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Getting a Taste of the Region
Pioneer Valley Food Tours Is a Growing Venture
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
When her research revealed that this region didn’t have any food tours, Deborah Christakos decided that was a void she needed to fill.
Staff Photo
Deborah Christakos has spent most of her adult life in the food busi- ness — or several businesses, to be more precise.
Trained in France, she was a chef in restaurants in several
major large cities, including New York, Boston, and San Francisco. Later, after moving to Northampton, starting a family, and deciding that a chef’s life didn’t mesh well with family life, she started offering cooking lessons.
And it was while teaching one class, where students shopped at a local farmers’ market and prepared what they bought, that she started to conceptualize a new and different kind of venture — at least for this region. She would call it Pioneer Valley Food Tours, and that name tells you all you need to know.
Well, not really, but it sets the tone.
These are, indeed, walking tours involving food — in the Pioneer Val- ley. There’s one focused on Northampton and another that takes people to various stops in Amherst. There’s a bicycle tour, a concept born at least in part from COVID-19 and the need to keep people socially dis- tanced during the pandemic, and private tours that have taken people to Springfield, Greenfield, and other communities.
The tours take people to restaurants, bakeries, butcher shops, farm- ers’ markets, and other ... points of interest, let’s call them, where partici- pants can explore local food and beverages from source to table.
Christakos started in 2017, and what she’s learned since then is that, while these tours are centered around food, they’re mostly about people, communities, and the mostly small businesses that participants get to visit.
The people come from all over, she said, adding that some are local, while others hail from across the state or neighboring states. Others are from further away, many in the area visiting friends and family and look-
“The conversation is different every time because people bring to this their own experiences.”
30 JULY 24, 2023 << CREATIVE ECONOMY >> BusinessWest