At Mount Vernon’s Cornell College, a day of eating locally

On a typical day, Cornell College’s cafeteria is stocked with meals that are 20 to 30 percent locally sourced. But Tuesday, all the food served to Cornell students — breakfast, lunch and dinner — came from within 150 miles of the Mount Vernon campus.

Bon Appetit Management has been Cornell’s on-site restaurant company since 2011. But annually for the last 20 years, Bon Appetit at Cornell has been hosting its “Eat Local Challenge,” a commitment to provide locally sourced meals to students’ plates.

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Tuesday’s offerings included, for breakfast, a farmer’s frittata with eggs from Farmer’s Hen House in Kalona; bacon from Heartland Fresh Family Farm in Argyle; white cheddar from WW Homestead Dairy in Waukon; and vegetables from Morning Glory Farms in Mount Vernon. And for lunch, offerings included a maple-glazed pork loin with brown butter, with apple and onion chutney, from Heartland Fresh Family Farms, WW Homestead Dairy, Buffalo Ridge Orchard in Central City and Echollective Farms in Mechanicsville.

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For David Smigo, Bon Appetit at Cornell’s general manager, said there are many reasons Iowans should be eating locally sourced food — including environmental, economic and health-related reasons.

“There’s many facets of why eating local is important … and it’s a philosophy that really sticks with us,” Smigo said.

This year, Bon Appetit at Cornell is celebrating two decades of its Eat Local Challenge.

“Anytime we have an opportunity we always try to expand students’ mindset as far as what is healthy, what's nutritious, and try to give them the mindset of possibility and options, versus going straight to the two or three things that they're used to eating,” said Smigo, who formerly was the executive chef at Cornell.

For the Eat Local Challenges, Bon Appetit typically can sustain only one meal, but this year the cooking team decided to serve meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

“This is a great opportunity for our students, faculty, staff and our community visitors, to meet some local farmers and learn about where the food they eat comes from and try something new,” said Jill Hawk, the college’s public relations and digital content creator.

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Hawk said the Eat Local Challenge isn’t a Cornell College event but is planned and produced by Bon Appetit at the college’s Hilltop Cafe.

Because Cornell College’s academic year works on a “block plan”-- meaning all students take only one course at a time for 18 days — student’s schedules are “very aligned” and allow the student body to eat together, Hawk said.

Tuesday was the first time junior Oriana McKanan and senior Laura Sander, both sociology majors at Cornell, attended the Eat Local Challenge.

The Eat Local Challenge “has put a face to the food that we eat and having that awareness is important,” McKanan said, adding that she appreciates the program’s work supporting local farmers.

Sander said she found the day significant for multiple reasons.

“It makes you feel more connected to the community,” Sander said. “And health-wise, it’s helpful knowing how food is produced so you can determine if it if you want to eat it for your own health.”

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Emma Johnson is the co-owner of Buffalo Ridge Orchard and has been selling her farm’s produce — which includes apples, potatoes, pears and other veggies — to Bon Appetit at Cornell since 2013. Johnson said the orchard has been a part of the Eat Local Challenge for over a decade.

Programs like the Eat Local Challenge help keep money local, Johnson said.

“Any local food dollars you spend, it means you're spending them with a local farm that's hiring labor that's working locally, then that labor is spending money locally,” Johnson said. “The other benefit is we feel like it's way tastier produce because we're picking it at the peak ripeness rather than picking it too early because it needs to ship or store for a lot longer, because it's traveling thousands of miles. So you're getting a higher quality produce.”

Johnson also said the Eat Local Challenge helps build stronger relationships in the community, saying it has “definitely increased awareness of what farms are around in Iowa, what local farms and what you can get in Iowa.”

Bon Appetit is based in Palo Alto, Calif., and operates across 33 states. Students can take advantage of the Bon Appetit at Cornell program by using their meal plan card, but meals are also open to the public to purchase — $8.15 for breakfast six days a week and $10.85 for lunch and dinner seven days a week, which college dining is in operation.

Liz Murphy, who performs quality assurance and marketing with WW Homestead Dairy, said the dairy “always” tries to participate in events that help tell the dairy’s story and connect with students.

“Helping students understand where their food comes from is one of our favorite things to do. By meeting with students, we can help bridge the gap between the farm and table,” Murphy said in a statement.

“Many students have never had the opportunity to visit a dairy farm, and when meeting with them they can ask us questions about how we raise our cattle, how they are fed and housed, and how we turn milk into other dairy products, rather then searching the internet and finding an answer that may or may not be correct.”

Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Comments: (319) 398-8370; olivia.cohen@thegazette.com