Trouble a-brewing? No, just one poor lad’s attempt to grapple with language and definitions. A desperate cry for help with a problem that needs solving. A tale of displaced ice cream and localized frustration. A long, long blogpost from the western reaches of Mother Earth (that’s “TM” in New World-speak).

But seriously: here’s an issue that needs a bunch of voices to contribute:
What is local? And how do you define it--with relevant, valuable meaning--in different parts of the world?

(Look out, Terra Madre, here we come!)

I had a REAL Italian gelato two days ago. Waiting at the Tsawwassen ferry terminal to leave the British Columbia mainland for Vancouver Island (home of the Gabriola, Nanaimo, and Victoria farmers’ markets I was off to research), I felt peckish. In the newly renovated food-court-cum-tourist-bonanza, I got lucky. Fifty-five flavors to choose from; zuppa inglese to nocciolo to pompelmo rosso. What a thrill, cause it had been a while since I was at Grom. And surely, if it said REAL Italian, then wouldn’t it be?

I won’t go into the organoleptic qualities of the frozen snack I enjoyed (and I did enjoy it—a medium cup with espresso and hazelnut). The biscotto I had had at Gelateria Cavour in Colorno a couple of days earlier was better; the cherry sorbetto at ALMA a couple of weeks previous to that, worse. There were no claims as to origin of the gelati—it was clearly a Canadian company producing the stuff in Canada. And at the same time, it weren’t no Sealtest Ice Milk. But it got my already fevered brain mulling the subject of local products and international tradition and regional branding. (Certainly, after eight months of consorzioid propaganda on Prosciutto di Parma and Parmigiano-Reggiano, I’m at yellow alert regarding the subject.) So can a foodstuff be produced outside of the region it originated in and still be called local? And what is local, anyway, since we all come from Mesopotamia to start with, right?

A recent directive from Slow Food Command Central, on the subject of my farmers’ market research process, speaks to the issue of “local.â€? As I wander the stalls of B.C. and Nova Scotia farmers’ markets, I am to be on the lookout for products that are made locally, and to determine the veracity of that localness. By the SF definition, for example, a Camembert made and sold by a local producer using local milk from local cows fed on local feed is not, it turns out, local. The offending element? The name “Camembert,â€? which apparently must be reserved for cheese from Camembert (i.e. France). But here’s the problem. Imagine this theoretical Camembert-poseur. It tastes like Camembert, looks like it and smells like it, too. What else would you call it? Would you call it a Portland or a Eugene or a Northwestern White-Mold Wheel? Right. Some might argue that it’s stealing the identity of a French village and that village’s traditions. But after a certain time, “Camembertâ€? has become the name of that kind of cheese, wherever it comes from, and there has to be acknowledgement of that stage of the cheesolution. Protectionism limits creativity and is a huge resource-suck.  Wouldn’t it be better to direct efforts toward raising consumer expectations of the stuff, and let it all be judged on its merits, rather than on myth-made “traditionâ€? or “typicalityâ€? or “localnessâ€?? (I could make the same point about the consorzi going after international meat curers and cheesefakers who call their stuff “Parman Prosciuttoâ€? or “Parmesano Cheese.â€? Ripping off established brand value for commercial gains. Bastards. But that’s another rabbit hole…)

I realize that this is blurry territory, but we have to look at regional and cultural differences before bringing down the boom on potentially hard-working, honest, and talented cheesemakers in the New World. It just doesn’t work to be so hard and fast and absolute when you’re talking about Canadian or Australian or Californian products. “Tradition� and “typical� and “local� aren’t the same commodities here as places where people have been commercializing food products for longer.

Everything came from somewhere else at some point. Nebbiolo wasn’t always in Italy. And I’m not sure the buffalo always roamed in Campania. Hey, prosciutto might just be a Celtic import from a thousand years ago…. So at what point on the timeline does a thing get to be called “local�? One of those wonderful/terrible words that has been bandied about lately is “authochthonous.� It carries a lot of weight, but grapes, for example, are called autochthonous if their heritage goes back 100 years. A mere century. They get to be “local� after such a brief waiting period? (That’s a lot of back issues of Elle Décor to get through in the lobby, but not really a lot of time on the European-history scale.) Across the Atlantic, though, food evolution seems to go faster, often by necessity of it being a younger place. So different definitions need to apply, as do different understandings of “local,� and probably different rules for nomenclature.

I have been known to defend policies in places like Quebec, where provincial money is funneled to artists and other producers of cultural content. Performers like Mitsou (the québecoise Madonna of the 1980s and 1990s) wouldn’t have existed if it weren’t for music industry subsidies, and although she’s no shining example of great québecois culture, it was important, and still is important, for people like her to exist. Sure, the market may not be there to support such content. “The market� may prefer American music and if so, why should local culture get an unfair advantage? Why should it be preserved when “nobody� wants to hear it? Well, because it’s distinctive and true and rare, and some things need to be preserved artificially when they don’t get preserved through straight economics. Yes, that’s me acknowledging why “Camembert� might need to be reserved for cheese made in France.

However.

It’s not an and/or situation. There needs to be a third option, or a third and fourth—and a twentieth—to deal with the fact that food culture, and the historical stuff behind it, varies wildly from place to place. One country’s definitions DON’T ALWAYS WORK in other countries, and I’m sorry to say that I think Slow Food in Italy forgets that sometimes.

At Terra Madre there are going to be a lot of things to discuss. Farmers’ markets is one of those subjects, and one that I’m both really excited about and really concerned about. After I do a lot of research with my UNISG colleagues on how markets in the Western world work, I really don’t want to help create a guidelines structure that is absolutist. I don’t want to help set up something that excludes or omits potentially valuable systems, just because it doesn’t fit one definition. I want to be a part of facilitating the dialogue that creates an inclusive, flexible, varying set of definitions. We need to protect producers and support their goals, but we need to do that in ways that work everywhere.

So here’s a call for help. How do we resolve differences and make a set of definitions that’s broad and inclusive, yet specific and structured? What models exist out there in the world for universal platforms with regionally adjusted iterations? How can we create a world where gelato in Western Canada is as real, local, and yes, maybe even Italian in some way—as much so Grom’s flavor of the month?

Ideas? Post ‘em. I’m off to get a cone of Oregon Camembert fior di latte. With sprinkles.