In recent years, you hear a lot about “farm to table” when it comes to restaurants marketing that they use the freshest possible ingredients. I’m always suspicious of these marketing terms because you have to be careful between what a term means and what a consumer’s likely assumptions are. Businesses will be on you making an assumption and not thinking about what they mean. Do you know what cage-free, free-range, and pasture-raised chickens mean? When I think of “farm to table,” I picture the vegetables and fruits being rushed into a restaurant after being handpicked that same day. Since all vegetables and fruits probably originated on a farm and eventually end up on a table, isn’t pretty much all food “farm to table”? I haven’t researched what it means legally, but I suspect it’s a relatively loosely defined term.

I can confirm that the yam leaves in the picture are “yard to table”. We picked these yams leaves from a friend’s yard and cooked them the very next day. Until recently, I had no idea you could eat yam leaves. I thought you were only supposed to eat the yams and then discard the rest of the plant. Yum, yam leaves!