On Oct. 30, Slow Food Lake Tahoe member Barb Shaw showed up to the Truckee River Winery for the group’s food swap, a monthly event where participants bring something they cooked, foraged, canned, or grew and trade it for another homemade item. But to her amazement, Shaw found that the event had been canceled due to a warning by the Nevada County Department of Environmental Health.
‘I was really disturbed by it, it was really crazy,’ said Shaw, owner of Shaw Family Farm in Glenshire. ‘No one was selling anything. Everybody was just giving each other stuff we made.’
But that was precisely the problem. Since the food swap was advertised as a public event in a public venue, according to California health and safety code any food served has to come from a regulated kitchen. While the crack down on the food swap sent shock waves through the local food movement, Slow Food members say they are talking with county officials to try and better understand the codes, as well as working to change state laws to reflect evolving attitudes toward local food.
Two days before the food swap was to be held — the fourth one of the year — Truckee River Winery got a call from the Nevada County Department of Health informing them that the event was illegal and the winery would be held liable if it hosted the food swap. The winery called off the event.
‘It was advertised as a public event held at a public facility, which is in violation of health and safety code for retail food facilities,’ said Wesley Nicks, Nevada County director of environmental health. ‘If you provide food to the public, it has to come from an approved source, such as a restaurant or commercial-grade kitchen.’
The reason for the law is to prevent foodborne illnesses, said Nicks, who found out about the event by seeing an ad for the food swap in the Sierra Sun.
Some Slow Food members, however, saw Nevada County’s actions as overtly hostile and an overreach of its mandate.
‘I was really upset,’ said SunMie Won, a Slow Food board member. ‘Why do they think they can shut it down? Why do they think it’s not safe? I can make that judgment myself.’
The health department’s reigning in of the food swap left Slow Food members questioning what other food events were illegal — bake sales, potlucks, bringing a new mother a cooked meal?
According to Nicks, potlucks are legal since they are private events. Food swaps can be legal too, if they are held in a private home.
‘Private events are not regulated under health and safety code under the retail food code because they are not retail,’ Nicks said.
SFLT leader Polly Triplat, who is also the garden manager of the Truckee Community Garden, is meeting with the entire staff of the health department in December to discuss current health codes.
‘I need to know what the restrictions are,’ said Triplat, noting that the community garden often does tastings and school events. ‘Are all these things OK?’
Triplat said that Nicks extended her an invitation to sit on some working groups that are looking at the new food movement and how to change the laws to catch up to these trends, such as CSAs, school gardens, and chicken processing at small farms. These groups include the Northern California Food Technical Advisory Committee, part of the California Conference of Directors of Environmental Health, and the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
‘We are trying to find ways to amend the code to allow these things without being over-burdensome, but with some check in place,’ Nicks said.
For now, Slow Food Lake Tahoe will no longer promote food swaps as an official event until it has a better understanding of state health code. The food swaps will continue however, but as an invitation-only, private affair. Slow Food Lake Tahoe, which vows to fight for its right to swap food, eventually hopes to reopen them to the public.
‘We want to promote our right and ability to trade healthy, local food,’ Triplat said.
