A Taste of Somewhereness
Terroir, noun: The conditions in which a food is grown or produced and that give the food its unique characteristics. Dictionary.com
Snow Cider
Our neighbors up the road here in Colrain, MA are credited with the revival of the hard cider industry. They moved here, to the land of old apple trees, in the 70s and started brewing the historic drink in their basement. Word grew, and for the past 25+ years, this area has been home to an annual festival in November called Franklin County Cider Days.
Their cider, made from apples we see every day, tastes like the rain that falls on those trees and the soil they are grown from. One of my favorite varieties had a handwritten label that said "Snow Cider." When I asked about the name, Judith Maloney told me, "Remember that snow we had in early October? We had to run out and harvest all the heirloom apples while they were covered with snow." I did remember, and nodded. That was when "Snow Cider" was born. That's something I love best about Cider Days: all the stories the cider-makers tell about their particular brew.
Terroir: The Taste of Somewhereness
One day I popped into a fine wine store in Northampton, MA who happened to be having a wine tasting. Full confession: I'm not a drink connoisseur, so just walked straight over to the bottle I was going to buy. That's when I overheard the wine rep saying, "This wine is from the Mosel region of Germany, grown along a river that flows to France. It's an area that has produced this variety of wine since the 11th century." He said its taste was due to the blue slate soil, and grown on steep south facing cliffs, and that some of the vines were 120 years old. I took a sip and wondered if my German ancestors had also tasted this wine or experienced the flavor of that particular soil and sunlight. It was a Riesling, which is now my favorite kind wine.
There is a French word that is well known in the food and wine industry and used to describe this place-centered way of talking about wine: Terroir, (pronounced "ter-wahr"). One wine website defined it as "the combination of factors including soil, climate, and sunlight that gives wine grapes their distinctive character." It's also known as "the taste of the soil" and "the notion that food has specific qualities defined by a sense of place."
There is another word: “Somewhereness” which was coined by Bill Ryan in the 90s which he used when remarking, there are "hundreds of dull, cookie-cutter wines" with little or no sense of "somewhereness." Both words describe the "elusive combination of micro-climate, soil and aspect that lifts one wine above another."
West County Cider, from our neighbors up the road is a drink infused with the essence of our small town— the labor of the orchard workers, the seasons, and the history that has shaped this place. Their cider carries with it the terroir of Colrain, the distinctive environment that makes their product taste “of this place.”
When I drink it, it’s not just the apples I’m tasting, but the rain, the sun and the story of how this place and the work of these people, who nurtured and revived something that nearly disappeared.
The Geography of Nowhere
Today, there are many places that have a generic or cookie-cutter feel -- like the expanse of built landscapes described in "The Geography of Nowhere" by James Howard Kunstler. When a town's unique character is covered over by shopping malls or highways, to know a place, and its "somewhereness," you often have to look hard for the layers of time and story.
Yet every place does have layers of time and story to be found, even if they are sometimes hidden under a shopping mall. Learning to see these layers is a core sense of place practice. Practicing seeing, learning, and connecting to a particular place is the soil that stories are grown from. And your unique perspective or experience is the flavor you bring to each story.
Sense of Place Tip
Terroir isn’t just a concept reserved for wine or cider. It’s a way of seeing the world—an invitation to recognize the unique qualities of the places we call home and the stories those places tell.
Try This: Identify a product locally made or grown that tastes “of that place.” Of course, there are the obvious associations—Lobsters and Maine, Beignets and New Orleans, but what can you identify from the soil, sun, and rain or the people of your place, that tastes local or regional to where you are? The next time you eat or drink that item, think about savoring more than just how it tastes.
What local food or drink item did you think of? Write and tell me. I’d love to know!
In a time when generic food products are easily available anywhere, consuming local food and drink is one of the most accessible ways to gain a sense of place wherever you go.
Pro tip: Do you give tours where people grew their food? Consider linking what they grew to what visitors can find in homes and restaurants today. After learning about the farming practices of the ancestral Pueblo people at Bandelier National Monument I felt connected to them every time I ate a local dish with corn, beans, and squash.
Everything happens somewhere. Every story begins someplace.
If you want to explore more about somewhereness from your past or present, consider joining one of my Sense of Place Writing Classes.