Eat & Drink Locally in Virginia
Press Release today from the Virginia Department of Agriculture…
October 11, 2012
IT’S FALL – A GREAT TIME TO EAT AND DRINK LOCALLY IN VIRGINIA
Contact: Elaine J. Lidholm, 804.786.7686
Don’t despair, Local Foodies. The bountiful summer season of juicy tomatoes and the sweetest sweet corn may be over, but you can still buy and eat locally in Virginia. The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) encourages every Virginian to look for local products even though the autumnal equinox has passed.
“It’s really very easy in Virginia,” said Matthew J. Lohr, VDACS Commissioner. “According to the USDA, we rank ninth in the nation in the number of winter farmers’ markets. And our mild coastal climate offers fresh seafood of many types at this time of year.” To prove his point, Lohr offers the following local menus for the fall and holiday season and for Virginia Wine Month in October:
Local meal #1 –a Fall Comfort Meal
- Appetizers. Greet your guests with Virginia peanuts and cheese straws or chips and dips from the Virginia’s Finest line of specialty products. See VirginiasFinest.com for other suggestions.
- Barbecue. Take your pick of pork, chicken or ribs, or throw some sausages or bratwursts on the grill. Glaze them with any number of Virginia’s Finest barbecue sauces from mild to hot, sweet to saucy.
- Cole slaw. You can make your own with southwest Virginia’s famous Virginia cabbage; add fries made from regular or sweet potatoes from the Eastern Shore
- A hearty beverage. Accompany it with a Virginia craft beer, ale or mead and milk or cider for the non-drinkers.
- Dessert. Finish off the meal with an apple pie made with local apples and topped with a slice of Virginia’s Finest cheese.
Local meal #2 – a Seafood Feast
- A Virginia’s Finest soup for starters. Choose from a variety of possibilities, including clam chowder, red crab soup, she crab soup, cream of crab soup, oyster stew and more.
- Seafood/fish course. The choices from Virginia’s waters and aquaculture farms are amazing: fresh farmed clams (pastanecks, littlenecks, middlenecks and topnecks); farmed and wild seaside oysters; soft and hard shell crabs; ocean scallops; live rainbow, brook, golden and brown trout; farm-raised catfish and ready-to-cook crab cakes and crab pie.
- Side dishes. Choose from many local fall vegetables to create memorable dishes such as roasted potatoes with grilled peppers and onions, steamed broccoli, flash fried kale or grilled mushrooms. Add crusty artisan bread with flavored butter and accompany with a white wine from one of Virginia’s 210 wineries. See VirginiaWine.org.
- Dessert. Try a sweet and salty combination to complement the flavors of seafood. Examples include brownies or chocolate cookies sprinkled with sea salt; chocolate cupcakes iced with salted caramel; warm, salted kettle corn; salty, chocolate-covered pretzels, or a decadent, dark chocolate-dipped and salt-dusted crostini. Not surprisingly, Virginia’s Finest offers a wide range of chocolates but also a line of specialty and flavored salts.
Local meal #3 – an Elegant Holiday Banquet
- Starters. A squash/carrot/ginger soup makes a great first course for a holiday meal, or you could add variety with sea scallops on a bed of fried kale.
- Entree. Will you choose the traditional turkey or a prime rib of beef? Perhaps a genuine Virginia ham suits your tastes. Other choices from Virginia include a crown roast of pork, a sea bass wrapped in thin slices of ham or specialty meats such as bison.
- Side dishes. What’s a holiday dinner without dressing? – perhaps sausage stuffing for turkey or apple/walnut for a crown roast. An onion/spice stuffing provides a tangy complement for the ham-wrapped sea bass. Vegetables include the traditional sweet potatoes or a white potato au gratin, cauliflower with broccoli puree, creamed onions with peanuts, fried apples or any of the winter squashes for color and beta-carotene.
- Dessert. Few things beat pumpkin pie for the holidays, although an apple crumble with ice cream is a surefire crowd pleaser. Broiled pears with a brown sugar glaze is a simple but elegant choice.
- Beverages. Hot spiced cider, Virginia wine and sparkling cider are fitting holiday choices. White, red or sparkling, Virginia wines offer a tremendous variety in a price range for all budgets.
Local meal #4 – a Wine Tasting
- Seafood station. Offer freshly shucked local oysters on the half shell with any number of Virginia’s Finest seafood sauces, petite crab cakes with a caper tarragon sauce and broiled scallops on picks with a creamy white wine and butter sauce. Serve white wines such as Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc or Vidal Blanc.
- Cheese station. Display a cheese board with an array of Virginia cheeses. Complement hard with soft cheese, pungent with bland. Serve with fresh Virginia apples and pears, dried fruit and berries, nuts, crackers and local artisan bread. Serve cheeses with Norton or Petit Verdot.
- Meat station. Curried lamb meatballs served with mint yogurt sauce are easy to eat on toothpicks. Offer grilled beef flank steak with roasted peppers, arugula, spinach and cheese stuffing or thinly sliced Serrano ham or prosciutto on crusty bread with butter. With the lamb, you may consider offering red wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot. For pork, white wine such as Viognier is a nice compliment.
- Small savories. Delight your guests with mushroom ragout on bruschetta with melted cheese, rosemary and chives or Belgian endive spears with smoked trout. Honey Crisp apples taste great with horseradish cream and fresh dill, and asiago polenta cakes with olive tapenade offer a contrast in taste and texture. Also good are stuffed mushrooms or olives and Virginia peanuts. Good wine choices here are Rieslings.
- Small bite dessert station. Sweets – pumpkin praline cheesecake bites or pear/fig strudel bundles with mascarpone – are great contrasted with something salty, such as sea salted almond chocolate bark. Some Virginia’s Finest gourmet, sweet and savory cookies are crafted to pair with wines. Dessert wines from Virginia include Seyval Blanc, sparkling wines, port and meads.
“These are just some suggestions on ways to eat locally this holiday season,” concluded Lohr. “Meeting the $10 a Week Buy Local Challenge is easy at this time of year. As a reminder, if each household in Virginia spent just $10 a week on locally grown agricultural products, consumers would invest an additional $1.65 billion back into the local economy annually. That’s an extra $1.65 added to the $55 billion agriculture already contributes to the state’s economy each year. Now that’s how you celebrate the holidays for a great cause.” Find all of these Virginia’s Finest products and more at vdacs.virginia.gov/virginiafinest/index.shtml. And check VirginiaGrown.com for places to pick your own apples or pumpkins or find winter farmer’s markets.
And from Montebello Kitchens do not forget our Traditional Virginian Peanut Soup, Virginia Cornbread, and Virginia Spoon bread. For those bratwurst on the grill, use Montebello Kitchens Curry Ketchup to make the perfect CurryWurst sandwich.
Montebello Kitchens Adds Nutritious, Local Ingredients to Salad Dressings
Montebello Kitchens is incorporating several nutritious ingredients to its line of dressings. The Citronette, Fig Balsamic, and Lavender dressings now contain agave inulin, milled chia seed, and organic coconut palm sugar. Additionally, owner Steven Lynch now uses canola oil culled from Virginia-grown canola plants in the dressings. While the taste remains the same for all three dressings, the added ingredients continue Lynch’s mission to make food fun, accessible, and most importantly, healthy.
Montebello Kitchens' Steven Lynch, with wife Becky, at the 2011 Fancy Food Show in Washington, D.C.
“Montebello Kitchens makes foods that my family and I eat,” said Lynch. “We try to create the most flavorful and healthful foods that we can. We make food that is good for those who eat it, and good for the workers who grow and produce our ingredients.”
Lynch, a native of Central Virginia, is especially proud of the contribution local farmers and workers now add to the dressings.
“Locally grown seed and locally produced oil has a direct positive impact on our area’s economy,” Lynch said. “Buying regionally eliminates wasteful trucking expenses and insures that we are using the freshest ingredients possible.”
And also the healthiest; the recent additions deliver a wealth of nutrients for consumers.
Inulin, a relatively new word on the nutritional scene, is a naturally occurring soluable fiber found in agave. When inulin is consumed and absorbed by the lower intestine, it increases overall dietary wellness. Inulin contains powerful prebiotics, non-digestible food fiber that promotes the growth of “good bacteria” in the digestive tract. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition notes that inulin increases calcium absorption, thus leading to stronger bones. In addition to associating inulin with digestive and bone health, nutritionists also believe it plays a role in controlling both weight and diabetes. It’s also thought to lower cholesterol as well as boost the body’s immune system.
In recent years, nutritionists have helped redefine the chia seed—once notable for the ever-popular Chia Pet—as a venerable superfood. Chia, classified in the mint family, is native to Guatemala and central and southern Mexico.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, just one ounce of chia seeds contain 9-percent of the daily value for protein, 13-percent fat, and 42-percent of dietary fiber.
The final new addition, organic coconut palm sugar, is quickly gaining popularity with food enthusiasts. Pure coconut palm sugar is a natural product made from the nectar of the coconut palm tree. The Lance Armstrong Foundation recently endorsed the healing benefits of palm sugar, saying the ingredient “may help maintain proper levels of blood glucose, or sugar, while providing an abundance of nutrients and minerals to keep you healthy.” Additionally, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports that palm sugar is the world’s most sustainable sweetener.
While health and sustainability are important to Montebello Kitchens, so is taste. All of these dressings make for perfect toppings on salads and also serve as delicious marinades for meat.
Montebello Kitchens, a Virginia Finest company, is family owned and takes great pride in creating genteel gourmet foods. All food is made in the artisan style—by hand, in small batches, and honoring Virginia Traditions and Heritage. Montebello Kitchens has been recognized in such magazines as Ladies Home Journal and Woman’s World. Their acclaimed Chipotle Ketchup has won numerous Scovie Awards, one of the food industry’s most coveted honors. Montebello Kitchens peanut soup mixes have received recognition from the Queen of England and the United States Congress.
For more information, visit www.montebellokitchens.com, www.facebook.com/montebellokitchens, or www.twitter.com/m_kitchens.
