blog

How Does Your Garden (Salad) Grow

by Megan

Lately, newspapers have been littered with articles about the growing food crisis around the world. For most of us, it translates into a slight increase in our weekly grocery bill and a scoff at the outrageous price of milk. But for many Americans, and for most people in developing countries, tagging on an extra dollar or two to a gallon of milk means the difference between breaking even and being in the red.

This topic came to a head at a recent kasina Book Report when I brought in Slow Food Nation by Carlo Petrini. The book is Petrini's response to what he views as the disconnection we have with our food. He basically argues that, in the explosion of industrialization that took food from being grown in backyards and local farms ...(wait, where does my food come from?), a pivotal bolt in American culture has been lost. We have lost local recipes, knowledge of cultivation and agriculture, and an understanding that what we put in the earth, whether chemicals or seeds, has an impact on our environment and our quality of life.

What this Book Report inspired was a debate about class, economics, international trade, and taste: does there have to be a difference between affordable and good? Is quality reserved for those who can afford it? Is it elitist to like good food?

For as long as I can remember, my grandmother has had a garden. In recent years, my mother, who lives in Colorado, has taken to growing squash, basil, mint, and tomatoes in a small garden made of old railroad ties in her backyard. There is something satisfying in sitting down to a salad and a glass of sun-brewed tea with mint after having watered, weeded, and watched the ingredients grow since early spring. Every time she sits down to one of her home-grown meals, she takes particular pride in each bite. This, she says, is good food. She still goes to the store for milk, eggs, and will be one of the million of us who will be paying more and more to have someone else plant, raise, and produce her food -- but, at least in the summer months, the best meals will be those that came right from her backyard.