Janine MacLachlan discusses Farmers’ Markets of the Heartland

Grub Street Chicago, the Windy City edition of New York Magazine’s food and restaurant blog, recently posted a Q&A with Farmers’ Markets of the Heartland author Janine MacLachlan.

So what inspired you to go out and hunt up all these farmers’ markets?

You know, for me it was the ultimate road trip. I went to eight states and 76 farmers’ markets, and it’s really a celebration of how farmers get food to the market table.

Chicago really seemed an important starting point because we’re home to the largest CSA in the country, Angelic Organics. And from there I went in a spiral, and took in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri.

I wasn’t sure about giving Chicago its own chapter at first, but it is so different from the rest of Illinois, obviously, in its relation to food, which gave me a chance to talk about urban farming, and then go to Urbana and show what’s different about its farmers’ market. And besides, as my publisher said, Hello, we are the University of Illinois Press.


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