Oils and vinegars. We all cook with them, but most people don’t recognize these key ingredients for their healthy, tasty and unique qualities. But that’s all changing.

There has been a growing trend in specialty oils and vinegars over the past several years. Boutique shops, which specialize in gourmet products, are springing up around the country. There’s even an international franchise, appropriately called “Oil & Vinegar,” that has entered the U.S. market with stores as far east as Virginia and as far west as Washington state.

Shop owners attribute the growing oil and vinegar trend to Mediterranean-type cooking that Americans resoundingly are adapting into their diets. The new culinary style focuses on freshness and health—and you can’t get much healthier than olive oil, which is high in antioxidants, making it both heart- and skin-healthy.

While many people traditionally use vinegar to pickle their eggs and olive oil to moisten their pasta dishes, trendsetters like Maggie Lebherz , owner of L.O.V.E, which stands for Lebherz Oil and Vinegar Emporium, in Frederick, Md., is helping to change the way we use these food items. According to Lebherz, there are many uses for flavorful olive oils and vinegars.

“I use the vinegars on ice cream and drizzled on grilled fruit. The vinegars are also really good for marinating. They have a caramelizing effect if you marinate pork beforehand and then pan-fry it,” said Lebherz. “For olive oils you can do any number of things from putting it on a salad and dipping it with a baguette, to sautéing and grilling.”

There are many reasons why consumers prefer to buy oil and vinegar from smaller specialty shops rather than a typical grocery store. Aside from a larger variety of flavors and regions where the products are made, smaller shops typically work with producers who crush olives within hours of picking them, making the olive oil fresher and therefore healthier. Further, most shops tout the “customer experience” they offer, which larger chain grocery stores can’t.

According to the franchise Oil & Vinegar, “The focal point of the store is the ‘amphora wall,’ where an international selection of over 40 oils and vinegars are dramatically suspended in glass containers on a backlit wall. Customers select a bottle or bring in a previously purchased Oil & Vinegar bottle for a refill, and our staff dispenses the selection on-tap.”

At L.O.V.E., customers can roll up their shirt sleeves and bottle their own oil and vinegar from big containers called “fusties.”

And as for flavors, what are consumers looking for? While the dark chocolate balsamic vinegar at L.O.V.E. has gotten great press reviews, Lebherz said her biggest sellers are strawberry vinegar and Tuscan-herb olive oil.

It is hard to imagine a time before Heinz Ketchup, Jell-O or SPAM, but these household names haven’t been around forever—someone had to invent them.

Located in Alexandria, Va., the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office isn’t usually considered a foodie haven, but for the next year its on-site National Inventors Hall of Fame and Museum will house an exhibit called “Inventive Eats.” The exhibit, which opened in June, will run for one year. It houses the stories surrounding many food-related patents, innovations and trademarks.

Mitch Scott, senior exhibit designer, said, “This time we thought food would be an interesting topic, and we have a lot of inductees in the Hall of Fame that have some type of food-related invention or food industry-related invention.”

The exhibit contains many foodie artifacts including one of the first microwave ovens, which the museum was lucky to acquire. In addition, a retro-kitchen display tells the history of many kitchen necessities often taken for granted such as the refrigerator, Teflon-coated cookware, cellophane wrap, aluminum foil, the pop-up toaster and Corningware.

By Stephanie Pearl Kimmel, Founding Chef, Marché, LLC

When I put on my chef's whites and joined an army of my colleagues on the White House lawn in June for first lady Michelle Obama’s Chefs Move to Schools program, the nation got a look at the new frontier of the local, sustainable food movement — a frontier where food isn’t a commodity, it’s a crucial part of our health, in every sense of the term.

What a pleasure it is to hear words like local, sustainable and organic tripping off the tongues of media pundits and politicians, celebrity chefs and restaurateurs — large and small. We’ve come a long way in the last few decades. We’re learning how to support healthy food systems. We’re learning how small farms can co-exist with big ones, how supply can meet demand, how health and sustainability can move back onto our priority list.

I have been a proud supporter of the local food for more than 35 years. I was the first to serve Oregon wine in a restaurant — the groundbreaking Excelsior Café, which I sold in 1993. At the Excelsior, I began to build a network of local farmers that continued to grow through my time as culinary director for King Estate Winery. That network has flourished with Marché, an Oregon restaurant company that has been a stronghold of local, sustainable food both in a white-tablecloth environment and a casual food court setting. What began as counterculture in the 1970s has moved to the mainstream.

The result? Variety. Growth. Demand. As Marché’s customers become more aware and support businesses that adopt local buying practices, the more options there are. Back in the Excelsior days, it was hard to imagine the explosion of color and flavor that farmers’ markets and restaurants have to offer. Heirloom varieties and shorter season crops make it possible to keep exploring new ways to eat locally year-round. So now, with this new frontier at hand, where demand is there and growth is there, we have a lot of questions to answer.

How can we bridge the economic gaps so that local food is affordable? How can we produce food safely and sustainably on a large scale, so that the good stuff gets to the school lunch room, not just the farmers’ market or the restaurant? How can we continue to engage people of all walks of life in the conversation, so that we can be a healthier nation — physically and economically?

When you get right down to it, it’s about walking the walk. It’s about honoring seasons and regions. Celebrate the tender green vegetables of spring, the muscular albacore tuna of summer, the sweet heirloom squashes and pears of fall or the hardy greens and sweet Dungeness crabs of winter. Meet a farmer or two, boutique farm or giant production facility. Get out into the community and work on new ways to bridge those gaps and answer those questions. Support local food on the farm, in the kitchen and at the microphone.

Stephanie Pearl Kimmel is the founding chef at Marché, LLC, a restaurant group in Eugene, Ore., that includes the nationally celebrated restaurant Marché, specialty food emporium Marché Provisions and a series of casual cafés.