Food Matters

Pike Place Market in Seattle

Hi blog readers! Are any of you still out there? It’s been awhile since I’ve been on here; turns out life in the unemployment world can still be pretty busy!

I have wanted to do a series of posts about food movements and what I’ve learned about them. I had been wary about posting too much this summer because the more I learned and read, the more complex my opinions became. But I think I’m at a place where I can hopefully (but not finally) offer some insight and feel I’m standing on solid ground. (This first post is a little long for the blogging world, I know, but it will frame things for future posts so stick with me!) Here it goes:

I wanted to start by addressing a fundamental question:

Why does it matter that we talk about where our food comes from?

I had a good friend in Boston tell me he wouldn’t think about where his food came from. For him, food and ethics didn’t mix. For one thing, if he ate local, his home state would only produce fish and potatoes for him to eat year round. I hung onto his statement as I weeded my way across the country wondering if any of my consternation really mattered.

I think his point was: eating is so fundamental, so basic, if you think too hard about it you’ll ruin the beauty of it. And after living near a Harvard world where every shocking headline or new scientific study became a movement, a revolution, I took his skepticism seriously. Marion Nestle, a nutritionist, writes about her own confusion about why people worry so much about food, “For me, food is one of life’s greatest pleasures…[but] eventually I came to realize that, for many people, food feels nothing at all like a source of pleasure; it feels more like a minefield.”[i] To this point, I think my friend is right. We should not be anxious about our food as Nestle suggests – that only exacerbates the symptoms of our disordered eating. But I get ahead of myself.

After sitting in the weeds with my friend’s question long enough, I feel comfortable saying that ultimately I think he was wrong, for many reasons. These questions are complex, as mentioned above, and hard to make sense of (hence the anxiety Nestle talks about). One thing I have found hard is that no one brings the issues together. Books are written about concern the sustainability of our planet, animal rights, food safety, human health, human mental health, body image, economics, or cultural critiques about how we eat (i.e. fast and from a window or microwave).

So here a few of the reasons why, I think, to answer his question, “it matters.”

• To begin by responding to my friend’s comment about eating being so basic: It is because eating is so fundamental, so intimate, that it matters so much that we pay attention. The more we allow a basic element of life to be warped and abused, the more we ourselves become distorted.

Wendell Berry recognizes this distortion in his essay, “The Body and the Earth”.  In his discussion about the isolation of the body (from soul, earth, community, etc.) he criticizes the fallacy of the separation of body and soul that is often expressed in religion. He writes:

“You cannot devalue the body and value the soul – or value anything else…contempt for the body is invariably manifested in contempt for other bodies…Relationships with all other creatures become competitive and exploitive rather than collaborative and convivial. The world is seen and dealt with, not as an ecological community, but as a stock exchange, the ethics of which are based on the tragically misnamed “law of the jungle”…The body is degraded and saddened by being set in conflict against the Creation itself, of which all bodies are members, therefore members of each other. The body is thus sent to war against itself.”[ii]

If the health of our being (body & soul) is connected, then things connected to our body, namely food and the animals and earth from which it comes, matters. Ultimately we cannot separate ourselves from our bodies, or the earth, or from one another without bringing harm upon ourselves. 

• Americans have a particularly tenuous relationship with food. It is amazing to me the full spectrum of distorted relationships that exist. While many of the food critics out there focus on the ecological problems of food production, many overlook our problems with obesity (and all the health issues related to it), people who struggle with addiction to food (even if they are not overweight), and so many who deprive themselves of nourishment, withholding food for control and distorted body images. Our nation clearly has an eating disorder; perhaps, more then one. 

We have diet plans being born each day with new followers eagerly overthrowing their current eating habits for the next quick fix. There are new products invented to excite the shopper (often the child) like Oreo cereal, and fruit snacks “packed with so much real fruit juice your kids won’t know they’re eating fruit.” There are people who don’t know what a tomato plant looks like or that carrots grow underground.

We have 3,900 calories available to each person each day in our country (nearly twice the amount the average adult needs), and yet families still go hungry.[iii]

In contrast to our food world, there are many cultures (I think first of French, Italian, Indian and Latin) that savor the beauty and gift of food, and know how to both create it and enjoy eating it. And there are impoverished countries that know the necessity of food and the limitations of growing it.

My goal in this post and in the ones to come is not to frame these statements in a condemning way that suggests all our food realities are wrong, but rather that something has been lost. Somehow in this place, we have lost sight of both ends of that spectrum.

• Most of us are far enough removed from agricultural ancestors that we don’t know what cows and pigs are supposed to eat, nor what they’re fed now, or how to slaughter and clean an animal for our consumption. Wendell Berry might encourage us to look into this and ask us what that does to our bodies, the earth, and our community. Michael Pollan may ask us to forage our own mushrooms and hunt our own boar. But another voice recognizes the reality that these things are not possible for all of us, and we do have a world of 7 billion people to feed!

James McWilliams is a professor who was first a “locavore” and has written about the failings of the movement. He is still someone who believes that “the quest for sustainable methods of global food production cannot wait,” but he also has some harsh criticisms of the popular food movements that are trying to do just that. In contrast to Berry, Pollan and others who write with nostalgia about the history of agriculture and the woes of industrial farming, McWilliams wants to point out that farming, period, is destruction of the natural state of the ecosystem, and yet at this point a necessary evil.

“No matter how rhapsodic one waxes about the process of wresting edible plants and tamed animals from the sprawling vagaries of nature, there’s a timeless, unwavering truth espoused by those who worked the land for ages: no matter how responsible agriculture is, it is essentially about achieving the lesser of evils. To work the land is to change the land, to shape it to benefit one species over another, and thus necessarily to tame what is wild. Our task should be to deliver our blows gently.”[iv] In short: “domestication reinvents the rules of nature…cultivated plants are nature’s misfits…farming is, at its historical essence, the art of strategizing against the natural world.”[v]

And so you can begin to see, even among those who are searching for sustainable agriculture, among those who recognize there is a problem with the way we do food now, they are divided in their approach.  There are those who want to work with nature, to return to it and the wisdom it provides, and there are those who say this is fundamentally impossible.

So it is with the realities of the world of fast-food and industrial farming, the realities the organic, local, slow, vegetarian, vegan, family-farm, sustainable living, permaculture, and raw food movements, and with the reality that we must feed a nation, a world, whose population has long been exploding, I enter into questions about food – because whether or not I’ve settled for one food movement, or worked out all the details about what I think our priorities should be in food production, I did solidify one thing on my journey, it indeed, does matter.  It matters because it is not only an ecological issue, but it is a health issue for us, a mental health issue, and a spiritual issue that has long needed to be addressed as such.

And hopefully rather than convert you to any one movement, or convince you to start up your own farm and slaughter your own chickens (a misconception of readers from an earlier post), I can at least convince you to pay attention to not only where your food comes from, but how you eat, and ask yourself which pieces you think matter most to the earth, your health, your mental health, the health of your community, and your spirituality.

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[i] Marion Nestle, What to Eat (New York: North Point Press, 2006), p. 3-4.

[ii] Norman Wirzba, Ed., The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry (Berkley: Counterpoint, 2002), 101.

[iii] Nestle, 11.

[iv] James McWilliams, Just Food (New York: Back Bay Books, 2009), 9.

[v] McWilliams, 7.

Food Blogger Wannabe

I know this is beginning to look like a food blog, but I had to share these classic cupcakes with y'all! And in fact, I will be finally talking more about what I've gathered about food and all the proverbial movements that accompany our grub these days  - so stay tuned!

My sister-in-law turns 21 this week, and we made a huge Mexican-themed family dinner last night to celebrate - complete with vanilla and chocolate cupcakes at the request of the birthday princess.

Other than the recipe - I wanted to share some insights I had while whipping the pound of butter that went into these cups (they don't call it buttercream for nothin', kids).

So first: Here is the recipe. I hadn't used this food blog before, but the cake was so good with that buttermilk in it, and the frosting an excellent consistency (and without the finicky mess of egg whites).

I realized how much Daniel and I had been cooking since we've been with family these last couple weeks, often to celebrate something (birthday, being home, August produce, etc.). For me, this means cooking the best food I can both dream up and successfully pull off in the kitchen. Food is often central to our festivities in life, it's a marker that something special is happening, a marker of special time (sometimes sabbath perhaps?)

So as I labored for hours over just the cupcakes (not to mention the chicken mole, homemade salsa, green rice, beans, or fried green tomatoes), I thought about all the short cuts we've given ourselves to accomplish such meals:

• boxed cake mix and frosting in a tube
• salsa in a jar
• quick rice in just 15 minutes!

...not to mention the prepared food we can buy for such occasions.

I get that people are in a hurry.
And I know a lot of people don't like to cook.
But I think there is something fundamental about spending a day in the kitchen, making what you are able, spending time on the preparation and savoring the basic ingredients that go into each dish. Eating is necessary. Thus, preparing food is necessary. The more we take ourselves away from that process, the more time we create for things that are perhaps not so necessary, not so nourishing, and definitely don't taste as good. Because cupcakes just aren't the same when all you do is "add water and egg."

Blueberry Awesomeness

To celebrate our return, what we learned on the farm, and thank my parents for their support, we cooked a huge dinner to celebrate! We bought most of our goodies from the Midland farmers market - it's finally tomato season!!! Yum.

Here was the menu :)

Homemade Farmer's Bread (here's the recipe)
Pork Shoulder with Peach Sauce (local pork, the cut was ironically a Boston Butt)
Purple, Yellow & Green Bean Medley with citrus sauce and candied pecans
Creamed Corn (Tennessee style with Peaches and Cream Fresh Corn)
And finally, a Blueberry Almond Honey Tart (made with honey from our first farm)
We also opened the meal with a silent Quaker prayer we practiced on the farm in Minnesota; a splendid way to start a meal!

So good to make fine food from scratch and celebrate together!

Home

A few days ago, we left Tess, Brent, and Chicago to drive our last leg on this summer journey. It’s strange that it’s all coming to a close, and even stranger to be returning to a place I call home but haven’t lived in for nine years.

In some ways I was nervous about heading back to Midland. I was one of those kids who grew up in small town America dreaming of bigger and better things and one who swore I’d never look back when I left for college. Midland was a great place to grow up, but never a place to live as an adult. I was a girl from a small Midwestern town, bound for the modern city lifestyle.

But I have missed family, and I have missed the familiarity of the region in which I grew up, and the identity and history it offers me. And yet at the same time, I still swoon at the city lights, and I am tickled by the seemingly boundless opportunities for experiencing new people, cultures, food, ritual.

Wendell Berry made a choice to return home to Kentucky after he had “successfully made it out.” He had established himself as a writer, was working as faculty at NYU, and living in one of the largest and richest cultural centers of our country. He writes about the conversation he had with his colleague who was trying to talk him out of the move.

“His argument [Berry’s colleague's] was based on the belief that once one had attained the metropolis, the literary capital, the worth of one’s origins was canceled out; there simply could be nothing worth going back to. What lay behind one had ceased to be a part of life, and had become 'subject matter'…that a place such as I came from could be returned to only at the price of intellectual death; cut off from the cultural springs of the metropolis…Finally, there was the assumption that the life of the metropolis is the experience, the modern experience, and that the life of the rural towns, the farms, the wilderness places is not only irrelevant to our time, but archaic as well…”1

I too have feared as I look for work that if I moved to Nowhere, Indiana, my life would end. Even as we toured the countryside, I battled with the tension between the deep peace I found in the open sky and intimate communities against my desire for being a part of a diverse community and for good Indian food.

But one thing has given me hope. This time, in Chicago, I didn’t get excited about the city as we drove in, and I didn’t long to spend the day exploring the sites. I missed the open sky, the pasture, and the spirit of the rural communities. I will always love the city, whether I live there or visit, but as Berry says about his move to Kentucky, wherever I am, I will not be there because of circumstance, but because I chose to be there. And with time, hopefully, I will become a part of the very fabric of the place, it’s history and rhythms. 

For now, I am home, in a place rich with its own history, and full of people who showed me love and care as I grew up. And if I’ve learned anything this summer, my hunch is that my life will not end, but instead has circled upon itself, offering me an opportunity to again commune with family and the Midwest, even if just for a short time.

1. The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry. Ed: Norman Wirzba, (Berkley, CA: Counterpoint), 2002, p. 6-7.

Trouble with Grace

Today my husband, Daniel, is guest-posting about some of his experiences this summer, and some of his reflections on our reading of Wendell Berry. This summer would have been much less rich without him, and I am grateful for his companionship and his intentionality about reflecting on our experience together.

I have not formally asked any one to guest post before, but I would love for others to contribute to this blog! If you have something to say about sabbath, farms, food, travel, life, chickens...you get the idea, please let me know! I'd love to continue this even though we've almost made it back home.

*  *  *

I’ve always had trouble with grace. As a child, I sang about it often in hymns like ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Grace Greater Than Our Sin’, but it wasn’t preached or talked about nearly enough for me to truly understand the feeling of grace. When I was baptized as a teenager, no great sensation swept over me, as I had hoped it might. Throughout my life, I have believed in and known God’s love and even God’s forgiveness in various ways. But grace has always been a little bit more elusive.

In a way, I’ve always felt that I’m somehow missing out on something that a lot of other people seem to experience with a degree of ease. I’d love to have one of those dramatic ‘see the light’ or ‘come to Jesus’ moments that certain Christian people have had. And growing up in a church where folks talked about salvation and piety a lot more than grace only intensified my disappointment that I never found myself in the middle of such an experience. Alas, I’ve had to ‘settle’ for subtle moments of beauty, truth, and clarity instead.

You might wonder what any of this has to do with our farm work and sabbath journeys this summer. Well as I look back over the past few months, I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve been looking for the wrong kind of grace. My work and time on farms this summer was filled with blessings. The simplicity of the lifestyle, the connection to the land, meals that were healthy and fresh from the garden, and being able to spend all day outside in the sun – all of these things filled me with a subtle but deep feeling of gladness and contentment. I’ve hoped to encounter God’s grace as an all-consuming redemption and perhaps as a mystical relationship with the Divine. Ultimately, I’ve wanted grace to be something overwhelming, something of which I’m clearly conscious. But I suspect that through our work and sabbath time I have experienced grace at a very unconscious level.

In The Art of the Commonplace Wendell Berry writes, “The distinction between the physical and the spiritual is, I believe, false. A much more valid distinction, and one that we need urgently to make, is that between the organic and the mechanical” (p. 147). He’s talking about the tendency in Christian theology of drawing a sharp boundary between flesh and spirit, between body and mind. It is this division that fuels the expectation of an entirely conscious experience of grace. I believe that Berry is suggesting that the subtle pleasures, simultaneously spiritual and physical, of living and working within the flow of creation’s rhythms are as true an experience of God’s grace as any dramatic altar call.

I’m learning how to embrace and enjoy this grace. As our summer ends and we return to a more normal routine, I wonder how we might maintain an ability to dwell in those graceful rhythms.

~ Daniel 

Maya Angelou on Sabbath

This short Angelou piece is from her book Wouldn't Take Nothing For My Journey Now.

"A Day Away"

We often think that our affairs, great or small, must be tended continuously and in detail, or our world will disintegrate, and we will lose our places in the universe. That is not true, or if it is true, then our situations were so temporary that they would have collapsed anyway.

Once a year or so I give myself a day away. On the eve of my day of absence, I begin to unwrap the bonds which hold me in harness. I inform housemates, my family and close friends that I will not be reachable for 24 hours; then I disengage the telephone. I turn the radio dial to an all-music station, preferably one which plays the soothing golden oldies. I sit for at least an hour in a very hot tub; then I lay out my clothes in preparation for my morning escape, and knowing that nothing will disturb me, I sleep the sleep of the just.

On the morning I wake naturally, for I will have set no clock, nor informed my body time piece when it should alarm. I dress in comfortable shoes and casual clothes and leave my house going no place. If I am living in a city, I wander streets, window-shop, or gaze at buildings. I enter and leave public parks, libraries, the lobbies of skyscrapers, and movie houses. I stay in no place for very long.

On the getaway day I try for amnesia. I do not want to know my name, where I live, or how many dire responsibilities rest on my shoulders. I detest encountering even the closest friend, for then I am reminded for who I am. And the circumstances of my life, which I want to forget for awhile.

Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, lovers, family, employers and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence.

Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of treetops.

If we step away for a time, we are not, as many may think and some will accuse, being irresponsible, but rather we are preparing ourselves to more ably perform our duties and discharge our obligations.

When I return home, I am always surprised to find some questions I sought to evade had been answered and some entanglements I had hoped to flee had become unraveled in my absence.

A day away acts as a spring tonic. It can dispel rancor, transform indecision, and renew the spirit.

Family

Cousins Sally & Bob and their kids Jack and Andrew

I had the opportunity to reconnect with family while out west. I have cousins and an uncle in Oregon and Washington whom I haven't seen in years. Our entire trip has been a mix of farms and staying with friends/family inbetween, but this time I was truly (re)developing relationships with people I don't really know.

Columbia River

Part of Sabbath is time spent with family, and my time at home in MI, with my sister, and with close friends surely counts as family time. I wasn't sure how or if I would get to see my cousins. Both graciously offered to host us in their home cities of Portland and Seattle, and both spent time getting to know me and D. As we made the turn back east, I realized driving away that this was some of the best "family" Sabbath time yet - the kind that is perhaps intended most.

My cousin Mike and I in the canyon hike

We took a trip up the gorge and to Mt. Hood with Mike and "played", a good Sabbath practice. And we shared stories with both sets. Some were warm memories of loved ones no longer with us, and others stories of pain and shame.

Falls on our hike hear the gorge

Sitting in the spot where cousin Mike proposed to his wife Lucy (family history at its best!)

Even though I barely know these cousins, I was connected to them in so many ways, and connected to a larger story. Though in the company of practical strangers, I was somehow able to tap into love and truth that can be so heavily guarded and scary with other people who would have been just as unknown, but not family.  It was amazing to me that even though they have always felt distant (due to age differences, geography, and sometimes family tension), I realized that there is not really that much distance between family no matter how far they are. The shared stories and histories forever bind you together. Though they can be hard stories at times, it's comforting to know others not only know about them, but have experienced them too.