Monday, December 08, 2003
Wow, some snow storm here in New England, what? Nearly three feet where I live. Finally, my gym-buffed muscles came in really handy i.e. I'm not even sore today from having shoveled for three hours straight not including the snow fight I had with the daughter.
Thankfully, we were prepared for the storm. I had stocked up on wine from Australia, France, and California, fire logs from Vermont, and a refrigerator full of food from all over the world: Irish and French cheese. Fruit from Florida, Costa Rica, Mexico, Chile and Israel. Vegetables ditto. Milk and butter from Vermont. Condiments from Jamaica, Thailand, Japan, Italy, and Austria.
The heat was cranked up to 72 degrees Fahrenheit and the inside of the house warmly lit. The hubby, who managed to get a flight home from London after all, went to the supermarket to say he would be bringing home more food. A lamb from New Zealand. I read the New York Times newspaper and watched a video (Hours). Two loads of laundry got done. I ran the dishwasher, responded to some email, and wrote. Then I took a hot bath after which we watched another video.
Sound decadent? Not really. Next time you go grocery shopping, start looking at the labels to see where what you are buying comes from. I bet on one scale or another, what you have in your own fridge is as multi-international as what I have in my mine. And since I would imagine you all heat your homes, drive, work on the computer, do laundry, and take showers, your day is as ridiculously energy-sapping as Anna Bloviation's....
A mere three hundred plus years ago (having hypothetically landed in Plymouth with the Pilgrims), I would have been lucky to have had shelter the size of my unheated un-adjoined garage outside. In our drafty modest abode, the hubby, daughter and I would have huddled around a small fire having just finished a dinner of gamey stew and perhaps some bread. It being December, there would have been no fresh fruit to eat for dessert let alone Pepperidge Farm chocolate chip cookies. Maybe there would have been some dried cranberries and nuts. Perhaps a shriveled apple. A small candle would have flickered in the corner -- the only light by which to needlepoint or read a few passages from the bible before calling it a night at 8:30 p.m. Oops. Except I forgot we would have all had to take turns going out to the -17 degree below outhouse.
Contrast that with today -- nearly every little town in America boasts 20 supermarket aisles worth of year-round choices. My kids don't even understand the concept of their being seasons for things e.g. strawberries in late spring, apricots and plums in early summer -- then cherries, oranges, melons, and blueberries. At least I think that's how it went. I don't even remember anymore given that I too am used to grabbing a plastic holder of blueberries any time of the year. They might cost me five dollars but they are mine if I want them.
What I don't think I could ever explain to someone who does not have all that we have in the United States, is that I loath having to go grocery shopping in these supermarkets, starting from when I enter the bloated parking lot full of 10-miles-to-the-gallon SUV's which, btw, weren't doing any better in Saturday's treacherous driving conditions than my little Audi (and weren't carrying any more bags of groceries or people than I either).
The ambiance in these cookie-cutter-chain supermarkets just seems anathema to culinary aesthetic; a bag of frozen peas is as about exciting as buying a roll of toilet paper is as about as exciting as buying a bunch of preservative-sprayed green bananas. There is absolutely no relationship to anything in the store except for the often disingenuous product messaging that would lead you to imagine an idyllic green field of strawberries ripening in the Southern California sun. Turns out 'Knoxberry Fields' is located right next to a quasi highway within a stone's throw of a high-tech office complex (for real).
By aisle six I have not come across but maybe five products that are actually from New England -- like the can of Gorton's canned clams packed in Gloucester that I reach for next to the little elderly retired couple bickering about which brand of tuna fish to buy (the can of tuna just an excuse to have the same argument they've been having the last 50 years of their marriage and I make a note to self never to end up like that).
Bottom line is that the whole time I am grocery shopping, I end up thinking about all of the exploitation, energy, and environmental havoc that has gone into getting all of this product onto supermarket shelves -- from the farmhands exposed to pesticides while they pick produce making .40 cents an hour, to the energy-guzzling ships, airplanes, and trucks that haul all this shit around the globe so that we can have pineapple 365 days a year and 650 different kinds of cereal brands. By the time I have deftly maneuvered my cart around through aisle after aisle of abundance -- be it the abundance on the shelves or the abundance blocking my way -- I am completely discouraged (perhaps this is why I am such a lousy cook?).
The problem with all of this abundance is that contextual meaning goes lost. Visit a local Farmer's Market some summer and buy a head of organically grown lettuce, five yellow zucchini ripened by the sun, homemade strawberry jam, and a loaf of whole-grain bread baked by one of the few women (or men) left in this country who can do this and you'll see what I mean by contextual meaning. When you eat this local produce, you just know it is right. You don't mind spending a few dollars more. Not only that, you often get a story to go with what you are buying from the local farmers. The regional food you bring home to your kitchen has meaning and makes sense. In fact after a while you begin to think it odd and wrong to be able to buy a mango in January.... And frankly if you really began to think about the amount of energy that is required to get that mango shipped across the world into your fruit bowl, you might seriously consider whether mankind had any sanity left at all.
As if choreographed to make a point, the electricity went out for about three hours Saturday evening... Hubby, daughter and I huddled in the living room by the fireplace and six candles -- the world as quiet as it was in the Pilgrim days -- the incessant hum of refrigerators, computers, and heating units falling silent. I slept in front of the fireplace. I'm not sure what we would have done had the electricity not gone back on. The wood I bought was meant for an ornamental fire, not as a means of heat for twenty-four hours straight. But for a few hours it was nice. Which is how I kind of look at the whole insatiable energy consumption in America -- nice for a few more decades but then there are going to be some hard, very cold choices to make....
Thankfully, we were prepared for the storm. I had stocked up on wine from Australia, France, and California, fire logs from Vermont, and a refrigerator full of food from all over the world: Irish and French cheese. Fruit from Florida, Costa Rica, Mexico, Chile and Israel. Vegetables ditto. Milk and butter from Vermont. Condiments from Jamaica, Thailand, Japan, Italy, and Austria.
The heat was cranked up to 72 degrees Fahrenheit and the inside of the house warmly lit. The hubby, who managed to get a flight home from London after all, went to the supermarket to say he would be bringing home more food. A lamb from New Zealand. I read the New York Times newspaper and watched a video (Hours). Two loads of laundry got done. I ran the dishwasher, responded to some email, and wrote. Then I took a hot bath after which we watched another video.
Sound decadent? Not really. Next time you go grocery shopping, start looking at the labels to see where what you are buying comes from. I bet on one scale or another, what you have in your own fridge is as multi-international as what I have in my mine. And since I would imagine you all heat your homes, drive, work on the computer, do laundry, and take showers, your day is as ridiculously energy-sapping as Anna Bloviation's....
A mere three hundred plus years ago (having hypothetically landed in Plymouth with the Pilgrims), I would have been lucky to have had shelter the size of my unheated un-adjoined garage outside. In our drafty modest abode, the hubby, daughter and I would have huddled around a small fire having just finished a dinner of gamey stew and perhaps some bread. It being December, there would have been no fresh fruit to eat for dessert let alone Pepperidge Farm chocolate chip cookies. Maybe there would have been some dried cranberries and nuts. Perhaps a shriveled apple. A small candle would have flickered in the corner -- the only light by which to needlepoint or read a few passages from the bible before calling it a night at 8:30 p.m. Oops. Except I forgot we would have all had to take turns going out to the -17 degree below outhouse.
Contrast that with today -- nearly every little town in America boasts 20 supermarket aisles worth of year-round choices. My kids don't even understand the concept of their being seasons for things e.g. strawberries in late spring, apricots and plums in early summer -- then cherries, oranges, melons, and blueberries. At least I think that's how it went. I don't even remember anymore given that I too am used to grabbing a plastic holder of blueberries any time of the year. They might cost me five dollars but they are mine if I want them.
What I don't think I could ever explain to someone who does not have all that we have in the United States, is that I loath having to go grocery shopping in these supermarkets, starting from when I enter the bloated parking lot full of 10-miles-to-the-gallon SUV's which, btw, weren't doing any better in Saturday's treacherous driving conditions than my little Audi (and weren't carrying any more bags of groceries or people than I either).
The ambiance in these cookie-cutter-chain supermarkets just seems anathema to culinary aesthetic; a bag of frozen peas is as about exciting as buying a roll of toilet paper is as about as exciting as buying a bunch of preservative-sprayed green bananas. There is absolutely no relationship to anything in the store except for the often disingenuous product messaging that would lead you to imagine an idyllic green field of strawberries ripening in the Southern California sun. Turns out 'Knoxberry Fields' is located right next to a quasi highway within a stone's throw of a high-tech office complex (for real).
By aisle six I have not come across but maybe five products that are actually from New England -- like the can of Gorton's canned clams packed in Gloucester that I reach for next to the little elderly retired couple bickering about which brand of tuna fish to buy (the can of tuna just an excuse to have the same argument they've been having the last 50 years of their marriage and I make a note to self never to end up like that).
Bottom line is that the whole time I am grocery shopping, I end up thinking about all of the exploitation, energy, and environmental havoc that has gone into getting all of this product onto supermarket shelves -- from the farmhands exposed to pesticides while they pick produce making .40 cents an hour, to the energy-guzzling ships, airplanes, and trucks that haul all this shit around the globe so that we can have pineapple 365 days a year and 650 different kinds of cereal brands. By the time I have deftly maneuvered my cart around through aisle after aisle of abundance -- be it the abundance on the shelves or the abundance blocking my way -- I am completely discouraged (perhaps this is why I am such a lousy cook?).
The problem with all of this abundance is that contextual meaning goes lost. Visit a local Farmer's Market some summer and buy a head of organically grown lettuce, five yellow zucchini ripened by the sun, homemade strawberry jam, and a loaf of whole-grain bread baked by one of the few women (or men) left in this country who can do this and you'll see what I mean by contextual meaning. When you eat this local produce, you just know it is right. You don't mind spending a few dollars more. Not only that, you often get a story to go with what you are buying from the local farmers. The regional food you bring home to your kitchen has meaning and makes sense. In fact after a while you begin to think it odd and wrong to be able to buy a mango in January.... And frankly if you really began to think about the amount of energy that is required to get that mango shipped across the world into your fruit bowl, you might seriously consider whether mankind had any sanity left at all.
As if choreographed to make a point, the electricity went out for about three hours Saturday evening... Hubby, daughter and I huddled in the living room by the fireplace and six candles -- the world as quiet as it was in the Pilgrim days -- the incessant hum of refrigerators, computers, and heating units falling silent. I slept in front of the fireplace. I'm not sure what we would have done had the electricity not gone back on. The wood I bought was meant for an ornamental fire, not as a means of heat for twenty-four hours straight. But for a few hours it was nice. Which is how I kind of look at the whole insatiable energy consumption in America -- nice for a few more decades but then there are going to be some hard, very cold choices to make....
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