The Seattle Culinary Academy: Sustainable Farms, Sustainable Food

A visit to the Seattle Culinary Academy's web site reveals a photo of soil. Soil and chefs? Not exactly the combination many of us picture when we head out to a restaurant to dine. Yet of course, on second thought, that's where our food is rooted, literally. Produce comes from the soil, and rather than ignore the origins of food, the Seattle Culinary Academy is embracing them through its program called Sustainable Food Systems Practice. It's subtitled "Learning From the Ground Up." The program was created in 2005 to reflect the emerging interest in the sources of sustainable food and to provide students with a holistic understanding of where their food comes from. The Seattle Culinary Academy's sustainable food program not only explores the growth of plants, it also explores the growth of a political arena around food.

Imagine a culinary school that not only connects students with food and the origins of that food, but strives to get students involved in hands-on sustainability learning by sending them to the farm! Every year, ten students from the Seattle Culinary Academy receive a scholarship to do just that. The Quillisascut Farm School integrates the study of homesteading, farming, and the culinary arts. Students learn how to bake delicious breads and learn about the joys of slow food. What an experience for a prospective cook! In the summer semester, students also get to try their hand at farming through class experiences on an acre of land in the Skagit Valley. This year, the school plans to open a greenhouse for the culinary school as well.

The farm school component challenges students to create meals with what is local and seasonal. When it comes down to it, this is the most engaging and difficult aspect of creating a more sustainable menu of restaurant food. In an era of avocadoes and oranges in the Arctic in January, how can we ever go back to root vegetables, apples, and whatever is local or in storage in our part of the world? But we can, and it can be delicious. We just need to relearn how to cook with the foods that live in our neighborhoods.

When we're eating fast food, it can be less than inspiring to ponder the origins of this food. When we're eating slow food, collecting ingredients for a special recipe, or learning how to cook by honouring what comes from the land, that's sustainable cooking. Combining the culinary arts with an understanding of farming is so intuitive and such a valuable understanding for chefs to have. And what will come of this? Local food restaurants, slow food restaurants, and green and sustainable culinary practices? Let's hope so!