THE LOCAL, SEASONAL, SUSTAINABLE, TRIBAL FOOD PROJECT--PART 4

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(These notes and the commentaries that follow are a Facebook project based on Barbara Kingsolver's book "ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE A Year of Food Life." Each week a project member writes a response based on one chapter of the book. Together we read and talk our way through a year in the life of Kingsolver and her family. This response was authored by Lezlie Antoncich and is prompted by Chapter Three, "Spring Forward.")

Chapter 3--Hierloom Seeds

Ahhhh, Spring!

In my younger days I picked co-op veggies and then canned tomatoes with a baby in my backpack and my two-year old son coloring at the kitchen table. Overseas we took all 5 kids out to glean apples and almonds left from the harvest--for free. I had no way of preserving them, so Eat Lots/Eat fast and share-share-share!

Lezlie Antoncich and her brood gleaning almonds near Tiberias, Israel

Lezlie with her Isreali "sabra look" thinking about apple fritters, apple pancakes, apple pie, apple butter, applethauthe.

By the time we returned from Israel and #6 was born, I had fallen captive to "convenience & discount packaging." We had been warned about the "spirit of busy-ness" that had engulfed America. Now we were held hostage to it. Help . . .

For a moment, let's focus on the "Indestructable Fruits & Veggies." What a sad breed! In our pampered life styles, we have unknowingly asked for it's creation. Mega-businesses have herded us like animals to slaughter thru the blinders and gates of "Time-Saving." They successfully control how we grow and what we eat. Sadly, the menu is un-fulfilling and grossly lacking in all attributes. Today's dog and cat food have more flavor and nutritional value than most processed foods for people. In our lack of taking the time "because we are too busy with life" we have surrendered our heritage of farming and gardening to the Agribusiness Monster, who is all too happy to take over. We spend more time carting our kids to events than teaching them the arts of cooking. I am guilty as well.

But there is a break in the clouds . . . Spring thaw is here . . . Wake up Time . . . a movement is underfoot and rising! People are tired of few choices and cardboard flavors. Seed Saver's Exchange and others like you, people with real food to share, and the knowledge of that real food. . . . We Welcome You! A global interest is picking up speed.

Precious seeds are handed down thru generations, like folklore, protected from corporate genocide. A new breed of dealers is trading these precious commodities worth more than gold - in pursuit of survival. A black market for a green world?

For our own good we need to slow down and take back the rewards that come with fresh chemically-free, locally grown food wherever and whenever we can. We are 21st century creatures with a global palate, living in overgrown cities. Change isn't easy, and guilt isn't necessary. This is no longer the Garden of Eden, but there's plenty we can do to change the sad ending . . .

one seed at a time.

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THE LOCAL SEASONAL SUSTAINABLE TRIBAL FOOD PROJECT--PART THREE

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(These notes and the commentaries that follow are a Facebook project based on Barbara Kingsolver's book "ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE A Year of Food Life." Each week a project member writes a response based on one chapter of the book. Together we read and talk our way through a year in the life of Kingsolver and her family. This response is authored by Alys Milner and is prompted by Chapter Two, "Waiting for Asparagus.")

Waiting for Alys: Confessions of a Procrastinator

Loving the idea of this project and among the first to jump on board, I wanted to get it right. That said, it still took some time to get my hands on this book. No drama: just the day-to-day life of a busy, Facebook-loving mom.

Alys's Mac

Fascinated by the concept and in love with the writing style and author’s turn of phrase, I was delighted with my assignment of "Waiting for Asparagus." My earliest years and meals were in Ontario, Canada with the requisite long cold winters and the culinary influences of a British father and Nova Scotia-raised Mom.

Asparagus?

Never heard of it. I was a young adult before it first crossed my plate, and I wasn’t the least bit impressed. Luckily for me I gave it a second chance.

I love the discovery in this book: both mine and the Kingsolver Clan. Learning the cultivation ritual of a vegetable I’ve come to enjoy seems a mini-miracle in the making. I’ve embarked on my own personal food journey this year, so this book is synchronistic with my own health-improving goals. Changing our long-held behaviors around food is among the more challenging because they are so deeply seated in our youth.


The line that Lily would “already be lobbying the loopholes” resonated to my core. I know what I should do, but the inner give-it-to-me-now frequently won sway. Hershey’s with almonds are a good source of protein, right?


My earliest food foundation was a solid one. Our father was a horticulturist. He worked on a tea plantation in Darjeeling India before the war, later moving to Canada where my parents owned a pair of flower shops. He lovingly cultivated an amazing garden in our own back yard, short growing season and all, and filled it with cherry tomatoes that moved from garden to dinner plate in short order. What a delight it was to be sent out back by our mom to gather food for our meal. I inherited my own green thumb and love of gardening from those early days.


So how, you may wonder, did I drop and roll so far from the tree? Our family moved to the US in 1966, and by 1969 my father was dead, victim to the cancerous crop known as tobacco. My mother went to work full time, with three young girls at home to fend for themselves. It was around the same time when “TV dinners” had come into fashion. Mom was impressed with the idea that her daughters could have a hot meal in her absence, but with limited cooking or use of the hot stove and her fear of one of us getting burned; convenience food at its finest. Strapped for funds she scraped together the cash for our Friday night treat: a can of coke from Safeway and a bag of chips or nuts shared among the four of us. Both rituals were loving ones: gathering fresh garden tomatoes from our vast garden and slurping high fructose corn syrup from a can in our ratty little two bedroom apartment.


"Waiting for Asparagus" is a bit of a metaphor in my own personal journey. I wonder what all gentle readers of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle are discovering along the way?

Mac's Carrots

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