Patter Matters — sourcing

Alice Waters has been making this argument for decades. Eat what grows near you. Eat what grows now. Pay attention to the season — to what is ripe, what is abundant, what the land is producing at this particular moment. The argument was radical when she started making it in the 1970s. Today it is absorbed into a certain kind of food culture — farmers markets, CSAs, restaurant menus that change with the harvest. And yet most of what most Americans eat has no relationship to season at all. What Seasonal Eating Actually Means Seasonal eating does not require a...

Every ingredient in a Patterbar comes from somewhere specific. This is not true of most packaged food. Most packaged food is made from commodities — interchangeable inputs purchased from whoever offers the best price at the time of procurement. The wheat in a cracker might come from one of a dozen suppliers depending on the quarter. The "dried cherries" in a bar might be sourced differently every year based on availability and cost. This approach is efficient. It is also why most packaged food tastes the way it does. The Culinary Standard Patter has approached ingredient sourcing the way a...

Most food companies source ingredients by price. The question is: what is the cheapest ingredient that satisfies the specification? The specification is usually narrow — a certain protein content, a certain moisture level, a certain shelf life. If an ingredient meets the spec, it ships. A chef thinks differently. The Culinary Standard Patter Gersuk trained at Le Cordon Bleu in London and spent years as a specialty sourcer for before founding Patterbar. The sourcing philosophy she brought to the bars is the same one she brought to professional kitchens: the ingredient is the food, and the food is only as...