Munchy Monday #1 Back to the Soil

“Did you ever see the customers in health - food stores? They are pale, skinny people who look half - dead. In a steak house, you see robust, ruddy people. They're dying, of course, but they look terrific.” Bill Cosby 

Yesterday I pondered, “What happened to the beauty of food?  The natural-ness of it?  (You know: tomatoes that are red and robust with flavour?)”

According to Wayne Roberts in The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food our culinary connection to actual from-the-soil food and its real-life from-the-farm growers all went downhill for Northern Hemisphere countries after the second World War.  A new-found belief that “science and technology can liberate humans” (p.34) essentially re-vamped the world of food production and presentation: food was suddenly  “produced” by an unknown global market force in who-knows-what part of the world and stuffed in cans and laden with preservatives (p.35).  Consumers started buying their food at superstores and gas stations, preparing it with little skill and/or time, and “hoovered, scarfed, or gulped” it down in front of the TV (p.37).

Grand scale production is what happened.

“Why would anyone (in their right mind) grow, gather, hunt or make food?” (p.58)

Why wouldn’t they?  Growing up surrounded by farmland and those who thoughtlessly gave most of their waking hours to the grueling labour associated with this land and the creatures that share it instilled in me a sense of awe…wonder that people could be so dedicated to such thankless pursuits that often yielded little financial reward.  They weren’t “producers” – they were co-workers in God’s creation allowing those of us around some pretty tasty, nutritional treats.

Have you ever eaten a carrot straight from the patch, teeny gobs of dirt growing in the corners of your lips, in that little crevice so prone to soak up food particles, red wine blotches, chocolate chunks?  Grabbed a juicy tomato from the vine and scarfed it down?  Bitten into a hairy yellow or green bean, and then a dozen more, because you simply couldn’t resist?

 Who wouldn’t want to “make food”?

Obviously someone.  (I just choose to believe that they just don’t know how…)

Jamie Oliver’s (you know, The Naked Chef?) “Food Revolution” targets home and corporations: teach healthier cooking at home and hit up corporations to more honestly label and produce food.  www.jamieoliver.com

I agree.  But it has to be even more…when kids think chocolate milk comes from brown cows that are less real to them than the Tooth Fairy and honestly believe that corn comes only from cans we have a problem indeed.

As a Girl Guide leader in Toronto I had the opportunity to take the girls to Centre Island’s petting zoo.  Despite the fact that most of the girls were from very wealthy families few of them had ever seen, let alone touched, an actual, real life mooing beast.

If they had no idea where their supper meat or milk came from, from where do they think asparagus materialized?

“To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves”  Ghandi said.  http://chiotsrun.com/2010/01/16/quote-of-the-day-ghandi/

We need a little grand scale revival in our gardens…I know mine sure needs some weeding…have any spare time?  I just might be able to show you from where squash derives…and you’re certainly welcome to munch down on as many sweet cherry tomatoes as those taste buds of yours can handle!