Buying local, eating fresh

Lucinda Seago's Peruvian cuisine and the season's harvested vegetables are fusing this summer in a burst of local freshness.

The mother of three young children is part of a growing group of consumers who are shunning the produce sections of supermarkets and purchasing directly from farms and local farmers markets.

"In the summertime, I buy all local," Seago said as she approached a stand of freshly picked vegetables at Bear Hill Farm in Tyngsborough one recent afternoon.

See a list of farmers markets in the northwest suburbs on Page 4.

A few years ago, Seago, who grew up in California and Georgia, learned about a program called Community Supported Agriculture from a brochure in her town's public library. She and her husband, Scott, began purchasing $450 worth of shares at Bear Hill Farm four summers ago in return for all the produce and pork they could eat between June and October. The farm is where they get most of their produce now.

But buying produce directly from local farms is only one aspect of this emerging trend. Another is the large number of farmers markets cropping up around the region, and so popular that Governor Deval Patrick has proclaimed this week Farmers Market Week because, he said, they are "essential to the vitality of Massachusetts farms." The US Department of Agriculture had named Aug. 6 to 11 National Farmers Market Week, noting that such markets have increased by 18 percent across the country since 2004.

There are 134 farmers markets in Massachusetts today, up from about 90 in 1994. Middlesex and Essex counties alone have about 40, according to the state Department of Agricultural Resources. In New Hampshire, the number has shot up from 12 in 1994 to 60 this year, according to Gail McWilliam Jellie, the state's director of agricultural development.

"We've had a phenomenal increase in farmers markets," Jellie said. "They're wonderful, not only for the retail aspects, but the whole social aspects. They're good for communities."

From Medford, Mass., to Amherst, N.H., vendors arrive weekly with truckloads of produce to display on tables in open forums. They draw hundreds, if not thousands, of shoppers salivating for the sights and smells of fresh food.

Like Seago, who lives in Groton, many are seeking the freshness and flavor only local produce can deliver. But the reason for eating local can go much deeper. Some area residents worry that terrorism attacks could target the country's massive farms in the Midwest, while others vex over tainted imported foods. Some residents say they buy local to support the regional farm economy, or because they believe transporting foods from other areas of the country consumes more energy.

At the 60-acre Bear Hill Farm, Seago, carrying 1-year-old Vivian in a sling, stood next to bins of Swiss chard, Chinese cabbage, escarole, string beans, zucchini, summer squash, broccoli, cauliflower, and kale. A 2-acre expanse of cherry tomatoes, herbs, beets, onions, wheat, peppers, and garlic spreads before her.

The land has been in the Gagnon family since 1917, but much of it became overgrown when Mike Gagnon's parents shunned a farming lifestyle for full-time jobs. When Gagnon began growing vegetables on 5 acres about 10 years ago, he rented another 15 acres in Westford and elsewhere, and now sells 200 shares per season. The venture has been so successful that the Gagnons are not accepting new customers for the current year and will only put names on a waiting list for next year.

Community Supported Agriculture relies on local residents who pay an annual membership in return for a seasonal supply, or share, of the farm's production.

Bear Hill is one of several regional farms selling produce directly to consumers. Others are in Belmont, Groton, Lexington, Lincoln, and Lowell, to name a few, according to the website localharvest.org.

In these circles, the latest week's harvest is as eagerly awaited as Westford's annual Apple Blossom Festival or Chelmsford's Fourth of July celebration.

"Everybody's waiting for the basil to come in," said Gagnon's wife, Anne, earlier this month. Due shortly are tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, onions, eggplant, and cantaloupe.

Only a few minutes earlier, Anne Gagnon had been sitting in a nearby field pinching the tops of the basil plants that would soon be ready for harvest. Now she was watching a steady stream of shareholders choose their vegetables at the stands.

Taking a pair of red-handled scissors, Seago's 6-year-old son, Nicholas, showed 3-year-old Martin how to cut slender blades of garlic chives in the Gagnons' pick-your-own herb garden.

"Come and grab the bag," their mother said in Spanish as the boys dropped their herbs into their grocery sack.

Seago's repertoire includes causa, potatoes layered with tuna, onions, and Peruvian peppers; humitas, "imagine a sweet tamale"; and papa a la huancaina, another potato dish, covered with cheese sauce.

Denise Ferbas of Chelmsford, another Bear Hill patron, said she regularly plans meals around her acquisitions from the farm -- a routine easier to follow in the summer than winter.

"This is my glory time of year for eating local," Ferbas said. "It really gets you connecting with the land and the food and the sun."

One day last month, after stopping at Westford Seafood for halibut caught off Massachusetts, Ferbas headed to Bear Hill Farm and picked sorrel, a tart herb for garnishing the grilled fish, which she had basted with a spice paste and grape-seed oil.

Greens previously braised with chopped garlic scape, olive oil, and coarse salt, and sumac were warmed inside foil on the grill, she wrote in a journal she kept of her meals.

Most of her dishes are similarly prepared, with the desired flavors dependent on local freshness. But her week's menu journal also contained an entry about eating at a local restaurant with her husband, John Dalton, which denotes another dimension to the eat-local movement.

Chefs from a growing number of establishments -- such as Jasper White's Summer Shack, Harvest, and Rialto Restaurant and Bar, all in Cambridge -- are purchasing local.

At Bear Hill, as 13 piglets suckled inside a barn, Seago said she is edging toward becoming a "locovore" -- someone who uses local ingredients year-round.

"It's important to know where your food comes from," she said, "because, if you don't, you can be deceived by the quality."

Ferbas, a technical writer, had a more colorful point of view.

"You don't want your entire world being outsourced."

Joyce Pellino Crane can be reached at crane@globe.com.