Election 2008: What’s At Stake?

By Lauren Williamson, Medill

Galena, IL–My goal tonight was to not throw up. I have what is probably an inordinate anxiety about food poisoning, which has been exacerbated by this summer’s heavily documented outbreak of salmonella and always intensifies when I need to choose a restaurant in an unfamiliar place.

As I took one wet step after another along Galena’s rain-soaked main street, I examined each restaurant’s menu carefully, along with the general cleanliness and busy-ness of the dining room. No other people meant no meal there for me. In the case of restaurants, I very much judge them by their covers.

The airy, spotless dining room of One Eleven Main had instant curb appeal. So did the homey menu headings such as “Things to be Shared” and “Things You Won’t Share.” A tiny line below the restaurant name sold me on the place: “Local Flavor Cuisine.”

During the months I’ve spent reporting on the Tradition Dairy site outside Nora, Ill.,  where a California farmer plans to build a 10,000-cow dairy, I’ve learned much about the debate over decentralized industrial agriculture versus local, sustainably farmed produce and livestock. Now, the night before the hearing for an emergency injunction to stop construction on Tradition, I had a chance to try some of Jo Daviess County’s own regional specialties.

“The owner grew up in Ireland collecting fruits and vegetables from around the area and bringing them into town,” said my waitress, Catherine, who explained her slight tardiness by saying she was separating the recycling. “It just made sense to do a similar thing here because there are lots of famers in the area.”

One Eleven Main defines “local” as food that comes from the Tri-State Area – Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois. Not everything on the menu is from around here, such as, I’m suspecting, the calamari and the salmon. But patrons can sip a soda made in Iowa, nibble on cheese that is, predictably, from Wisconsin or sample mushrooms harvested from Galena-area forests.

I settled on Arnold’s Farm Chicken, raised by Tom Arnold (no relation to Roseanne’s ex) on his livestock farm in Elizabeth, about 15 miles from Galena. Arnold specializes in sustainably raised chicken, beef, lamb, turkey and pork that are free of antibiotics and growth hormones. The chickens are pasture fed, which means they walk their pens in true free-range fashion, pecking at greens and bugs in addition to the farm-provided corn and oats. He ships the meat only  within Illinois, so out-of-staters who want to try his product have to make an appointment to come to the farm itself.

It’s a very different system than visitors to Tradition Dairy will find if and when the facility is built. On concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, livestock is confined for a minimum of 45 days at a time. Dairy cows are fed silage, which is a fermented corn product usually manufactured on the premises. It’s possible—likely even–that the cows will be pumped with growth hormones and antibiotics to increase milk production and ward off infection. Illinois has a milk deficit, so many area residents hope the milk produced at Tradition Dairy will stay in state. But Nic Anderson, director of the Illinois Livestock Development Group, said that once the milk is sold to a distributor it can be shipped anywhere.

When my dinner plate arrived, I found half a chicken resting atop a small pile of mashed potatoes and a fan of richly-hued green beans. Catherine didn’t know where the potatoes were from, but the green beans were also local, grown chemical-free at Two Onion Farm in Belmont, Wis. The carefully prepared meal was delicious and very welcome after a day of McDonald’s Snack Wraps and 7-Eleven fountain drinks.

I went back to my hotel satisfied – and not a bit worried about salmonella.