Stepping up on the Tomato Box

As mentioned in a past post, more than a week ago, I've been tracking where my food comes from.  I thought it would be relatively straightforward, but I've had a hard time with this project.  Food labeling is rather vague in most cases and nonexistent in certain others. 

As a child of the 60s - at least that's when I can begin to remember what was in the news - I read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, a landmark book that was actually written back in the 30s, I believe, about the meat-packing industry.  I also read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and Diet For a New America (I've forgotten the author, regrettably).  Those books and a few others at the same time were very impressive to me.  I became passionate about recycling, the population explosion, pollution and the Back to the Earth Movement, which was very popular at the time.  I became a vegetarian eventually, to the horror of my grandmother who was certain I would become malnourished and fizzle away.  I learned about growing things, the ecosystem, biology, ecology, oceanography and any other ologies that I could.  It mattered to me very much and made more sense than anything else that I was learning or seeing in the world of adults.  I wanted to recycle everything and was very frustrated by the absence of interest in the community around me, save for a few equally concerned individuals. 

My thought when I saw An Inconvenient Truth presented by Al Gore was:  What has taken so darned long for this idea to be taken seriously?  Well, the sad truth is that it has been suppressed and jeered at by people who stood to lose their shirts if their brand of "ethics" were held up for public scrutiny. 

The whole subject is enormous and multifaceted.  I am sad to say that some of my most beloved family members and friends are those I know to persist stubbornly in denying these problems exist; at best, they ignore the issues. 

Well, back to my original thought:  The origin of the food in my cupboard and refrigerator.  I see that companies are listed as being the producers, but where the actual ingredients come from is often totally obscure.  So, this has refocused me on the practice of thinking globally but buying locally, seasonally.  That is:  If the product is not grown within 100 miles of my home, it is not meant to be eaten at this time of year.  I can wait for the season to arrive.  I don't really need to eat tomatoes year round.  Instead, I can turn my attention to winter squash and other vegetables that do grow normally in winter.  The good news is, the vegetables that are truly in season are most beneficial for me to eat now.  I am more likely to do well as the flu season invades because the nutrients found in winter vegetables boost my immune system that way.  When summer comes, and I am perspiring more (oh wait, it's Pacific Grove), I'll need the vitamin C in summer season fruits like tomatoes and strawberries. 

I am doing what I can to reduce my so-called carbon footprint and I love supporting my local farmers, who are hard-working entrepreneurs of the finest stripe.  Like one local coffee company's slogan says, "Resist Corporate Coffee!"  I'd extend that to:  Resist the entire corporate megalithic farming industry; support biodiversity.  It's critical. 

Note:  I suggest you read the above books, although there are zillions of others now to read; they were landmark works of the day.  Also - and brace yourself - see Food, Inc.  It, combined with my personal lifelong interest in local foods and ethnic cuisines, has reinforced my beliefs and convictions. 

Eating with Intention

I'm reading My Life In France, the memoir by Julia Child, and it's giving me good insight into the differences between the French and American attitudes toward living. Needless to say, there are definite differences. Ms Child  says it can be boiled down to artisanal thinking versus a never-be-satisfied push for larger, more completely dominating business profit and size.  We don't see eye to eye at all in that regard, as countries. 

She described going to a small restaurant in Paris with an enthusiastic friend who loved the little place.  The friend announced to the proprietress that she had two new customers, but she turned away and said, "I have enough customers already." 

Enough! What a concept!  She believed more would be excessive, out of balance with the effort required to produce very good food for more and more people.  That French attitude, if you are American, spells snobbery and exclusion. She was rude, dammit!  Didn't she know she could have made more profit, become more successful? Hell, she could have started multiple locales, franchised the company, right?  

When was it obvious that you or your American peers routinely said, "I have just enough now.  I need no more."  Instead, the American consuming public (huge generality, I admit) is beast-like in its drive to obtain more massive amounts of stuff, constantly.  We, generally, are big, consuming, never-satisfied Jaba-the-Hutts who grab what we want and stuff it into our mouths/banks/portfolios, and we cannot seem to stop.  Give More To Me Now! 

I'm happy to say that quietly, steadily, artisanal foods like cheeses, olive oils, breads, meats and so on are being made by farmers and producers who have turned away from the business model that has existed since the 50s.  I don't have to tell anyone that a tomato picked from a garden and eaten within minutes is intensely, deliciously different than a Monsanto-altered mock tomato that has a shelf life of 30 days, do I?  If you focus on the very simple experience of tasting the tomato in its true state, the small delight is a big pleasure. 

Along the same vein, waiting to eat a vegetable or fruit that grows only during a certain time of the year, waiting to eat it only at that time of year, is a concept we have forgotten.  Yet, it's the basis of the greatest cuisines in the western world.  Relearning what vegetables grow at what time of the year - in the region we live in - requires an awareness of the ebb and flow of the seasons, the way the sunlight angles in across the landscape, rainfall, and soil.  Good old dirt becomes a more complex thing that has immense effect on our eating pleasure.  You want the best apricots?  You wait until the heat of summer brings a blush to their skin and the fruits' sugar to a peak.  Then you have an apricot to sing about. 

Patience is not in many people's vocabulary now that we are spending our time in front of computers in darkened rooms and roaring across vast distances in metal bubbles with U2 blasting in our ears.  

As of today, I am beginning a list:  I am recording the origin of each food item I consume this week, as best as I can know it.  Next week, I'll let you know what that list looks like.  If I can list the source of every single item, I'm going to be very surprised, that's for sure.  Why?  Because, I, like you, have been sleeping on the job basically, consuming but not feeling the connection to what some call the Life Force.  Quantum thinking to some, but getting back to basics for me.  Living with awareness and intention - starting with what I put in my mouth to eat - might be transformational, it might not, we shall see.  I'm curious though.