Morning Forum: Dan Barber’s Speech

posted by brooklynfoodconference, on May 3, 2009

In case you missed the conference, some of the conference or just want to revisit what you heard, I’m going to try to post as much of it as I can transcribe from what I caught on my little digital recorder yesterday.  Here’s the first from the morning forum. At the bottom of this post, you’ll find reports from people who Tweeted from the sustainable chefs roundtable where Dan spoke later.

We hope to publish Dan Barber’s speech in the near future. In the meantime, click here for a speech on Ted Talks.

Dan’s Official Bio
Dan Barber is executive chef and co-owner of Blue Hill Restaurant (New York City) and Blue Hill at Stone Barns (Pocantico Hills, NY) and a board member of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. A leader of healthy restaurateurs and advocate for farming issues, Barber bases his cooking on a philosophy of using sustainable grown local ingredients. He has worked with the Kellogg Foundation, Slow Food USA and Earth Pledge to change agricultural policies and maximize the appreciation of eating good food. In 2006, he was named James Beard Best Chef.

Twitter Reports on the Chefs Roundtable
Dan also spoke at the 1:30 workshop—Our sustainable restaurants: A roundtable of NYC chefs. Program Description: Historic leaders of progressive food perspectives, New York Chefs advance the idea that Americans need to return to eating more local, seasonal and sustainable food. Moderated by Leonard Lopate of WNYC, this panel of renowned chef/owners, who have made that idea a hallmark of their businesses, discusses how restaurants shape the conversation about how to fix our broken food system.

* The best farmers love to eat and are eco-minded (bklynfarmhouse)
* Corn-fed beef doesn’t make me hungry (meredithmo)
* If you put corn in a rumen stomach, you kill good bacteria (civileater)
* We need to look at the ecology first, then decide what our diet should be, rather than the other way around. (ninabeans)
* If you really believe in local food and you live in NYC, being a vegetarian makes no sense. (KGeee Chef)
* Chefs can promote biodiversity and fight corporate interests with their menu choices. (GreenFork)
* There are a lot of bad local farmers out there. (josephbayot)

Ongoing Impressions from Bloggers
“Miss Ginsu” of Greenpoint couldn’t get into the permaculture workshop she wanted, but she loved her lunch so much she photographed it and blogged about it.  A Beautiful Bean Salad at the Brooklyn Food Conference. (Thank you, Esther Bernstein, who procured local and sustainable foods, and Kim Pistone, who created the menus.)

—Compiled by Paige Churchman