-fed beef and lamb; produce pasture-raised chickens, pork and eggs; and also harvest raw goat’s milk. “I love the lifestyle and love the animals,” says Hutchins. “But there’s no doubt I’ve resigned to a life below the poverty line and yet I cater to the most expensive food niche.” Much like Spicer, transportation is a huge cost for Hutchins. But like other small meat producers he also faces steep processing costs. The number of legal meat processing plants in the 50 states can be counted one hand. Hutchins’s animals typically have to travel more than 240 miles before making it to a table.

Feenstra believes that fixing this overly consolidated distribution structure is the key to unlocking the success of the movement. She says that because of the high cost of establishing processing on an individual’s ranch, most farmers are forced to sell out to wholesalers and distributors. “By that time in the chain, there’s no source identification,” cautions Feenstra. “The farmers aren’t getting credit and the consumer doesn’t know what they’re eating.” Unlike Chef Davaillon, who believes that it’s the government’s responsibility to enact reform, Feenstra believes that restaurants should also invest in creating new regional infrastructure. For example, in Sacramento, organizations called “aggregation hubs” are being formed to help aggregate production from low and mid level farms and source identify them so that their identity is maintained.

Whether the reform to maintain a locavore movement is grass roots or from the top-down, one thing’s for sure: chefs, diners, scholars, farmers and journalists are all talking about the local food phenomenon and participating in its production. “It’s becoming a philosophical and moral obligation that people have to their communities,” says Feenstra. “It’s a way of life,” says Spicer. “It’s a collective effort,” says Davaillon. “Local is optimally nutritious and the ultimate product,” says Hutchins. “As we evolve policy, the movement will become stronger,” says Brenner. “Its roots are too deep and it just makes too much sense.”