Do Good Design

“Think globally, act neighbourly.” That’s the motto of The Farmers Diner, a downhome country style diner in Vermont that’s featured in Barbara Kingsolver’s book,Animal, Vegetable, Miracle that I’ve been reading lately.

It’s got me thinking about buying food and good locally — why it matters more than a good bargain.

Let me tell you more about The Farmers Diner. The guiding rule for this eatery is that all the food comes from farms within an hour’s drive. What I like about it is it’s not fancy, not for gourmets. It’s for everybody, including the locals.

How about a Maple BBQ Pulled Pork sandwich with “slow roasted, tender Vermont and New Hampshire raised pork coupled with our own Vermont Maple Syrup, sweet and spicy BBQ sauce on a fresh Colatina Berky bun” for $9.95 (£5)?

Or the Western Sandwich, with “Maple Meadow Farm’s fresh eggs, VT Smoke & Cure ham, sauteed sweet onions and peppers on your choice of LaPanciata organic wheat or Pane Siciliano white bread” for $7.95 (£4)?

Writing this is making me hungry.

Orkney does a pretty good job of supplying local foods, both in the shops and in restaurants. Mainly we’re know for all things cow: milk, ice cream, beef (which really is the best I’ve ever eaten), cheese.

But we have a far harder time with fruit and veg. Mostly I get it from my local butchers. That’s right, the butcher. And most of that is flown in from a land far, far away.

And my own town of 2,000, Stromness, struggles to keep its local shops alive. We do a pretty good job, considering our remote location and small population of 20,000, but there are more than a few empty shopfronts on our quaint main street.

One of the points that Tod Murphy, owner of The Farmers Diner, makes is that buying local is an act of patriotism, of revolution. That when you choose to support your local business, you’re sucking the lifeblood out of multinational corporation profits. Maybe it’s just a flea bite, a midge, but it’s a start.

Or as Barbara Kingsolver explains:

“Buying your goods from local businesses rather than national chains generates about three times as much money for your local economy. Studies from all over the country agree on that, even while consumers keep buying at chain stores, and fretting that downtown blocks of cute mom-and-pop venues are turning into a ghost town. Today’s bargain always seems to matter more.”

Our town of 2,000 has been fighting a battle to hold onto its shops which dot the main street. The 20 or so remaining are what gives our town vitality, what makes the tourists who burst off the huge cruise ships say “Oh, how charming!”. We’re a historic town that’s real, not some museum piece. So far.

A community that has life to it, where the people stand outside the shops and chat — that’s why I live here in Stromness.

So strike a blow on behalf of your community and buy local. It’s the patriotic thing to do.