Food doesn’t necessarily come long distances on a truck anymore.
On Wednesday, Quilcene School students will be served tacos made with grass-fed Angus beef raised on a farm 10 miles up the road.
By May, they will be topping their tacos with fresh-picked lettuce straight from the school garden, which they use as an outdoor classroom.
The beef sale is the result of the Olympic Peninsula Farm to Cafeteria Conference, where local farmers met with food service directors and administrators to talk turkey, beef, vegetables and fruit.
103 pounds of hamburger
Last Thursday, Roger Short and son Kevin Short, who handles beef sales for the Short Family Farm in Chimacum, delivered 103 pounds of hamburger to the school cafeteria.
“Thank you. I love the fact that you deliver it,” said Veda Wilson, a vocational teacher and cook. “I’m not expecting any more commodity beef this year.”
The Shorts donated beef for students to sample, which was made into Sloppy Joes and served with bread made from Washington state wheat by Pane d’Amore bakery.
Before the food was served, the farmers spoke to students about how cows are designed to eat grass, not grain. They also showed photos of their cows in the pasture.
Naturally low-fat beef
Beef from grass-fed cattle is naturally low-fat, Kevin Short pointed out, and shrinks less.
Principal Jim Betteley, on hand to sample the beef, said worries about food safety mean buying local meat is about more than taste.
“We know the cows, we know the farmers and we know that it came from one animal,” Betteley said.
The cost of buying locally grown food is the challenge, he said, but the school conducted an experiment pitting local apples against subsidized commodity fruit.
Commodity apples, brought in by truck, came out of the chill box, went onto the plate and into the garbage, Betteley said, while small red delicious apples from nearby Wildwood Farm were almost all consumed.
“There was very little waste,” Betteley said. “You be the judge. Wouldn’t you rather have something nutritious and delicious?”
Salad bar
The school garden program, which started last spring, is also ramping up production by starting lettuce, tomatoes and other vegetables in the greenhouse for the cafeteria salad bar.
Last week, high school students Patrick Barlet and Kelsea Knutzen helped roll eight recycled oil drums into the greenhouse.
Donated by Pettit Oil Co. of Port Angeles, the barrels, which were painted black, will be filled with water, providing passive solar heating for the greenhouse, said Jefferson County school garden coordinator Candice Cosler.
Cosler credited the support of Quilcene School Superintendent David Andersen for the success of the school garden program, which is integrated into the curriculum, and for giving the farm-to-cafeteria idea a chance.
Betteley said the school garden program is taking the school in directions he didn’t foresee, but he likes where it’s going.
“I want to know more,” he said of raising and buying food locally. “What else is possible?
“We’re affecting a whole population of kids.”
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Port Townsend/Jefferson County reporter-columnist Jennifer Jackson can be reached at jjackson@olypen.com.
