The Local Food Report

18/12/2023

Elspeth's got a treat on the latest Local Food Report: Four pie recipes and one lovely memory of her grandmother.

Click through for the details on her maple pecan pie, cranberry apple pie, rum pie, and (the best) pumpkin pie. 🥧

This time of year, I miss my grandmother. When I was a kid Biee always came to visit for Christmas and she spent most of her time in the kitchen.

30/11/2023

✅Healthy
✅Simple to put together
✅Just a few ingredients

This recipe by Nora Hay checks all the boxes for a great side dish.

This week on the Local Food Report, Elspeth’s daughter, Nora Hay, age 9, teaches us to make her favorite fall dish.

13/05/2023

Many of our native bee species don’t make honey and the plants they pollinate live not just in fields or on farms but also in swamps and forests.

Elspeth spoke with Kristin Andres, the Associate director of education and outreach for the Association to Preserve Cape Cod. She says we have a lot to learn about our 770 species of native eastern North American bees.

When we think of bees, most of us think of fields, farms, and honey. But many of our native bee species don’t make honey and the plants they pollinate live not just in fields or on farms but also in swamps and forests.

02/05/2023

"A lot of the conventional systems don't foster soil life. It's kind of the opposite. So if you have a decrease in soil life, you are now going to rely on kind of spoon fed nutrients. You are now the sole provider of nutrients for your crops," Korean Natural Farming teacher Chris Trump says.

Learn more about it on the latest Local Food Report.

This week on the Local Food Report, a Korean Natural Farming teacher on the relationships that create healthy soil.

07/04/2023

Look at your yard in a different way: Hostas aren't just ornamentals, they're a delicious perennial vegetable.

You know hostas? Those broad-leafed, perennial plants landscapers so often put in shady spots, or on the edges between gardens and lawns? Well, it turns out hosta shoots are edible. Really.

09/02/2023

"I can remember vividly one little boy standing at the doorway after Christmas vacation and he just took a deep breath and sighed and said, 'Now I can eat.'"

Barnstable County has one of the highest child food insecurity rates in the state. Elspeth spoke with the staff and volunteers of Cape Kid Meals about how they help.

This week on the Local Food Report, weekend meals to help hungry kids.

30/01/2023

"It seems kinda silly — the vast majority of that is gonna get shipped overseas but meanwhile, the vast majority of restaurants that are selling fish in the area are selling fish that comes from overseas. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me," fisherman Greg Connors says.

This week on the Local Food Report, adapting Cape Cod menus to changes in local fisheries.

20/01/2023

"I went out and I made some and I tried it on a row of my famous Eastham turnips and it more than doubled the size of the turnips that grew."

Learn more about making terra preta soil on the latest Local Food Report.

This week on the Local Food Report, soil building inspiration all the way from the Amazon.

10/01/2023

"I like that Chef Andrew makes hot lunch, it’s nice and it’s fresh, and I like that he doesn’t buy the food."

Hear how one local chef is getting inventive with school lunch.

This week on the Local Food Report, a chef gets creative with school lunch.

09/10/2022

"By flash freezing it and vacuum sealing it, we're able to preserve it; basically stop the fish in time,” Tracy Sylvester of The Fisherman's Pantry said.

Hear more and get recipes for cod and salmon on the latest The Local Food Report.

Tracy Sylvester wants to change the way we think about frozen fish.

22/09/2022

It's four times sweeter than butternut squash and about a third of the size. Learn about honeynut squash — and get a recipe for Honeynut & Butternut Squash Soup — on today's The Local Food Report.

When Brewster farmer Ron Backer first read about honeynut squash, he knew he wanted to grow it.

07/08/2022

This week on The Local Food Report, Elspeth explores two ways to process a chicken.

Drew Locke raises pastured poultry in Truro. Every year between April and November he raises between 600 and 900 birds to sell to local customers at farmers markets, through his family’s farm stand, and wholesale.

01/07/2022

This week on The Local Food Report, Neily and Patricia Bowlin share their Jamaican c**k soup recipe.

Neily and Patricia live in Harwich, but they’re originally from Black River Jamaica and Neily says since he was a kid, he’s been eating roosters in a dish called c**k soup.

21/05/2022

As Elspeth discovers in the latest Local Food Report, "save the bees" is more about saving wild bees than honey bees.

She speaks with Kristin Andres, the associate director of education and outreach at the Association to Preserve Cape Cod.

When we think of bees, most of us think of fields, farms, and honey. But many of our native bee species don’t make honey and the plants they pollinate live not just in fields or on farms but also in swamps and forests.

16/05/2022

Juli Vanderhoop of Orange Peel Bakery bakes during hurricanes, nor’easters, and even in the deep snow. She uses an outdoor oven made from clay and local fieldstone to make her baked goods.

Hear all about how she does it and what she makes on the latest Local Food Report with Elspeth Hay.

Almost twenty years ago, Juli Vanderhoop started cooking with fire."Someone said you bake every day, you gotta build this. Build this oven! And I just said, ‘You’re crazy,’ and I went to an oven build, and I fell in love with this."

08/05/2022

The only ingredients are time, garlic, moisture, and heat. Check out how one man from Wellfleet makes black garlic, and how you can too.

Beau Valtz is standing in his Wellfleet kitchen in front of a giant pile of fresh garlic.He's wrapping heads of garlic tightly in tin foil.

25/04/2022

Round the Bend Farm in Dartmouth is a working farm but it’s also an educational non-profit: One of the organization's main goals is to foster diversity. Elspeth speaks with co-founder and executive director Desa Van Laarhoven on the latest Local Food Report.

Round the Bend Farm is spread over 115 acres in Dartmouth on Buzzards Bay. And it is a working farm but it’s also an educational non-profit.

21/04/2022

In case you missed it, Elspeth spoke with Ed Miller, who put his own take on the food in a Jewish Seder.

This week marks the start of Passover. The first celebratory meal, known as the Seder, involves reading a sacred text called the Haggadah.

10/04/2022

Keep an eye out for wood ear, usnea, and mullein next time you're on a walk. When identified correctly, they can be used in medicinal broths and teas.

As many of us have taken off our masks, the everyday cold has begun to circulate again. As you can probably hear I have one now, and it’s like I’ve forgotten how to be sick.

02/04/2022

Right now the farmers of Ukraine should be getting ready to plant so they can later tend and harvest. But instead, they are fighting, fleeing, and praying.

This week on the Local Food Report, a Wellfleet woman remembers a trip to her dad’s Ukrainian hometown and worries about what the war with Russia means for food.

27/03/2022

Suncrisp, Goldrush, Northern Spies, Fireside... they're all apple varieties that have successfully grown on a Harwich orchard. Learn about these and more on The Local Food Report.

Brent Hemeon has five acres in Harwich and everywhere you look, there are apple trees. He has around 175 of them and started his garden in 1990, but then it got big. "Too big,” he says.

17/03/2022

The land that makes up the garden was donated in 1996 by a family of Russian immigrants. They first arrived in the U.S. fleeing pogroms in the late 1800s, attacks that targeted the Jewish community.

Today their land is open on a first come first serve basis to any local resident longing for a growing space of their own.

Benjamin Rapoza tends one of a hundred and forty-five plots at Dartmouth’s Helfand Community Garden.

08/03/2022

Did you catch the latest Local Food Report? Elspeth talks about the Prickly Pear Cactus. You can find it growing locally, but because it's endangered, you can't harvest it on the Cape.

One fall, I lead a foraging walk with visiting fellows from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. I pointed out Prickly Pear Cactus — a plant that I’ve heard you can eat, but that we’re not allowed to harvest in Massachusetts, because here it’s considered an endangered species.

02/03/2022

"It’s amazing to hear how animated even a foreign language can sound when people are talking about good food. And there’s actually research to back this up — students who learn English in a garden connect more deeply and create a new sense of place faster than they do in a classroom."

Shortly after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, Julio Cruz and his family moved to the Outer Cape.

19/02/2022

Perennial vegetables are important for a resilient garden. They add biodiversity, aid in low-till or no-till practices, and help foster healthy soil.

Learn more about them in the latest Local Food Report.

Dave Scandurra is a landscaper in Barnstable who focuses entirely on edible gardens. But instead of annuals that need to be put in from seed every spring, he prefers perennials — plants that keep coming back on their own.

25/01/2022

On the latest Local Food Report, a visit to a local chocolatier and Elspeth's favorite recipe for chocolate bundt cake.

07/01/2022

Locally, Atlantic mackerel is probably the fish with the most beneficial balance that we can still get from local fisheries. Cooked oysters are another good local source of omega-3 fatty acids, as are lobster meat and scallops

The other night I had dinner with a friend who’s expecting a baby. The conversation turned to seafood — what’s safe to eat and why it’s important during pregnancy.

31/12/2021

Nicole Cormier of Delicious Living Nutrition, Inc. sees the fertilizer as a bridge — connecting our farming and fishing communities and completing a cycle that’s critical for both plant nutrition and our own.

Nicole Cormier stands in the rain on a cold, windy day, pulling fish bones out of a big tub that she just picked up from a local fish cutter.

18/10/2021

According to The Fisherman's Pantry's Tracy Sylvester, flash freezing is attractive to fishermen because it helps prevent both wasted fish and wasted effort.

Tracy Sylvester wants to change the way we think about frozen fish.

04/10/2021

"...they’re the size of grape tomatoes so really you can just eat them, pop them like that.”

Quail eggs are the topic on the latest Local Food Report.

When Laura Geiges was a little girl, her mom used to bring home something special from New York City’s China Town. It was quail eggs.