Today: We're celebrating the country's tastiest, most responsibly-produced food with the Good Food Awards. Tell us in the comments by Friday, January 16th at 5 PM about a local food you love -- we'll choose a winner to receive a box of this year's winning Good Food Awards' picks.
We meet people every day who are making incredible food: Jam makers using local fruit and inventive spices, bee keepers peddling raw wildflower honey, and farmers rethinking how to pickle vegetables. And we want you to discover them too.
And we rely on the Good Food Awards to show us even more: They help us to discover new brands we haven’t tried, to taste better versions of foods we love, and to trust that they've hand-picked the best of the best each year.
Now in its fifth year, the Good Food Awards recognizes superior food producers and artisans, awarding winners in 11 categories including cheese, chocolate, coffee, and honey. To be selected as a winner for the GFA, a product needs not only to be delicious and stand out in its field, but also be thoughtfully produced with an eye toward environmental and social sustainability. All finalists score high in blind taste tests and meet a set of rigorous standards of industry-specific responsible business practices. That’s a mouthful, but what it comes down to is that the winning foods taste good and do good.
By now you’re probably wishing you could taste some of these superlative foods. And if you’re anywhere near San Francisco this weekend, you can: The Good Food Awards marketplace is open this Saturday, January 10 from 9 AM to 2 PM at the Ferry Building -- meet the producers of the 2015 GFA winners, and buy the winning products. There will be wine, cider, and general merriment. Tickets are $5 at the door (no advance R.S.V.P. required; find all the event details here).
If you aren’t able to attend in person, you can still get a taste of the winning products today in our shop. After extensive taste tests in the Food52 office (our job is tough, we know), we’ve picked a few favorites: A silky dark chocolate and olive oil bar that crunches with bits of sourdough bread, a salty caramel sauce that none of us could stop sneaking bites of, a goose and pork salame studded with persimmons, and a jam bright with tayberries (similar to a blackberry but richer and more floral).
More: Attention bread and chocolate lovers -- here’s a sandwich for you.
We want to know more about what good food means for you: Tell us in the comments about a local, authentically-produced food that you love. We want to know about anything from a jam in Charleston to a charcuterie from a Chicago butcher! One commenter will win a box of our favorite selection of 14 of this year’s Good Food Awards winners.
Photos by James Ransom
Written by: Posie (Harwood) Brien
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http://www.treelinecheese.com
"The farmers that we have hand selected take great pride in what they do. They have chosen to raise heritage breed pigs humanely, free of antibiotics and are pasture fed. All of our products are handmade in-house (unless other wise noted), using fresh local ingredients and are always fresh. We hope that you can see and taste the difference in our pork!"
I have first hand visited one of their source farms, and have had friends that worked for these farms. They engage the animals and brain work and play, and the animals have a great quality of life. We are lucky to live in Lancaster where most of the farms and animals are not subject to industrialization, but it's still heartening to see businesses source locally from the farmers.
There used to be a small Italian deli near me in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was a totally inconspicuous place, and despite the rising tide of hipsters that would eventually consume the neighborhood, it was never overrun or really even discovered. It remained a relative secret of the Italian community in that neighborhood.
I won't say what "they" were known for, because there was no "they." The owner and proprieter of Tedone Latticini Dairy Products was Georgiana Tedone DiPalma. She made the freshest, most all-around perfect mozzarella I have ever tasted. In fact, it was the single greatest item of food that I think I have ever experienced. I struggle to think of an equal to her, but fail mostly because in my mind she is comparable only to someone like Jiro Ono. I've made a point of trying to find better mozzarella in Italy, and I never even came close. Georgi's mozz was never refrigerated, and what she didn't sell by end of day was thrown out.
She made that mozz fresh nearly everyday for 75 years. To put that in perspective, from the time I had it until the time her store closed, she had been making mozzarella at that same location in Williamsburg since before the United States was involved in World War 2. And she got up at 2AM to do so.
Rest in peace, Georgi.
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