Farm to Food, Truck to Table at Harvest Moon Grille

by Mallory Nanny

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Picture by Mallory Nanny

January 24, 2012

“Farm to food, truck to table” could serve as the motto for Cassie Parsons and Natalie Veres, as they’ve set out to reinvent Charlotte’s culinary landscape. Co-owners of Grateful Growers Farm and Harvest Moon Grille (the name given to both their food truck and restaurant), they are two of the city’s standard-bearers in the farm-to-table revolution sweeping fervently across the nation. While the food truck currently is hibernating, the restaurant embodies the same culinary passion as its mobile predecessor – and with more space to contain it. Like other chefs involved in the movement, their mission at Harvest Moon Grille is to serve the best food that local farms can provide.

Nearly all items featured on the menu are from farms within 100 miles of Charlotte, such as Windcrest Farm, Barbee Farms, and Laughing Owl Farm, to name a few. The pork products and shiitake mushrooms actually come from their own farm in Lincoln County.

Ingredients for success

Though she launched the farm years before opening the Harvest Moon Grille food truck and restaurant, Parsons says that her passion for food really began with cooking, not farming. And, as a cook, she always has believed that great cooking begins with fresh, superior ingredients – items that were not always available to her in the past. That belief eventually led her and Veres to raise their own pork - the quality of which is the linchpin of their reputation in the food world.

Okay, so what makes Grateful Growers’ pork so good?

The owners raise Tamworth pigs, a red heritage breed that descended from wild boars. Parsons says they are superior in taste and texture, and actually proved it to me. First, she showed me how the streaks in the Tamworth bacon have an equal ratio of meat and fat, thus giving it a rich and hearty flavor. Next, she let me sample it: two strips of thick-cut, peppered bacon. That’s when it really hit home. The difference in taste was astounding.

And that was just the beginning of my culinary awakening at Harvest Moon Grille. The staff provided a breakfast spread that also included two poached, farm-fresh eggs, toasted whole wheat bread, raspberry jam, and creamy, unsalted butter. Apart from the bread, which Veres bakes in-house, each item was delivered from a different farm.

I watched Parsons signal to each item while enthusiastically describing its personal history. At first, it just seemed complicated - the process of acquiring each product from a different location. But, after sampling each item, and coupling the tastes with the farm-to-table philosophy, it became a profoundly moving experience, as I now understood the kind of dedication Parsons and Veres have to their mission.

Serving “fresh, tasty food that is true to its nature” isn’t just a humble expression, but a principle that the Harvest Moon Grille staff upholds every day. And to be perfectly honest, it was one of the best breakfasts I’ve had in Charlotte – and the best wheat bread I’ve ever had, in general. While it was toasted to give it a light crunch, it still retained the soft and creamy texture of oven-fresh bread. Veres studied the history and craft of baking, and truly is an expert.

Consumers’ questions

Living in a major farming state, Parsons and Veres have little trouble finding the local ingredients they want. So, as consumers, they challenge us to ask why we aren’t taking more advantage of our culinary surroundings? Since North Carolina is a leading provider of pork and sweet potatoes, Parsons asks, “Why are we buying our pork products from mass manufacturers? Why are we buying sweet potatoes imported from Mexico?”

Her line of questioning applies to a number of other crops grown locally, and she makes a good point: By advocating for knowledge of our own agricultural history, Parsons hopes that more locals will become mindful of the farmers here, not only because their products are fresher, but also because they are more likely to be chemical-free.

“There is no transparency in what we’re eating today,” she explains. “As consumers, we have unknowingly given over our eating habits to big agriculture. We assume, because the food we buy is FDA-approved, it must be clean and it’s not.”

What makes Harvest Moon Grille’s menu items stand out among other restaurants is that the staff was one of the first, locally, that could actually tell you where the meat and vegetables you order comes from - down to the name of the farm where it was grown. While this factor makes Harvest Moon Grille unique, Parsons says, “I want all of these restaurants to be driven to use local ingredients too, so that I can go out to dinner.”

But is buying local more important than buying organic? To Parsons, the answer is “yes, because food that is ‘certified organic’ can be imported from distances as far as China. So, I’d rather buy local than unknown.”

While their goal is to be 100% chemical-free, Harvest Moon Grille considers it more important to know exactly where the products are grown. This staunch attitude that Parsons exhibits towards maintaining quality and freshness is sacred to the staff’s farm-to-table mission. Furthermore, she proves to us consumers that it’s more than just eating organic – it’s about knowing where the food we eat actually comes from.

While the farm-to-table movement appears to be one solution to various negativities within the larger food industry, Parsons’ position caused me to question, as with many trends before, what kind of lifespan does it have? Cities like Chicago, Portland and New York City have embraced it, yes, but can Charlotte catch on?

“I will make it last,” Parsons vows. “I can’t speak for other chefs in the field, but this is the way I live my life. Plus, if I went away, Charlotte would miss out on the most amazing pork.”

Return on investment

It’s no secret that eating local and organic can come with a price tag. With the high expense of fresh, local ingredients, it’s a wonder how Harvest Moon Grille sustains such reasonable menu prices. When asked if she was taking it on the chin, Parsons assured me that the restaurant is making money, but that profit is not her focus. “I’m not here to dupe anybody,” she said. “Compared to the goals of other high-end restaurants, the money we profit is directed towards buying high quality products, not upgrading the décor.” As an annex to the Dunhill, however, the décor isn’t suffering.

Parsons and Veres continue to explore avenues of change in the city’s culinary scene. In addition to farming, cooking and teaching (yes, there are cooking classes at the restaurant), they hope to one day open up similar venues in the forms of a butcher shop, a burger joint, and maybe even a taco stand. That said, for the time being, they are content running two businesses that have already revolutionized the city’s dining.

Photos by Mallory Nanny