The most tangible results of my personal project--preserving local food to eat throughout the semester--have been tasty indeed. Tonight I sat down to a bowl of spaghetti, with sauce containing locally grown tomatoes, zucchini, and onions from my freezer. Over the break I took some frozen Indiana pumpkin puree home to Alabama for Thanksgiving and included my family in my local food commitment by way of pumpkin pie (or not-so-local, considering we were about 650 miles away from the field of origin).
This project has allowed me to connect across generations through conversations with my grandfather, who grew up on a farm in Kansas and still cans tomato juice like he did with his mother when he was young. In fact, he laughed when I told him I was learning to can for a school project, and pointed out the irony of making an academic production from something that was common knowledge to pretty much everyone just a few generations ago. [As an aside, I'm willing to bet that my great-grandmother would think that it is a great blessing to be able to buy a can of tomatoes at the grocery rather than have to grow and can them herself.]
Four months ago I had not been to the Bloomington Farmers Market or set foot inside of Bloomingfoods or SaharaMart. I had never blanched a vegetable, I was scared of canning, and I also didn't know that people in Indiana grew peaches. Now I have been to each of those places (multiple times), blanched more vegetables than I care to recall, and have beautiful golden jars of Indiana peaches waiting to go into pies just as soon as finals are over. (And, ok, I'm still a little scared of canning.)
Barbara Kingsolver kept me informed (and chuckling) with tales of her local-food year interspersed with investigative journalism about the food industry and the benefits of eating local. Her writing also induced dreams of spring and sketches of garden layouts just waiting to be planted. Readings from Barry Rubin's Urban Economic Development class further added to the experience, highlighting the economic benefits of spending at locally-owned small businesses. Michael Pollan reminded me of what I learned years ago about King Corn and concentrated animal feeding operations, making me thankful that I rarely eat meat and ensuring that when I do, I'm going to be every bit as obnoxious as this couple in Portlandia (minus all the smoochy datey stuff).
My high school friend, Olivia, visited me last weekend, and after being shown around my apartment, she exclaimed, "You have lists of food everywhere!" Confused, I asked her what she meant. She pointed out my farmer's market purchase list on the refrigerator, an old list of "things to freeze, SOON" that was still on my desk, and some jotted recipes on a notepad in my room. This is visual proof of perhaps the most noteworthy impact of this personal project: my movement away from making eating choices based on convenience and price and toward a more strategic and intentional diet. I'm not perfect. I still buy plastic-wrapped bagels from the SPEA Cafe way more mornings than I want to admit. But my purchasing and consumption habits have changed, especially where produce is concerned.
Before this class, I was pretty complacent about what I ate. I knew I should do better--eat more locally and organically, and perhaps more importantly, be more informed about the effects of my consumption choices. But I was lazy, and I biked to school every day and minimized my electricity use and that was good enough, right? Through this project, I have realized with joy that I couldn't be more wrong, and that there is something incredibly fulfilling, spiritual even, about connecting with food and the community that grows it.
Although this stage of the project was only a semester long, it is something that I plan to build on as I move through life (hopefully to a place with a garden plot and more space for storing jars). I'm really excited about experimenting with heirloom varieties and being a part of their continued presence in our food supply. [Paraphrasing Kingsolver, eating an endangered whale doesn't keep if from extinction, but eating endangered food varieties does, by creating demand for increased cultivation and harvest.] With so many wonderful resources out there and delicious things to eat, there's no way I'm going to limit this adventure to just a semester!
This project has allowed me to connect across generations through conversations with my grandfather, who grew up on a farm in Kansas and still cans tomato juice like he did with his mother when he was young. In fact, he laughed when I told him I was learning to can for a school project, and pointed out the irony of making an academic production from something that was common knowledge to pretty much everyone just a few generations ago. [As an aside, I'm willing to bet that my great-grandmother would think that it is a great blessing to be able to buy a can of tomatoes at the grocery rather than have to grow and can them herself.]Four months ago I had not been to the Bloomington Farmers Market or set foot inside of Bloomingfoods or SaharaMart. I had never blanched a vegetable, I was scared of canning, and I also didn't know that people in Indiana grew peaches. Now I have been to each of those places (multiple times), blanched more vegetables than I care to recall, and have beautiful golden jars of Indiana peaches waiting to go into pies just as soon as finals are over. (And, ok, I'm still a little scared of canning.)
Barbara Kingsolver kept me informed (and chuckling) with tales of her local-food year interspersed with investigative journalism about the food industry and the benefits of eating local. Her writing also induced dreams of spring and sketches of garden layouts just waiting to be planted. Readings from Barry Rubin's Urban Economic Development class further added to the experience, highlighting the economic benefits of spending at locally-owned small businesses. Michael Pollan reminded me of what I learned years ago about King Corn and concentrated animal feeding operations, making me thankful that I rarely eat meat and ensuring that when I do, I'm going to be every bit as obnoxious as this couple in Portlandia (minus all the smoochy datey stuff).
My high school friend, Olivia, visited me last weekend, and after being shown around my apartment, she exclaimed, "You have lists of food everywhere!" Confused, I asked her what she meant. She pointed out my farmer's market purchase list on the refrigerator, an old list of "things to freeze, SOON" that was still on my desk, and some jotted recipes on a notepad in my room. This is visual proof of perhaps the most noteworthy impact of this personal project: my movement away from making eating choices based on convenience and price and toward a more strategic and intentional diet. I'm not perfect. I still buy plastic-wrapped bagels from the SPEA Cafe way more mornings than I want to admit. But my purchasing and consumption habits have changed, especially where produce is concerned.
Before this class, I was pretty complacent about what I ate. I knew I should do better--eat more locally and organically, and perhaps more importantly, be more informed about the effects of my consumption choices. But I was lazy, and I biked to school every day and minimized my electricity use and that was good enough, right? Through this project, I have realized with joy that I couldn't be more wrong, and that there is something incredibly fulfilling, spiritual even, about connecting with food and the community that grows it.
Although this stage of the project was only a semester long, it is something that I plan to build on as I move through life (hopefully to a place with a garden plot and more space for storing jars). I'm really excited about experimenting with heirloom varieties and being a part of their continued presence in our food supply. [Paraphrasing Kingsolver, eating an endangered whale doesn't keep if from extinction, but eating endangered food varieties does, by creating demand for increased cultivation and harvest.] With so many wonderful resources out there and delicious things to eat, there's no way I'm going to limit this adventure to just a semester!
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