When it comes to cuisine, New York City is often thought of in terms of its diversity -- restaurants representing countries from around the world; restaurants exclusively representing small regions of countries; obsessive spice importers; and culinary renegades turning everything remotely edible into either turd shapes or foam and serving them with a wait staff’s pinkie-pointing explanation.  New York stomachs are moving targets.  And proud of it.

In this urban pretzel of complex cultural topology, what food is actually local to the New York area?  It's the kind of question gastronomically-inclined travelers like to ask before going to other places like France, Vietnam, Peru, or any place in between.  A more general question is "What dish is place X known for?" which often boils down to asking what dish draws its ingredients grown locally.  A specialty dish usually, but not always, arises from making use of what is available in the immediate area and perfecting it.  Jambalaya in NOLA.  Caribou in Quebec.  Pulpo a la gallega in Spain.

But in this age of globalization and Time Out-subscribing condo dwellers who demand variety, does anyone care if a food is local to the northeastern United States or not?  

The New Amsterdam Market does.  At their benefit bash in a rental gallery on 11th Avenue yesterday, five oyster purveyors, most within a three-hour drive of the city, and at most five, hauled in countless sacrificial bushels.  The oysters didn’t even miss a tide cycle when they were slurped down in the name of locavorism. 

Sure, in a region like New York City's that boasts icy winters, eating local foods in the winter months presents a daunting challenge, but the market went creative by also bringing in makers of beer and pickled turnips from Brooklyn, and bread slathered with butter from Cooperstown.   I don’t think that the New Amsterdam Market tried to espouse the idea that eating locally is a chokingly militant endeavor; rather, it should be a flexible but conscious choice.  Indeed, I am writing this with a gut full of a Grimaldi’s pizza whose sauce probably came from tomatoes in cans from Italy via a shipping container. 

Some of you familiar with the Slow Food movement know that, among other things, the movement encourages locavorism.  But if you initially thought that Slow Food ideals mandate eating locally every meal, year round, don't beat yourself, because even New York Times food writer Mark Bittman, in his oddly-placed seminar at the Travel Show sponsored by his paper a few weeks back in NYC, fell for that very notion.  It’s more a matter of balance and awareness.  Knowing where your food comes from.  Realizing how vitamin content in a vegetable may be degraded in the time it takes for its cross-country transport.  Discovering the flavors of different varieties of produce that might not be the most marketable due to a shorter shelf life.  And maybe, just maybe, a little pride for your region.

After all, if more people ate locally more often (granted, in some communities it is easier to do than in others, and is more expensive than ubiquitous American favorites like Twinkies and Spam), recent food recalls -- spinach and peanuts, for instance -- would have had a much smaller effect.  Why should one centralized food processing plant or one farm hold the gullets of the entire country (and those at our military bases around the world) hostage?

  I would bet such ruminations did not dart around in the minds of the market’s shuckers, who were too busy popping open an uncountable bulk of oysters almost as fast as we could eat them.  Their repetitive work reminded me of when I was busing tables before college, when I would end up having dreams of busing tables after my shift.   The dream shifts ended up as mentally draining as the awake shifts, with the added misfortune that I wasn’t paid for the former.  In addition to providing the last link in the delivery of the region’s goods -- for that I salute them -- the shuckers probably bore shuckers' dreams last night.  For that, I feel for them.