Food.
Good, now we've got your attention.
There's someone amongst us.
He's got a quiet smile and an easy way. He epitomizes southern cuisine, and why shouldn't he? He's an artist, and it's his medium.
David Bancroft's new restaurant, Acre, epitomizes one of the prominent movements in Auburn's culture: farm-to-table.
Reducing the distance and time from vine-to-plate means more quality in food eaten all over the world. Here, those space-time issues spurred aggressive change in Auburn's culinary ideals.
"We do clean food and it's fresh," Bancroft said. "People mistake that for organic, vegan, trendy, but it's not. We're buying food that is local, harvested no later than yesterday. It's all fresh, in house. We're not buying sauces out of gallons; we're making sauces in house. We're making soups, in house, making stocks, butchering whole animals, fish. When you see that on the menu, that fish came in whole."
There are limitless options for fresh ingredients. Everyone wants his or her food to taste better and be healthier, that's the goal of farm-to-table.
Farm-to-table centers around the production of farm-grown food delivered to local consumers. The farm-to-table movement began in the 1960s and 70s.
According to the Alabama Farmers' Federation, Alabama has more than 48,000 farms spreading across 9 million acres of farmland. These farms produce the state's top commodities -- poultry, livestock, nursery products, cotton and peanuts. The average American farmer produces enough food for 155 people per year. The Alabama Farmers' Federation estimates American consumers spend more than 10 percent of their disposable income on food annually.
One Alabama farm took Bancroft's dream and put it on the table.
Bancroft's began his culinary exploits as one part of the culinary team at Amsterdam Cafe.
It was a regular day when he decided the cardboard-packaged produce from an indistinguishable farm did not cover it anymore.
That day, he called Randle Farms with a simple idea.
They arranged a meeting, which would eventually change their lives and, potentially, Auburn's history.
"They were all just looking at me when I walked up in my chef coat," Bancroft said. "They were like 'this is what a chef looks like,' and I was like, 'all right, so (these are) farmers.' We were all just excited."
Randle Farms began operating in 1975 and gained popularity for their yearly blueberry picking. The approximately 220-acre farm functions as a family business. Zack and Frank Randle, sons to Frank Randle Sr., both grew up on the farm and gradated from Auburn.
The produce Bancroft received from the Randle's change his views. He acquired two unused acres behind Amsterdam, between College Street and Gay Street, and converted it to farmland. Before he knew it, his surplus allowed him to invite other chefs to pick from the harvest.
"It was just creating something that could be shared in the community," Bancroft said. "It wasn't to boast; it was to share. I wanted everybody to have some. I even ran a farmers market out of Amsterdam one time."
Similarly, in 2005, Zack created a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program for the farm because it had "become a popular way for small farmers like us to market vegetables."
In CSAs, customers purchase shares twice a year, spring and fall, and each share consists of 4-15 pounds of food, depending on availability.
Right now, the Randle's are planting fall produce such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale and sweet potatoes.
Zack Randal said he found the best communication to be, "just word of mouth, our customers, the ones that we've made happy over the years, they tell their friends. That's how we operate as of right now."
Now, three restaurants later, Bancroft's current menu literally puts Randle Farms on the map. The menu's watermark labels Randle Farms.
"They are like family members," Bancroft said. "When I pull in we talk about the weather, the crops; we don't talk about business; we talk about family. It's just different. It's extremely special."
Bancroft has immense respect for the farming culture. He encourages it and promotes it in his own cooking.
"I do it to support our local economy and support local farmer's families," Bancroft said. "These are families that -- their standards of living are things I want to emulate, their respect for the land, respect for the harvest. All are things forgotten in our society today. Everyone is about speed, fast food, get in, get out, get home. These people just have a slower pace of life and a higher and greater respect that's been lost. I enjoy getting it back in my life piece-by-piece by watching their lives, how they run their farms and watching them with their families."
And believe it, because if Bancroft knows something other than cooking, it's family. The decor of Acre reflects greatly on the Bancroft name. His father and uncle invested, his cousin interior designed and his brother donated trees and building supplies. Portraits throughout the Bancroft ages hang in the hallways. All the oak on the exterior walls came from his family farm. Beams and salvaged wood came from a friend's 100-year-old general store in Beauregard, Va., and a fish basket from his grandfather's fish farm was repurposed to be a chandelier.
"We just made it a family project," Bancroft said. "We grabbed wood and salvaged pieces from here and there and I took all the pictures, tried to wrap it with as many family stories as possible."
Bancroft has had an illustrious culinary career in Auburn, and now the restaurant reflects him. He's able to create a menu that's timeless, seasonal, modern and interesting. His dishes depend on available produce. If a farmer drops off squashes, he serves squash soup at dinner. If watermelons are in excess, they can be found in the margaritas.
And the customers can't stop.
"It's been without a doubt a gathering of locals," Bancroft said. "I see so many friendly faces every night coming to support and they're coming to support because they've eaten with me for seven years in town, I've cooked at their houses, I was friends with them in college; our kids are in day care together; they go to our church."
Acre's farm-fresh ingredients don't always come from Randle, Acre has potential to be self-sustainable. The foundation sits on an acre of land. An olive tree stands by the front door, blackberries and Meyer lemons are found along the walls. Two Toomer's Oak clones from Bancroft's brother's tree farm sway in the distance. Apples grow down the fence, plums past the apples, peaches across the apartment complex and pears in the middle. Limes, mandarin oranges, figs, persimmons and pomegranates hide in the corner, and blueberries are growing by the gas station. Guava ripens behind the building, and to top it off, a vegetable garden soaks in the sunlight next to the parking lot.
Here, the freshness doesn't stop at the plate. The staff utilizes these herbs at the bar, in a farm-to-bar program. Bartenders mix jars of preserves, local honeys and syrups and fuse them into cocktails.
Also on board with farm-to-table is Opelika's Jimmy's, located at 104 S. Eighth St. The restaurant opened in 2005 and delivered New Orleans-style cuisine. Owner Jim Sikes writes a food column in the Opelika-Auburn News and explores unique food experiences.
Jimmy's uses fresh basil grown in Sikes' garden. He harvests and preserves the basil in canning jars. The restaurant also uses fresh mint in specialty drinks.
"We don't grow very much for ourselves, because we don't have the room," Sikes said. "But we do grow some herbs out front. We've got rosemary that could take care of the whole county, there's a giant bed of it out there, fresh picked mint."
Sikes said the benefits of farm-to-table go beyond the consumer's fork.
"So buying those neat fresh things is a lot better than that bag of frozen things, for the person working," Sikes said. "It's a lot better for you as a customer, but it's also better for the person working. Fresh and local treats your customer and it treats your employees well. It's good for your soul. And there's not a lot that you can say that is that way."
Opelika Cafe One Twenty Three also combines locally grown food with a Southern twist. The restaurant, located at 123 S. Eighth St., operates as a smaller restaurant and doesn't necessarily need to purchase in bulk, especially when it comes to produce or fresh ingredients.
"My vision for the cafe is a place where you can relax and not worry about if you used the wrong fork or spoon. Basically fusing the Old South with fine dining," said Eron Bass, executive chef at Cafe One Twenty Three.
Bass' vision for the Cafe's atmosphere fuses classy dining and Southern cuisine. He said sourcing ingredients benefits them economically, because they don't necessarily need the quantities others have. He said all the produce used comes from local farmers markets in the area.
"I would much rather go out and handpick my produce than order a 50-pound case of squash from California," Bass said. "Buying local helps everybody, from local businesses and the community, even the environment by cutting down on the carbon footprint that is used to ship these products."
Definitions of local differ from chef to chef, restaurant to restaurant and product to product. Proximity matters in a restaurant that implements farm-to-table.
"Not only is local an element of distance, it is an element of time," Sikes said. "You know trying to get local food, you have the opportunity to interface with the farmer or grower or whoever it is."
Auburn University's acclaimed Lambert-Powell Meats Laboratory is USDA controlled, regularly inspected, controlled properly and provides a clean environment.
"There are no other options in the area outside of two hours, it's a two hour radius in every direction," Bancroft said. "You have to go to Auburn University Meat Lab, and it's right here."
In farm-to-table, all parties benefit. The farmer or supplier sells products to local vendors, and vendors are secured a steady, fresh and local supply thus ensuring the quality and consistency when a meal meets a consumer.
The Randle's eat their food, and McDonalds is out of the question. Zack Randle said he never even eats fast food.
"I know what good food is and I know you're not going to get it at any of those places," Randle said.
The movement's influence intersects with an on-campus organization working to get real food options to Auburn. The Real FoodChallenge works to get real food, specified as: humane, local, ecologically sound and fair, into Auburn.
"Of course we want food that comes from all of these categories but local is kind of the most prominent one, because it has the most impact," said Rosa Cantrell, president of The Real Food Challenge.
The main hurdle for The Real Food Challenge and Auburn University is it's contract with Chartwells, a dining services company based out of the United Kingdom. Chartwells representatives and national representatives of The Real Food Challenge will meet in New York City Oct. 7 to discuss potential implementation of real food.
Cantrell already has a plane ticket.
Auburn's Agriculture opens an even larger oppertunity for this happy town.
"When you open that ideal of community involvement that's when people start realizing there is an outlet here for them to try growing things, get back in the dirt and play in the gardens," Bancroft said.
Next time you look at your plate, think about the lettuce inside your sandwich and the meat inside the bun. So, live long, eat good and live better.
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