Very happily, Wednesdays have become a junket of local food pickups, which invariably punctuate with a feast, best enjoyed with others on the wobbly table we’ve got on our patio. Usually our friends showup when it’s time to eat, but yesterday, for the first time, we took someone — our friend Rachael — along for the pre-feast tour.
The fun for us nerds begins Wednesdays in Inman Square, in an apartment house on Tremont St, where we get our Just Dairy order. Rachael watched me punch in the code on the combo lock, duck way down through the doorway, and into the basement where there’s a fridge filled with glass jars of raw milk and cartons of eggs. I scanned the goods for our order. She asked, more than once, who lives in the house. But I couldn’t tell her. I don’t know. “Sketchy” was the response.
Barely a moment later, we were back in the car and headed for the parking lot outside Harvest Co-op in Central Sq to fetch our CSA share. Per usual, there was a line of very hungry looking types checking in, gathering the week’s veggies with gusto and grace. Rachael wanted to know how all of these people , who looked roughly our age and basically like us, found out about the business of buying a CSA at all. This a good question, I think, and any thoughts on it are very welcome.
We got home and here’s what we ate: 2 hard boiled eggs each (from Just Dairy), a salad with carrots (CSA share) and goat cheese (Vermont Butter and Cheese Co), sauteed zucchini, summer squash and garlic scapes (CSA). And some leftover bread from Hi-Rise.
Rachael is not a self-described localvore. She is, however, an awesomely curious and open soul, and she is actively trying to eat well, and better all the time. And here is the point of all of this so far directionless chatter about how we spent last evening: We talk a lot about this local eating thing with Rachael, and she asks great questions about it that make us clarify and articulate (in our own heads) why we do this stuff and what it means. But it’s not actually that easy to transfer the core of this compulsion to another person who doesn’t precisely have it herself.
There was a time, not long ago, when I gave an ex a load of crap for shopping at Whole Foods because I thought it was elitest. She politely told me not eating poison had nothing to do with class. And so this is to say, I wasn’t always the convert I am today. But trying to identify when and how exactly I went from the chipped-shoulder type who bought the cheapest ground beef in a Grocery Store to save a few bucks to what I guess I am today is tough. I’m sure it was a series of moments (like the ex rightly putting me in my place) that got me here, but I wonder about the trajectory other eager local eaters followed. Anyone? anyone anyone.
All in the name of getting Rachael (and everyone else who sits down to eat with us on our wobbly table) fully on board…
Tags: Rants
Well, I feel I have to respond because this issue is near and dear to my heart and I think one of the most important things that the local food/organic food movement needs to deal with.
In terms of my trajectory: I went vegetarian at age 19 after taking two college courses – one on nutrition and one on environmental sciences (I’m 34 now, so its been 15 years). They convinced me that eating lower on the food chain is 1) both better for our planet, and 2) a better use of food resources. I do eat fish & seafood occasionally and have been known to cheat entirely—and I do not expect those around me to also eat like me. I didn’t know about the “eating local” thing until a few years ago but that seemed a natural next step once I learned a more about it.
As for the charges of elitism:
- It is not elitist to want to give your money to small farmers who are mostly operating outside the corporate system rather than to corporations. I also am wary of Whole Foods, but they DO buy from small farmers, which is a step in the right direction.
- It is not elitist to want to ameliorate the effects of global warming which are going to have the biggest impact on the poor of the Global South (whether due to ocean flooding or increased desertification).
But, I do think the charges are worth examining—and I think the key is to avoid Tsk-Tsking of other people’s food choices and/or looking down on those who don’t eat local/organic. Some of my family members used to imply that it was elitist, saying that poor farmers don’t care about agro-chemical use— not true! I’ve spent a good bit of time in a region of Brazil impacted by export-oriented monoculture agriculture and I can tell you that the small farmers are concerned because they see the impacts of the chemicals on themselves and their living environment. They also get sick from the toxics—so caring about the use of chemicals is not just a selfish concern for oneself but a concern for others as well. I do think the local food movement does need to address issues of access—but that is a bigger issue of social equity and not just a problem of the local food movement
Happy eating!
PS: I suggest folks read Mark Winne’s, Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty– a good read in regards to these issues.
hey Ana — kristi here. i should have replied to this very thoughtful posting sooner. thanks for writing it. i think you’re totally right on about resisting the urge to tsk tsk. but at some point, at least in my experience, it feels like even politely explaining why i don’t want to eat the meatballs at my nana’s sunday dinner (from whence they came, no one dares to know) is perceived as a type of judgment. i don’t like making anyone, and certainly not nana, feel judged.
also, for obvious reasons, good eating has been the domain of people who can afford to live by such morals, and who have access to the resources (time + education) to really understand the multi-faceted importance of it.
i am desperately interested in figuring out how to strip that exclusively identity from local food, but it’s a case of much easier said than done. it’s like being a democratic presidential nominee, trying to crack jokes with a bunch of construction workers about how hard it is to earn a living wage. well, maybe not that bad…