I have thought about how to write the entry for this book. I have thought about how to put it together so you really get a good idea of the ideas behind it and the families belief structure and how it all impacts our way of life. And the thing is... I'm not writing an essay, so I am just going to tell you how I feel about it. There are so many different things going on in society nowadays, and I often find myself wondering if I have something that I seriously care about. I don't seem to have a drive for a particular cause. And the thing is - we don't need causes. We just need to be self aware and questioning, and if we always do those two things it will just get better. It is that simple. This can be applied to any number of problems. (I am not even going to get into the fact that one person's self aware is different than another's. We are just going to pretend for a minute that we are all logical empathetic human beings who are concerned about our lives and the lives of those who follow in the next generation.)
This book is about a family who move from a city to a country farm. It is about their goal to live an entire year on local foods. They either grow it themselves, or buy it from producers who live within 100 miles. That idea of it is simple. It kind of started as a test of sorts. (I spent about 9 months of my life as a vegetarian as a test of sorts to see if I could do it. I could. And then my mom made some delicious hamburgers. It was all over after that. But the test proved that i could do without something that until that point had been a big part of my life.) I digress.
I don't want to make this family seem like they are a family to be followed or revered; i just want to talk about their experience. We have come so far away from the farm and the table in this country. Most of us eat at TV trays on a regular basis, and frankly, I am sick of it. It may seem a little too easy to blame obesity on TV trays, but it is certainly a start.
In Japan they treat every meal like it is something to be savored. They stop and enjoy the bite, however small. In farm cultures, like southern France, Italy, and parts of the United Sates, they savor the vegetables that make up their great region in season. In this way they can savor the goodness that they have helped raise from the earth. In their way they are savoring every bite and appreciating the hard work it took for that particular bite to make its way from the earth into our mouths.
When you eat in front of the TV or in between emails at work it is difficult to appreciate the food at all. Mostly you are appreciating "Lost" or the fact that you have a deadline.
And the appreciation is just the start of it. Is it also too easy to say that our family togetherness has taken a hit because we don't share meals together? At the end of the day how many of you sit around a table and talk with your closest friends and family members over a home cooked meal? We are not talking four courses here. Just simple meals shared. Dinner time should be a shared slow down time at the end of a hard day. Long day. Or even boring day. We need to connect.
How many of us can honestly say that we know recipes from our grandparents? It hasn't always been that way. It is part of the culture in other parts of the world. I know so many people with grandparents from Mexico, the Philippines, Italy, and India who have passed down recipes complete with the attitude it takes to make certain kinds of pasta or lumpia. The crazy thing is... most of us have relatives from other places with great food cultures... but it has stopped coming down. We have it too easy. We have McDonalds, Subway, Chili's, and yes even Chipotle. Fast choices that we grab in order to save a few minutes. Well, guess what? Those few minutes we saved? Usually we spend those in front of the TV or on the toilet because the food hurt our stomachs. Hmmm. Maybe I'm off track.
Food culture is not just about eating. It is about our farmland that is going extinct. It is about our small towns producing their beloved products that they care about... and then going out of business because of Taco Bell and WalMart.
I think we do need to care about local food. A lot. We need to care about our local grower, because he or she cares about the food they create, and not only is it better for us, but it is freaking delicious. The local farmer has a family, and if they are successful, their family will continue producing yummy tomatoes for decades to come. They will treat the soil with respect, and therefor will continue to grow on the same soil for years to come. They won't be so concerned with the bottom dollar that they put pesticides on the food we eat because it will make them an extra $1000 this growing season because they know that in the next five years that $1000 will end up killing their soil and their livelihood. They are concerned about the future of their land and their children.
And we should be too! It is not about this year. How can we not see that? It is so evident. Before I read this book I understood that, especially about politics. Now it is in front of every political struggle I see. If we just stopped thinking about this weekend and starting thinking about ten years down the road we would be a more healthy country. Does that start with food? It may not seem like it, but we do need it to survive. Why not?
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