Did you notice anything different in the dining hall at lunch on Tuesday? Different dishes, longer and more specific names, new kinds of apples: these are among Bon Appetit’s many efforts to serve more local and sustainable food in honor of the company’s annual Eat Local Challenge. Bon Appetit began holding Eat Local Challenge in September 2005 as a challenge to all its chefs to use only ingredients from within a 150-mile radius for lunch that day, with the exception of salt. Situated as we are in a highly agricultural area, Carleton is an ideal place to do this, and thus be able to show this richness off to the Carleton community through the variety of dishes that can be prepared using these local ingredients. To get an idea of just how local the food you ate was, here are some of Tuesday’s menu items and the numbers: Callister Farms Chicken on Swany Mills Pizza Crust w/Open Hands Farms Diced Tomatoes & Basil and Comstock Wisconsin White Cheddar Cheese Callister Farms: 30 mi Swany Mills: 134 mi Open Hands Farm: 3 mi Comstock: 124 mi Roasted Callister Farms Chicken, Open Hands Butternut Squash w/Mel-O-Honey, Open Hands Farms Steamed Carrots Callister Farms: 30 mi Open Hands Farm: 3 mi Mel-O: 17 mi Thousand Hills Cattle Co Braised Short Ribs, Hidden Stream Farms Onions, Carrots & Cabbage, Open Hands Farms Red Potatoes and Parsley w/Hastings Dairy Butter Thousand Hills Cattle Co.: 16 mi Hidden Stream Farms: 63 mi Open Hands Farm: 3 mi Hasting Co-Op Creamery: 31 mi Ferndale Market Roast Turkey on Swany Mill-Mel-O-Honey Wheat w/Open Hands Farm Spinach, Heirloom Tomato and Basil w/Faribault Dairy Amablu Spread Ferndale Market: 16 mi Swany Mills: 134 mi Mel-O: 17 mi Open Hands Farm: 3 mi Faribault Dairy: 14 mi Carleton Farm carrots, tomatoes, eggplant, salad greens, and more vegetables Carleton Farm: on campus! Apples from Fireside Orchards Fireside Orchards: 6 mi I really love the idea of Eat Local Challenge because it’s a good reminder – for Carleton students, Bon Appetit, and everyone else – that our food has to come from somewhere. In this age of supermarkets and standardization, trying to think completely locally about where every ingredient, from salad dressing to baking soda, is coming from takes a lot more thought and effort than the simple creed “eat local” implies. Rarely do we have an exact location for where our chicken or spinach or flour comes from – only, maybe, a distributor – so hopefully the names of the wonderful local farms supplying Tuesday’s lunch caught the attention of eaters who otherwise rarely think about what’s on their plate. (On the note of local fruits and veggies, the Carleton Farm will be continuing to supply chard, winter squash, and some other vegetables until it frosts, and Student Activities is running a shuttle to Fireside Friday afternoon 10/8!)