THOREAU observed that humans are happily designed in such a way that the distance they can cover in a days walking means that were they to spend every day hiking in a different direction from their homestead, it would take a lifetime to get to know every corner of their surroundings.  Theres something analogous in the distance that meat and vegetables can cover in an ox cart  in the old formula of market towns gathering and redistributing the produce of a region. Its like concocting a meal with what you have in the kitchen, rather than shopping to suit a previously planned meal. These often turn out the most satisfying dinners, settling a craving in us not for parsimony but for good economy.  Theres a rightness about working with what we have, rather than giving in to the screaming pasha within whos never satisfied, always craves more, and doesnt care how far it has to travel to get to him. If theres anything spiritual to be found in the kitchen, it surely has to do with settling this inner tyrant.  Any region can use a patron saint, and in Englands West Country, that saint is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (a k a Hugh Fearlessly Eats-It-All). One of Britains top TV chefs, Mr. Fearnley-Whittingstall is on a near-holy mission to return to the land. He had his first success with a show called A Cook on the Wild Side, in which he traveled around cooking up game and wild plants on his camping stove.  Then he settled in Dorset and moved into growing his own food  saddleback pigs, old breeds of chicken  and reviving many old techniques for curing and preserving the food. His larder is permanently hung with sausages, salamis, hams and varieties of smoked fish.  What he advocates goes far beyond organic. His philosophy is plow to plate: ideally, the consumer is the grower, or failing that, the growers neighbor. He calls it food integrity.  At his new restaurant, the River Cottage Canteen, in the market town of Axminster, even the wine is as local as possible, all of it from England except for a few French organic and biodynamic labels. Almost nothing solid comes from farther afield than the West Country. Theres no bottled water  an abomination of wastefulness.  A truly organic restaurant today needs a field of local suppliers. What good is an organic carrot or blueberry with a giant carbon footprint? Just as farmers markets are spreading in both Britain and America, so too is local-mindedness in restaurants. Its not just about carbon, but a deeper connectedness between people and land.  Its a connectedness I fantasized about as a child: When I was 10, my favorite book was Survival for Young People. It told you about bivouac bags and collecting rainwater with a plastic sheet. But what electrified me were the pages on eating wild  the leaves and roots you could get by on, how to trap a rabbit, how you should always have a fishing line in your pack.  Go into the woods with Pages 54 to 83 cracked open, and you could hide out forever. Be nothing but a forager, with no purpose on this earth other than to find the sustenance to keep going. That was true freedom.  If this all sounds somewhat medieval, it is. The kind of self-reliance a household would have known before the advent of processed and packaged foods, when good husbandry included knowledge of how to process food oneself, is precisely what Mr. Fearnley-Whittingstall is trying to revive.  The Canteens décor reflects this. I find myself eating at a table of reclaimed wood in a wood-rich, loftlike space.  The first thing I try is crispy pigs head. (Ive never been observant but this is ridiculous.) The plate consists of a fried slice of something like a pâté  in fact a version of headcheese, or brawn  with applesauce and Le Puy lentils. Not only do the sweet apple and rich brawn go together well, but theres an automatic burst of self-congratulation in even daring to take a mouthful.  Theres an austerity about the place, but the food is stunning: sea bass in a lemon and herb sauce, with braised fennel and sautéed Highland Burgundy potatoes, ruddy and smothered in oil; and two kinds of lamb on one plate, slices of dense, melting, pink roast tenderloin and dark glistening shreds of braised shoulder. With sautéed potatoes cooked in cream, both are glorious.  My friend Dave Swann and I end with rhubarb jelly  a wobbly mound of luminous red jelly, a dab of whipped cream on a shortbread biscuit, and a heap of cooked rhubarb. Another British standard, rhubarb is a favorite of public and backyard vegetable patches.  Our other dessert is yogurt-based pink gooseberry ice cream, and when the waitress presses liqueurs of the Somerset Cider Brandy Company on us, we accept: Kingston Black Apple Aperitif makes for a rich after-dinner sip, in spite of its name.  According to his publicists, Mr. Fearnley-Whittingstall doesnt exactly think of himself as a great chef. His mission is changing peoples relationship to food production. Even a window box of herbs in central London is better than nothing, he contends: food-blindness is part of our postindustrial alienation; were alienated from our very plates.
Local-mindedness in the West Country’s restaurants is growing, making eating about a deeper connection between the people and the land.