Chef Paul Correnty serves freshly prepared sweet and sour chicken and vegetable wraps in the Bromfield kitchen. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

Standing with his back to a driving rain, last Saturday morning found Chef Paul Correnty making friends with the vendors at the Hmong vegetable stand at the Harvard farmers’ market. After some friendly negotiation over the pumpkin blossoms, he ended up making a deal for a large batch of fresh greens to cook up at the schools during the annual Massachusetts Harvest for Students Week, September 24 to 28. The iconoclastic chef has used local produce for a long time, but the week-long promotion marks a stepped-up effort to find homegrown produce for his trademark soups—including Butternut Bisque and Corn Chowder—and entrées. The produce is fresher, tastier, and healthier, Correnty said, when it comes from a local farm rather than a wholesaler on the west coast. “Good food equals good health,” he added.

Two mornings next week Correnty will offer Holly’s Oatmeal on the breakfast bar. The oatmeal, an organic product made in Connecticut, is one he discovered at a recent food show. There will be no charge for the breakfast, he noted, and it comes complete with milk, brown sugar, and golden currants. For lunch, Corrently has purchased butternut squash and apples from Applefield Farms in Stow, and the Kimball Fruit Farm in Pepperell will provide vegetables for the ratatouille entree. He is also excited about the chocolates from Amy’s Chocolates in Shirley, whose 77 percent cocoa content takes them out of the realm of ordinary candy to something far healthier—and certainly more heav-enly.

Cooking with the freshest local produce available is nothing new for his staff, Correnty said. The “ladies,” as Correnty refers to them, are always willing to come up with a creative dish at the last minute in order to take advantage of unexpected seasonal bounty. Last week that meant taking advantage of the fabulous homegrown tomatoes from the Kronauer farm on Old Littleton Road, he said. “We cook based on availability, freshness, and price.”

The local food movement is gaining ground across the country, as rising fuel prices add big dollars to the cost of transporting produce from one coast to another. Just as important, Correnty pointed out, are the facts that food tastes better when it is picked ripe; the money spent stays within the local economy; and support for local growers means the continued existence of open spaces. To encourage student awareness of where their food comes from, Correnty plans to write the source of each dish on the cafeteria’s menu board next week.

More than 100 schools and colleges will participate in the program this year, according to the Massachusetts Harvest for Students Week website. The promotion is sponsored by the Farm to School Project, an Amherst-based organization dedicated to matching local growers with food service providers throughout the state. Interest in serving locally grown foods in cafeterias is increasing in Massachusetts, the organization states, and the relationship benefits both the consumer trying to make healthier food choices, as well as the grower looking for a new market.

For Correnty, putting the emphasis on local food just makes sense. Feeding children healthier meals that also benefit the greater community is an obvious choice to make, he pointed out. He hopes the local food movement will gain even more momentum as time goes on, and that more schools will look to their neighbors to feed the community’s children.

For more information on the Massachusetts Farm to School Project and Massachusetts Harvest for Students Week, visit www.massfarmtoschool.org.