Tonight, in the continued effort to use the unusual and interesting harvest we received from our community supported agriculture share, we made a different salad with mixed oriental greens, adolescent shanghai cabbage, white hailstone radishes, and green garlic. I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever eaten any of those veggies before, and it was really quite good (especially since we made a point of looking for slugs before we put the salad in bowls tonight)! We especially liked the green garlic, which looks like scallions but taste like garlic.
I am compelled by the idea that where what we eat comes from, and how it was grown, is as important as what we eat. As Michael Pollan points out in his "Omnivore's Dillema," why would we let something as important as food to chance? I am a huge fan of Consumer Reports. I wouldn't buy a toaster, a blender, an oven, or a dishwasher without first studying about it, learning about the varieties, the various models, the reported reliability of the gadgets, the warranties which the makers put behind them. So why is it that I don't demand a "Consumer Reports" for my food? Why would I, why would any of us, do something so foundational on Maslow's hierarchy of needs as eating, and yet give so little thought to what we were actually consuming?
There are 56 ingredients in the tofu patties my kids eat for dinner almost every night. Fifty-six! That's way too complicated, as far as I'm concerned. And of course, I haven't heard of nearly any of them. And of course, other than wheat and water, I don't believe that any of them grow naturally. They're almost all extracts of corn or soybeans. All that processed stuff. I guess that I want to be much closer to the earth than that. Carlo Petrini calls it slow food, and I think that that may be the eating ethic I'm looking for. It might be the kind of kosher I've been looking for. I want to be able to look the farmer in the eye and shake his hand, as I was able to do yesterday when I picked up our first harvest from the CSA. I want to be able to see for myself how my food is being grown. And I want to eat what's being grown right now, locally. A friend of mine has taught me alot about Thich Nhat Han and his focus on living in the moment. I might just start a new movement. I think I'd call it "eating in the moment." Eating what's growing right now, in this area, in this season. What a concept.
I'm off to seek out recipies for what to do with red mustard greens and tokyo bekana and rosemary. The farmer says that's what will be dinner tomorrow night, in some form or another.
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When it became clear 4 years ago that my eldest was severely sensitive to preservatives and food colorings, and that it severely affected his behavoir, as well as his performance in school, I changed the way we ate in a radical way. I stopped buying food that had ingredients I had never heard of and couldn't pronounce. If I don't know what and ingredient is, and no one can tell me with any reasonable certainty what it is, generally speaking I don't buy it and we don't eat it in our home. We rarely eat frozen or prepared foods in the house. We are more relaxed outside our home for the sake of sanity (his and ours!), but there is a great book called "Fast Food Nation" that illuminates the trend in the USA for overproeccesed food among other things. The advent of places like Trader Joe's where the focus is whole foods and sustainable agriculture is effecting a phenomenal shift in the way America eats - for the better, I think.
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