Dan Barber is the chef and co-owner of the celebrated Blue Hill restaurant in New York City and its sister venue, Blue Hill at Stone Barns, situated just north of Manhattan. He's a champion of the farm-to-table movement, which emphasizes the patronage of local food sources, and at both of his restaurants, diners can experience just that-grub comes mostly from his farm and from other regional suppliers. Here, Barber talks to Blue Egg about his grandmotherly inspiration, the meaning in a plate of vegetables, and why it's OK to crave pineapple-even if you're in New York.

You're known for your philosophy of farm-to-table eating. How did this become your focus?
Blue Hill is named after a real farm, and that's a big part of how I got interested in the relationship between food and agriculture. My grandmother built this farm, and I worked on it every summer. I think from a young age I was inculcated with a sense of responsibility and a consciousness about the connection between eating and agriculture. Her purpose was to preserve the land.

When I began cooking, I decided to live according to those themes. I knew that the choices I was making about where the food was coming from had similar kinds of effects on the world. While that may seem kind of over-the-top for just a chef from a fancy restaurant, when you multiply it by the number of readers of your website and by the amount of people who are interested in the subject, you begin to realize you have a very profound effect on the environment and on food. I started to realize that, just as my grandmother had an effect on her ecology and landscape, I, too, could have an effect on mine-even though I'm living in Manhattan.

You mention preserving the land. You're a foodie, but do you consider yourself an environmentalist, too?
You know, it's a great question, and the answer is really complicated. I think when you are a foodie, I would argue-I think pretty persuasively-that you are also an environmentalist. Because you can't possibly have good, tasty, flavorful food that's not grown in a good ecology. Generally, food that tastes bitter or that is less flavorful usually comes from far away (again, this is a broad statement but true); is grown in a way that lacks diversity, lacks biology, or the soil uses chemicals to grow it; or a combination of those things. There's a reason why a plate of vegetables is tasteless.

On average, food travels about 1,500 miles from a farm somewhere to get to your plate. That's the average in the United States. So 1,500 miles doesn't exactly speak well for an ecological footprint when you sit down to have a plate of vegetables. All of a sudden, the kind of foodie, food snob, or person who demands locally sourced food, and is kind of precious and a little bit elitist about it, is also the best environmentalist. What they're demanding falls in line with very good ecological practices.

What's local to you? What would you consider the radius?
It sort of depends on the time of year. I pick 200 to 250 miles. It's not at all definitive-well, it's definitive to me. I've said, "You know a farmer's truck or car ride to a market, and his ability to do it in a day-I'd consider that local." There are a couple of restaurants in Maine I know of that define local as 28 miles. It used to be 22, and then this great farmer started farming 28 miles from them, so they define it as 28. I think the point is that it's within a leisurely drive.

Sure, and it's got to depend on where you are, right? If you're in the middle of nowhere and you can't get anything for miles...
Absolutely. I think that's the capital point here; we're talking about local food. I mean, South Dakota-if you're a local, you have to think regionally. The definition of local depends on where you are.

You must be excited by all the talk of local versus organic. Of course you were mentioned in the Time magazine cover article suggesting local is better.
I think the one thing that article missed was that organic was founded on principles that meant "organism"-that's where the word comes from. It meant not just the farming methods, but where it was coming from, and who was growing it, and what the planting strategies were, and what kind of community was supporting that farm. To the great detriment of the movement, corporations and big ag-big agriculture-have dumbed down that term to mean a farming method. That's their definition, and that's fine. But I don't think that's a great definition. That's certainly not the one we started out with and the one people fought for. And we increasingly see the dumbing down of the movement. To try to eat organically is a very worthy goal, but I don't think it's the end-all, be-all.

Those beliefs are evidenced by your practices, too-you have a greenhouse at your Stone Barns center to grow some things that you might not otherwise be able to grow at that time of year. And you do ship some foods in to your restaurants.
Yeah, we have a lot of season extension, where we're not growing tomatoes in the middle of January, but we are growing kale and spinach and salad greens. And you know I'm speaking from a very fortunate position, because we have a Rockefeller who put up the seed money for all of this to be possible.

What could people take away from a visit to Stone Barns that would make their kitchens more environmentally friendly?
You could leave Stone Barns with a greater consciousness of food and where food comes from. For the average eater, most people don't think a lot about where their food comes from. So when you have no consciousness, and you have no thoughts about it-through no fault of your own; you've just been removed from that-you come to a place like Stone Barns and that consciousness is awakened a bit. You can ask questions about how this is being done and where it's being done. If you're a curious person, there's a lot to be curious about at our farm, and at most farms.

[I hope people] leave feeling like you could replicate the experience in your own home by visiting a farmers' market, by joining a community-supported agriculture [CSA] group. And if you don't have a farmers' market in your community, try forming one with your neighbors. CSA is a great way to do this. Put plants on your porch or on your windowsill. Get on the Internet and explore sustainable farms within your region. It leads to a better understanding. But they're small steps. You don't have to be a purist. Look at me: I have an 80-acre farm, and right now there's still mango and pineapple on the menu. I'm no purist, and I don't pretend to be. I think purity is silly-we live in 2007, and we have growers in Hawaii and California who are excellent. And I love citrus fruit. I'm really not that strict about it, except that I feel like as long as people are thinking about the issues, then we're moving in the right direction.

I saw a clip of you speaking at a conference where you told the story of Boris the Boar and how difficult it was to determine his fate. You were told that you made the biggest mistake of all-you named your animal. I'm guessing you don't do this any more?
Well, you're right. We have stopped naming our animals, so I guess we've learned the lesson. But that lesson is complicated, because by naming Boris we actually got to talk a lot about the issues. We did get attached to him, but we got to talk to people. They started to think about what happens to a pig.

Is there a trend or factoid about the environment that you find particularly alarming?
Well, I just read a report from the Schwarzenegger administration that said by the end of the century, the Salinas Valley of California will be completely developed. Right now, the Salinas Valley is pretty much wall-to-wall farming, and it's not the most ecologically sustainable farming, but it is farming nonetheless. So environmentally speaking, what concerns me? I don't know-the idea that my children and my grandchildren will be getting their food from someone, and increasingly it's not from this country. It will probably come from South America and China.

Yeah, you must not have been surprised by the uproar over the poisoned pet food from China.
We've been talking about this issue for so long. Then all of a sudden seven cats and dogs die, and everyone is worried about where their food comes from. But environmentally speaking, what's going to happen to our future? What's it going to look like? And to me, that's a very frightening proposition. Those are my concerns.

What we're seeing is the environmental degradation of the way we grow our food, and in response, the degradation of our health-not just our environment, but ourselves. Obesity and diabetes, some of that can be directly linked right back to the way we grow our food. So it's not only environmental disaster or an environmental problem. The environmental problem becomes very quickly a health problem. It's all connected.

Sir Albert Howard, who founded the organic movement, said we ought to be treating the issue of health-not just nutrition health but soil health-and that you need to connect everything together to equal a healthy person. A healthy person needs to also follow a healthy environment.

What magic power over the environment would you most like to have?
That strikes me as kind of the wrong thinking. That's how big agriculture thinks. It's like, "What can we create that would be more powerful than nature?" Instead, I think it should be, "What can we do to work with nature in a harmonious way?" I guess I would want people to consider what goes into their food. Not just "you are what you eat." You are what you eat eats, too. And not just thinking about complexity and diversity in your diet, but also the complexity of what plants and animals have in their diet. If I had a wand, I'd wave it in that direction.

If it would get you where you need to go, would you prefer to walk, bike, or bus?
Bike.

What eco-accomplishment are you most proud of?
[Silence.]

C'mon, you've got some!
Like what?

You know your farmers' names.
That's a good one. I like that one a lot. Yeah, I know my farmers' names. Eco-accomplishment...I like this idea that sustainability and consciousness can also mean delicious modern food that's both innovative and prepared in a technologically advanced way. In other words, I'm excited that we are not just a throwback-to-the-'60s kind of thing, where people associate us with soy and awful-tasting alfalfa sprouts. We're doing very tasty food on a high level, but with a consciousness.

What eco-sin are you least proud of?
I've got a lot of sins. Right now I'm least proud of my water situation. We're talking about all these themes, and yet the sparkling water in both of my restaurants is from Italy. However, when it comes to flat water, it's local. I feel good about that. [Editor's note: Barber now uses seltzer guns at Blue Hill at Stone Barns rather than bottled sparkling water.]

We all have something we can't live without. What is the one tradeoff you'd really rather not make, no matter how good it is for the environment?
Well, I still like to eat citrus fruit and pineapple, even though it's ecologically costly to get it here.

Any books, articles, or websites you would recommend?
Eatwild.com-they're doing a lot of really interesting things. Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Whom would you choose to be your carpool buddy and why?
One of my farmers, because there's so much I'd like to learn from them; I feel like being more informed on how things are grown makes me a better chef.

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