Local Pride gone awry

I think the growing tendency for Americans to take pride in their communities is a great trend. I love the idea of local food and drink in particular. The only thing better than buying from local sources is growing your own. However, I think taking pride to the extreme that some do borders on xenophobia. Being proud of one's community and heritage does not give one the right to belittle, degrade or scorn someone else's community.

I don't bring this topic up because of international politics, the crisis in the EU or the Iranian nut-jobs. I now live in a place that is immensely proud. Proud of its beauty, proud of its food, proud of its wine, proud of its history...well proud of damned near everything. In my opinion Oregon has excellent reason to be proud of many things. The local produce IS great. There ARE some fantastic Pinot Noirs to be found here. All of that said, there are some things that Oregon should not be proud of. The story in the link below is not one of them. (EDIT for whatever reason I cannot get the HTML tags to make the the link live, so you will have to cut & paste. Sorry.)


http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/05/portland_pig_cook-off_followed.html

For those who are too busy to click and / or read, the article is about a chef from the town I live in who got into a fist fight, got maced by police and subsequently arrested, because he was angry about a local event not using local pork.

Akiko and I had my birthday dinner at Berchard's (the chef in the article) restaurant here in McMinnville last weekend. We were impressed by his dedication to local food and the cool atmosphere of his restaurant. The beer and wine selection was excellent too. The beer was brewed by Heater Allen right here in McMinnville; literally right up the block from us. Akiko has two classes with the brewer's daughter at the local college. The wines were all local and the woman running the bar happened to be a friend of a friend. The food was unique, if not the best we ever ate, but Akiko and I ridiculously critical of restaurant food.

As I read the linked the article this morning in the paper, I laughed out loud. I wasn't shocked, but as I read further it made me sad. Perhaps I should respect him for being so passionate about what he believes in. Maybe it was just the wine and booze talking and not a true indicator of who he is. Mostly it just makes him look like an intolerant little prima-dona, who, sadly, is the poster boy of the day for the region that I live in.