Area Restaurants Kick Off With Spring Bounty

By Nichole Dupont
iBerkshires Staff
10:50PM / Thursday, May 19, 2011

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Photo by Angela Cardinali Becket Dreamaway Lodge Egremont Inn at Sweet Water Farm John Andrews: A Farmhouse Restaurant Great Barrington Allium Restaurant Baba Louie’s Berkshire Co-op Market Cafe ADAM Guido’s Fresh Marketplace La Terrazza Restaurant at Gateways Inn Route 7 Grill Lee Chez Nous Perigee Lenox Cafe Lucia Firefly Haven Cafe & Bakery Nudel Pronto Cooking School New Marlborough Old Inn on the Green North Adams Gramercy Bistro@ Mass MoCA Pittsfield Baba Louie's Guido's Fresh Marketplace, Mission Bar & Tapas Sheffield The Stagecoach Tavern Stockbridge Red Lion Inn Williamstown Mezze Bistro and Bar Wild Oats Market Williams Inn Top, garlic mustard, an edible invasive, may pop up on area plates. The morel,  above, is a forager's dream and a chef's star.

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Summer is still weeks away but the Berkshires is already offering a bounty for those who know where to look.

Don't worry if you don't know where the best morels are. Thanks to Berkshire Grown's annual Farmed and Foraged food event, now in its third year, foragers, foodies and local chefs are all able to share the early spring bounty brought forth not only by Mother Nature but also by local farmers who were busy at work before the first thaw.

More than two dozen area restaurant including the Red Lion Inn, Allium, the Route 7 Grill and Mezze Bistro and Bar are participating in the three-day event, which will run from Friday, May 20, through Sunday, May 22. Local chefs will push up their sleeves and get creative with what the Berkshires has to offer, and then, of course, share with the rest of us. Chris Amendola, head chef at Allium on Railroad Street, said working with foods that are in season is a challenge he is happy to take on.
 
"I do a lot of foraging on my own; most chefs do around here," he said in a phone interview. "I'm not quite sure what I'm getting from the farms for this weekend but I'm sure there will be some wild mushrooms ready and definitely some edible invasive species. I see what I can get fresh and then go from there."

Using his expertise and imagination, Amendola has already conjured up a dish that he plans to serve up this weekend: blanched Japanese knotweed with other wild edibles and fish.

This loosely put-together dish  kills two birds with one stone, he said. Foraging for invasive edibles such as the knotweed and garlic mustard will, hopefully, help to ebb the rapid growth of these species while bringing wild edible to the table will help to illustrate to diners that food – really good wholesome food – is more than just what's on your plate.

"When I was working down in Charleston, South Carolina, I worked on a farm during the day and at a restaurant at night," he said. "That gives you a much different perspective on cooking. I take a lot more care with cooking it because I know what went into growing the veggies and raising the meat. I want to pay it that kind of respect and make it the best that it can be."

Amendola's almost holy treatment of local food is not uncommon in the Berkshires. Nancy Thomas, a Berkshire Grown board member and owner of Mezze Restaurant Group, is thrilled that the local farm to table movement is getting its due, season after season.

"This event features ways to allow restaurants the opportunity to talk about early spring farming vegetables, cheeses, certain animals and the landscape itself," she said. "Spring offers something different and chefs get excited about asparagus and fiddlehead ferns. After such a long winter people have a desire to see green on their plates. We're trying to collaborate with each other to tell the community that the Berkshires has a great community of small farms.

"We're really working to get the word out that food is part of our culture and part of our heritage. We need to be better storytellers when it comes to the farm-to-table movement in the Berkshires."

Perhaps the best way to tell the story is to eat the food. Barbara Zheutlin, Berkshire Grown's executive director, said the story began in the Berkshires long before it became a national trend.

"We've been pioneering the farm-to-table approach way before the nation got wind of it," she said in a phone interview. "We have a wonderful local food culture and we're strengthening all of our connections by supporting that. Each restaurant can decide how they want to participate. The bottom line is that they enjoy introducing people to delicious food and we've got really delicious food coming from our local farmers."