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Protecting and Promoting Traditional Foods

Traditional foods and flavors have received a lot of attention of late. In the past few months, I’ve attended three gatherings on the subject—the Southern Foodways Conference in Oxford, Miss., the Slow Food Salone del Gusto in Turin, Italy, and a luncheon in New York City sponsored by the 3 European Originals (Consorzio del Prosciutto di Parma, the Consorzio del Parmigiano-Reggiano and the Comte Cheese Association). There is some serious momentum behind the cause of traditional foods. On a personal level, I’m just finishing the last of the heritage turkey (a Narragansett) we cooked for Thanksgiving dinner. Although traditional may now be “on-trend, it is not a recent phenomenon for me. We’ve been actively involved in learning about and promoting traditional foods since Zingerman’s opened in 1982. That said, our commitment to helping promote and protect traditional foods is not intended to put an end to large-scale mass production nor should it. There’s plenty of room for all sorts of food—traditional, non-traditional and about a thousand shades of gray in-between—in the world.

Informed Choices
Everybody should have the opportunity to make informed choices about the food they buy and sell. One of my foremost goals is to preserve the option to offer foods made using traditional techniques, true to the areas in which they originated. We should not lose the diversity of our food heritage through overemphasis on lower cost, longer shelf-life industrial products. In nature, hundreds, even thousands, of species have been lost during the past 100 years. On the specialty food side, it’s important to defend rather than diminish diversity, so that consumers can choose from a wide range of options, from old-world traditional to out-of-this-world modern.

Secondly, when consumers purchase a product, they should be clear on what they’re deciding to buy; they must not be deceived by misleading labels or the casual use of names or words that aren’t accurate. For instance, when purchasing Piquillo peppers from Spain that carry a denomination of origin seal to certify authenticity, consumers should know what that seal is and why it’s there. And while the absence of that seal on a different jar of similar-looking peppers doesn’t preclude that they could be very tasty, it’s not the traditional pepper of the Spanish Basque Country.

Defining Traditional Foods
Here’s what the term “traditional foods means to me. At Zingerman’s, there are four things that we look at in this context. (Conveniently they all start with “t so they’re easy to remember.) Tradition
+ Technique
+ Terroir
= The taste of traditional food

Start with tradition. The late Lionel Poilane, whose unexpected death last fall has deprived the world of a successful devotee of traditional foods, said, “The man with the best future is the one with the longest memory. The better we understand the roots of the food, the more effectively we can make—and then market—those foods. To appreciate a traditional product, we need to know as much as possible about the context it comes from. What are the socio-economic, religious, political, historical or geographic factors that have influenced the product and the region in which it was produced? For instance, the influence of the Spaniards in Sicily and the role of wild rice in the Upper Midwest come to mind. Then, take technique. While innovation can be of great value in building on existing methods of production, I prefer to find out what the traditional technique was in the first place. In fact, I’m always inclined to go to the older technique until someone can prove to me that a new approach actually enhances the flavor, not just reduces cost and extends shelf-life. If polenta was once stone-ground, that’s what I start out looking for. For instance, when we began to produce handmade cream cheese at the Creamery this year, we simply returned to the old methods from a century ago, techniques that have fallen out of favor because the product they yield is shorter on shelf-life and far more labor intensive. But the flavor is far, far greater.

Third, there’s the terroir, the term the French use to refer to the flavor that comes from the soil in which the food got its start. Pierre Androuet, the late French affineur, wrote, “Every region has its mysteries, over which no technology, no chemistry have yet prevailed . . . vegetation, climate, rainfall, nature of the subsoil, breed of animal, all contribute towards making a cheese into a unique, inimitable product.

The same is true for any food. Because the flavor of all traditional products starts in the soil, it’s important to know where the food originated. Personally, I want it to come from the spot it originally came from. Wild rice from one lake in Minnesota will taste totally different than wild rice from another 25 miles away. Cheddar from Somerset tastes different from cheddar from the South Island of New Zealand. That olive oil produced from Tuscan varietals in California may be great oil, but it is not Tuscan. On the reverse, great olive oil from Napa cannot be reproduced anywhere else. Any traditional product will taste different from one made with similar techniques in a non-traditional place. Any of the three—tradition, technique and terroir—can stand on its own and contribute to the finished flavor of the food. But when you have all three elements operating in conjunction, the result will be the full flavor and traditional taste that I’m after. Well-made traditional foods will be noticeably more flavorful than similarly named but industrially produced counterparts. Real vanilla, quite simply, is more complexly flavored than vanillin. Pork from free-ranging pigs is far more flavorful than from pigs raised in industrial confinement.

Taking Personal Responsibility
What is your responsibility to protect, enhance and make viable these foods? Ultimately, the res-ponsibility for protecting the integrity of traditional foods lies with each of us. Please note, these are the commitments I have made; they are not appropriate for everybody. Everyone has the choice to pursue their own passions and the products that relate to them.

My responsibility starts with an organizational obligation. Zingerman’s guiding principles explicitly state that we work with traditional foods, and that we will work with businesses that share our values. As a retailer, I feel that I have a responsibility to support traditional producers, to dig deeper to find the old ways, to track down those who craft hard-to-find traditional foods and not just settle for what’s readily available through the easier-to-use distribution chains. I am willing to pay more to get those foods because labor-intensive traditional techniques mean that they will cost more. In turn, to be financially viable as a business, I must be willing to charge more for these traditional foods than for comparable, but less flavorful, industrial alternatives.

I have a responsibility to keep traditional products true to their roots. The more special those foods, the more likely they will remain the province of specialty food retailers, not mainstream mass marketers. Authentic, traditional Balsamic vinegar will never be on the shelves of discount retailers; factory-made “balsamic can show up anywhere for a couple of bucks a bottle. Outside of its home territory, year-old cured Virginia country ham will always be a specialty food; water-added, cooked “Virginia ham—which has nothing to do with the traditional product other than the name—can show up at incredibly low prices in every deli counter in the country. From a financial standpoint, preserving authentic traditional foods help us define our well-differentiated niche in the marketplace and keep customers coming back when competitors are opening all around us.

Restaurateurs have a similar responsibility. In addition, they should make a commitment not to misuse names on menus. What percentage of the Roquefort dressing listed on American menus is made with Appellation d’Origine Controlee Roquefort? What percentage of wild rice is wild? It’s far less than 100%; 50% would surprise me.

As a cheesemaker, we live this responsibility by naming our cheeses after the place where we make them. (This issue has been an ongoing struggle for artisan cheesemakers and I respect those who’ve chosen to use better-known French, Italian or Spanish names). Since we’re striving to make American originals, we name them after the area in which we’re producing the cheese, not after other towns or regions where comparable cheeses might have been made. (Speaking of names, my research into traditional cream cheese production revealed that the name “Philadelphia was tied to cream cheese not because of terroir—it wasn’t originally made in the city—but because of the uppercrust cachet that the name “Philadelphia carried in colonial circles.) When writing, even for a store newsletter or shelf-talkers, we must be committed to take the time to inform people with accurate and in-depth information. And in writing recipes, don’t take the easy way out by listing substitutes that aren’t comparable and not authentic.

Lastly, as a consumer, I must constructively ask about where my food comes from, how it was made and who made it. And, ultimately, I have to be willing to pay more to get authentic, traditional, full-flavored foods. Each of us must make informed choices as retailers, restaurateurs, communicators and consumers. Then, the term “traditional itself, and the thousands of terrific old-style foods that are tied to it, will be able to retain meaning and value. When the traditional food names get used, they should imply content, not just cachet. I’m always inclined to go to the older technique until someone can prove to me that a new approach actually enhances the product. It’s important to defend rather than diminish diversity.

Ari Weinzweig is the co-owner of Zingerman’s Delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Mich., and author of Zingerman’s Guide to Good Olive Oil and other books.