For years, the campaign trail has been where the rubber chicken hit the road. And the dinner plates at fundraisers.

Check the appropriate box, please, voting public, for your favorite: Will it be overcooked salmon, a dessicated chicken breast smothered in an under-seasoned mystery sauce, or a vegetarian plate of pasta primavera made with (you guessed it) overcooked pasta and frozen vegetables?

But this is Maine, right? People here worship at the altar of local, sustainable foods. That obsession has likely trickled down to the campaign trail by now, so if that chicken is rubber, it’s probably the chef’s fault; you can bet it started its life on some bucolic farm where it lived on pasture. Right?

Or, are Maine politicians in danger of being scolded like way Thomas Jefferson, who was criticized for being “unfaithful to his native victuals”?

Source decided to check out campaign filings to see what candidates are spending on food – and from where – during this election cycle. We searched for clues that would differentiate ho-hum, off-the-truck campaign food from fresh-off-the-farm fare.

“Local food is becoming more important to people across the board, so I would say as time goes on, the food at campaign events has become better and is more likely to be locally sourced,” said Willy Ritch, communications director for Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, who owns a farm and has been deeply involved in agricultural issues.

In a moment of culinary bipartisanship, Lance Dutson, campaign spokesman for Republican Sen. Susan Collins, agreed. He said he’s noticed a “really big-time” difference in the attention paid to local foods on the campaign trail compared with Collins’ last election cycle.

“Campaigns are notorious for the rubber chicken,” Dutson said. “It’s a hectic schedule, and it’s very hard to keep good eating habits on the trail.

But from fundraisers and events to our staff diets, there’s definitely much more of a consciousness about both the quality of diet and where the food comes from than there was six years ago.”

ALL THINGS HOLY

Eating local on the campaign trail can mean anything from supping on lobster bisque at a formal fundraising dinner to munching on Macoun apples the way Independent gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler did recently after a stop at Morrison Hill Orchard in Farmington. (Cutler, according to communications director Crystal Canney, is “a big farm stand guy.”)

Campaigns have more control over the food that’s served at events they organize themselves, of course. At fundraisers organized by local supporters, it can be a different story.

“Often it’s ‘who is sponsoring the fundraiser for the politician?'” said Frederick Douglass Opie, a professor of history and foodways at Babson College in Massachusetts. “When that’s the case, and you’re the politician, you’re not going to make too many demands. You’re going to show up. You’re going to give that speech, and you’re going to act like the food tastes really good.”

Ritch said the food at Pingree fundraisers is “generally quite good and often local.”

She does not spend a lot of money on campaign food, he said, with one notable exception: the occasional $16 box of Holy Donuts, a personal favorite of hers, for the staff. (Ritch says Pingree visits the Portland donut shop so often he’s surprised they haven’t named a donut after her yet.) For her own events, Pingree usually provides the food herself, from her farm on North Haven Island.

“If there’s an event that we organize, you can almost guarantee that there will be some of her goat cheese or some of her cherry tomatoes,” Ritch said.

(Pingree is married to S. Donald Sussman, majority owner of MaineToday Media, publisher of the Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel.)

When asked about the worst food she’s ever eaten on the campaign trail, Pingree singled out the “cheese cubes and old cut-up vegetables with dip” served in some hotels or restaurant function rooms. But such hors d’oeuvres may be going the way of cocktail wieners and ham rolls.

Caterers and restaurateurs who cook for Maine politicians say that local, sustainable foods have been on their radar for some time now.

Craig Williams, owner of Churchill Events in Portland, has been hired by supporters of both Cutler and Collins to provide food for receptions and other events.

“One of our focuses is on keeping things local and supporting Maine agriculture,” Williams said. “I think those who call us and use us know about that anyway. It’s not typically something that they have to ask us to do. We source whenever we can from anything local.”

Williams said he often doesn’t even know that a scheduled event is for a particular politician, unless it’s someone who is so high up the food chain that the Secret Service has to clear Williams and his staff before the event.

The Nonantum Resort in Kennebunkport hosts a lot of fundraisers and other political gatherings. Republican Gov. Paul LePage held a $2,600 fundraising event there last year and will be there again in early October for a campaign event. With the Bush compound just 1.4 miles down the road, the resort is used to working with politicians.

Tina Gordon, general manager at the Nonantum, said that typically the staff are given a budget to work within, and while the campaign may examine the menu and pick out some hors d’oeurves, the food is usually left to the chef. That means fresh seafood from the local market and working with local farm stands and butchers, she said.

“We definitely traded in our rubber chicken years ago,” Gordon said.

OPEN DOOR POLICY

Increasingly, however, politicians are holding smaller events at the homes of supporters, according to several campaign staffers.

“We are not doing big fancy events in conference centers,” said Shenna Bellows, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. “We are doing house parties in communities. In some cases, the host is cooking the food or people are bringing potluck dishes and at many events, farmers are co-hosts or participants.”

That was the case in Brunswick this summer when state Rep. Matthea Daughtry (D-Brunswick) hosted a fundraiser for Bellows. Daughtry served foods from her own garden and spreads she’d made from York Hill goat cheese and vegetables harvested at nearby Crystal Springs Farm. Guests brought potluck dishes.

Bellows spent three weeks this summer walking 350 miles across Maine, from Houlton to Kittery, stopping in 63 communities, many of them farming towns. “I joke that I ate my way across Maine,” she said. “Especially because it was August and there was so much fresh food.”

It was corn and blueberry season, and the supporters who hosted Bellows often cooked for her. “I remember vividly in Newburgh, where there were a few farmers in attendance, we had all these fresh organic raw vegetables and blueberries,” she said. “It was clearly a farm spread.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud, Democratic candidate for governor, also tends to stay away from events at hotel ballrooms and conference centers, according to campaign finance director Rick Redmond.

“Most of our events are at people’s houses,” Redmond said. “We don’t dictate what they can or cannot serve, but people are particular about it and we always seem to have something local and delicious.”

Michaud also has had two events catered by state Rep. Craig Hickman’s Annabessacook Farm in Winthrop. Particularly memorable were a braised pork shoulder, collard greens and blueberry cheesecake, Redmond said.

Redmond also salivates when he recalls a fundraising event in Cape Elizabeth for President Obama, when he was running for his second term. Catered by Aurora Provisions in Portland, it featured local greens and lobster bisque, among other Maine foods. That kind of event is far more common today than it used to be, Redmond said. And campaigns have to step it up accordingly.

“People understand that we are never going to spend a lot of money on catering these events, because we’re trying to raise money, not spend it,” he said. “But at the same time you are not going to impress people by just throwing cheese and crackers at them anymore.”

The Obama visit in March 2012 was a watershed moment for quality campaign food in Maine. Although the menus were as closely guarded as nuclear secrets, word leaked that the president would dine on Atlantic cod from Browne Trading Co., a selection of organic cheeses from Echo Ridge in Mount Vernon, and other local foods during a dinner at the Portland Museum of Art, where the cost began at $7,500 a plate. A reception at Southern Maine Community College featured lobster rolls, Maine oysters, Maine shrimp cocktail shooters, Pineland Farms tenderloin beef, wines from Cellardoor in Lincolnville and Blacksmiths in South Casco, and an array of local beers.

Maine politicians are just as adept at showcasing iconic Maine foods to their supporters in other parts of the country. Lobsters, blueberries, whoopie pies – they all make an appearance at one time or another on the campaign trail. Sen. Collins holds an annual fundraiser in Washington, D.C., where she serves lobster rolls from Red Hook Lobster Pound, a food truck that caters. (She spent $1,587.50 on their lobster rolls in June.)

Michaud spent $4,687.20 in June shipping lobsters from Foster’s Clambakes & Catering in York to Washington, D.C., for a lobster bake fundraiser.

“If you’re going to have a lobster bake, the lobsters better be from Maine,” Redmond said.

LePage’s campaign staff did not reply to interview requests for this story before deadline.

Not every local food purchase by a campaign is a virtuous one. Campaign spending records are filled with purchases of pizza for hungry staff. Michaud’s staff seems to prefer Leonardo’s in Portland, while Cutler’s staff orders mostly from Pat’s.

Dunkin’ Donuts and Shaw’s pop up on these documents as much as the Cumberland Club or the Portland Country Club.

The campaigns say that, while they are not perfect, they do try to frequent locally owned Maine restaurants and other food businesses as much as possible when they’re on the road.

“This isn’t exactly kale,” Dutson admitted, “but we do stop at places like Gifford’s ice cream.” Congdon’s Doughnuts in Wells and Shaker Pond Ice Cream are other favorites of the Collins campaign staff.

“We do a family lunch in our office here every day,” Dutson said. “Our whole team stops and eats at the same table. We’ve got, in the Portland area, some local favorites, and one of big ones is Rosemont and their sandwich of the day.”

According to Canney and campaign spending records, Cutler’s crew frequents Scratch Bakery in South Portland and the Crooked Mile, a sandwich shop near their offices. They also enjoy smoothies from the Maine Squeeze.

Michaud is a big fan of Wild Oats in Brunswick, Redmond noted, and doesn’t like to miss an opportunity to stop at Dysart’s when traveling to Bangor.

The consequences of all this good eating may be more than just winning or losing an election.

“Good politicians tend to have a bit of a waistline on them,” Opie said. “They don’t really have a choice. These guys like food, but they also like the people, so they’ll stay there and talk and eat with them. Those are the people who do really well politically.”

Staff Writer Mary Pols contributed to this report.

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