Soul Food	by Mallory Passuite

A new group plays matchmaker between chefs, consumers, and local food producers

Buffalo wings and beef on weck. A region loved for its meaty mainstays is often overlooked for its bountiful supply of locally grown produce and animal products.

Feed Your Soul Buffalo, a new local culinary initiative, is trying to change that. The project organizes events that focus on “the bounty that is Western New York’s legacy,” according to its Website (feedyoursoulbuffalo.com). It encourages local chefs, foodies, and basically anyone who eats to become culinary tourists of the riches that local farms have to offer.

Erie County has 1,300 farms, said Feed Your Soul Buffalo co-founder, Christa Glennie Seychew. “How many people have ever actually put their foot on a farm?” she said. An upcoming Feed Your Soul event will bring locals to some of these farms.

“Western New York is so blessed to have wonderful growing regions around us,” said Sandy Starks, who partnered with Seychew to create Feed Your Soul. The project aims to connect people with what is great about living here, said Starks, who also founded Slow Food Buffalo, a close comrade of Feed Your Soul. Slow Food Buffalo is a local chapter of national organization Slow Food USA, which encourages a shift from the destructive industrial food system toward one that is “good, clean and fair,” according to its Web site (slowfoodusa.org)—a shift that includes eating local food.

“It has become trendy to eat local,” Seychew said. Reasons for the trend Seychew called “a contemporary food movement” include concern for food safety and increased energy costs to ship food.

“Why pay shipping charges?” Starks said. “We can have something much fresher and save energy.” The success of local farmers markets, such as Bidwell, show that people want to buy something fresh and local, she said.

Feed Your Soul is providing a healthy boost for the local food movement with a new event: the Chef-to-Farm Experience. The August 18 event will offer Buffalo-area chefs and home cooks alike a personal tour of some of Erie County’s farms. Participants can feed their minds, as they learn about current farming practices, and their bellies, with free samples of local products and produce, as well as a lunch prepared with local ingredients.

The nonprofit event aims to bring local farmers and local consumers together, said Seychew. In the last 50 years, many factors have disconnected producers from consumers, as people left public markets and corner grocery stores in favor of supermarkets. Farmers found it easier to use industrial farming technologies and sell to major food processors (who chop up the green beans and freeze ’em), rather than fresh and directly to the consumer. This, coupled with the region’s short growing season, has led us “far from understanding the unique agricultural environment that Western New York has to offer,” Seychew said.

At supermarkets, “you don’t know where the stuff comes from,” Starks said. But the Chef-to-Farm Experience will reconnect people to the food itself, as participants will see farmers “making it with their hands because they love it,” she said. “It’s a labor of love. We want the consumer to see that.”

Both Feed Your Soul founders hope reconnecting the people with the food and its producers will encourage people to buy local and chefs not only to use local products but to maintain communication with local producers.

“We want to get chefs and farmers to talk,” said Seychew. “Small farms can produce and deliver what chefs are dying for and willing to pay for.”

The Chef-to-Farm Experience will visit farms producing everything from organic vegetables to award-winning yogurt and cheeses to heritage breed cows and hogs. The stops include Ole’s Farm in Alden, Blossom Hill in Dayton, White Cow Dairy in East Otto, and Native Offerings near Ellicottville. The event is open to all, though tickets are limited. For reservations or information, call 812-1615 or visit feedyoursoulbuffalo.com.