Bon Appetit featured on Salon.com

Our October Eat Local Challenge is still getting attention! John Feffer wrote a thought provoking article on the event for Salon.com’s new food section.

For most readers, the "thought provoking" aspect of the piece was probably the idea that a large company like Bon Appetit can buy locally or what our industrialized food system has done to our small family farms and the security of our food system. However, I think about those ideas everyday, so for me the thought provoking part was the comment about students lamenting the loss of "Taco Tuesday." Are Bon Appetit’s ideals getting in the way of giving our customers what they want? Are we thinking too much about where our food comes from and not enough about where it’s going (in many cases to college students)?

After some reflection, my conclusion is that the two concepts (socially conscious food and Taco Tuesday) are not mutually exclusive. We still serve tacos. They are just made with chicken that was raised without the use on non-therapeutic antibiotics and served on a tortilla free of trans fats. And, in the winter, our chefs may substitute a pumpkin seed salsa for salsa fresca if they can’t get great tasting, fresh local tomatoes. The bottom line should be that the tacos taste wonderful and authentic whether you know the back story on the ingredients or not. So good in fact, that you want to have them on Wednesday and Thursday as well.

Click here to read the article

– Maisie Greenawalt, Director of Communications & Strategic Initiatives