What Does Edible Stand For Today?

Our friend, Brian Halweil, editor-in-chief of Edible Manhattan shared his narrative of what he has seen happen over the last ten years within the food plus journalism world. Five years ago when my husband and I purchased Edible Indy, we honestly bought it for the love of food and to shed light upon the lack of it in a state where bounties of food grows all summer long. As we forged forward with diving deeper into the day-to-day aspects of the food movement, we have been captivated by the outpouring of stories telling of the trials and tribulations of Indiana agriculture and the shifts and changes being represented throughout our state. The first time we wrote about the farmer's market in Indiana, we found in central Indiana about 25 or 30 of them. We now fill three pages of listings of those farms and markets in central Indiana and frankly we don't even put a dent in that list. That is a positive shift in the local food movement.

What is even more profound to us is the amount of food writers and bloggers. There are those people who love to talk about dining out and capturing those dishes like a professional, but there are also columns, articles and writers fully dedicated to the local food movement in every publication in the state. Great news for the food movement, but how do we continue to set ourselves apart. We tell the underdog story, the historic stories, the political stories. We tell the stories about people making a real impact on the local lives from the farmers to the artisans, the groups like Indiana Grown to international organizations like Food Tank.

What does the model for hyper-local publications like ours look like? How do the other 87 publications dedicating their lives to telling the local food stories fare in the future? We think well, however, read more about what Brian has to say about the where he sees food writing going from the perspectives of the Edible New York publications that house so many forward thinkers. We can't think of anyone better to express where our future lies. Read his story now.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Rubenstein

Edible Indy, Publisher