By Angela Hill

Local food gaining followers

Oct 12, 2010 | 7:33 AM

Politicians are taking notice as more people begin eating locally.

A recently introduced parliamentary bill wants to declare the Friday prior to Thanksgiving, national local food day.

This is an idea that Debbie Honch, executive director of Prince Albert tourism, said she loves.

“What a perfect time too, at harvest time and there’s just so much available this time of year,” she said.

Honch played a role in the successful, recent Local Bounty event and said there are more chefs that want local food on their menus.

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Jenni Willems is one of those chefs and the owner of New Ground Café in Birch Hills.

In her restaurant she tries to source as many products locally as possible.

“We try to source locally as many of the products that we can, except coffee and chocolate, which I couldn’t live without,” she said.

Along with a decreased reliance on global transport system, Willems said it’s nice to build community around food.

“Also because locally grown food tastes so, so good, it’s really time to start thinking in that direction,” she said.

Willems said having a national day to think about local food around Thanksgiving Day is a good plan.

“The timing of that couldn’t be better because it’s probably one of the occasions when food is uppermost in our minds … it’s a really great opportunity to think about where the food comes from, who grows it and how we can prepare it,” she said.

Honch said linking local food to Thanksgiving is already done to a certain extent, locally.

The Prince Albert’s farmers market stays open until the Thanksgiving weekend because of the number of people who want to access fresh food for the holiday.

“This is a huge buying day for thanksgiving, (on) Saturday. Tons of people (were) down there looking for fresh (food),” she said.

ahill@rawlco.com