Home And Back To Eating Local

We are now home from our week long trip to our family cottage and ready to get back in to our project. I  actually missed it, while I was gone! I expected the break from planning and cooking our meals would be, well, a break! I was surprised to find out it wasn't always so. I actually felt uptight about the food we were eating all week and wasn't always able to completely enjoy them. 


Truth be told, I was wishing I hadn't even told my family we were doing this project. I knew I wasn't going to get much support, so I don't know why I did.  I ended up with the hyper-vigilance of someone who wants to bust you when they think you are being "bad" (You're cheating! Olive oil isn't local!), or ridicule (no, this meal isn't local, we aren't hippies...said my Dad when my 4 year old asked if his meal was local). I think my Mom was ready to humour me, even though I didn't ask her to, but I could see she totally didn't understand it either. I was setting out our feast of ham, potato salad and fresh peas and I commented, sort of longingly, that corn on the cob would be really good with this meal. She was telling me how nice the corn was she'd been buying from the grocery store...the one that was already pealed and wrapped in plastic on a styrofoam plate. I told her that I would just wait until it was in season locally and do the meal again and she just shook her head and said that it all sounded like a lot of work. That floored me. How was waiting a lot of work? Wasn't it less work? Eat what's growing in the backyard now, and then eat the corn fresh off the plant when it's ready. Sigh! 


I let it go but it was a big realization that industrial farming and the ability to ship anything, anywhere, any time of the year, has totally messed up our instincts. 


Our non-local meals tasted fine of course, there was just something missing (or added depending on the food). I think it was the lack of mindfulness that made the meals, one especially so, less satisfying than they could have been. None of the ingredients were sought out (or grown for that matter) with care. Everything was store bought, many coming from a can, that came from who knows were. (Mushrooms in a can? I will never understand that.) The meat in particular was hard to get passed. Where did it come from? Under what conditions was it grown and produced? Again, the lack of understanding was astounding. I was asked if my kids would eat chicken seasoned with lemon-pepper. Before I could answer, a bottle of Mrs. Dash was pulled out and I was shown there was no salt in it....as if that was the offensive ingredient! Politeness though, and the extreme dread of "getting in to it" with my family, made me bite my tongue and just eat it. It was just for a few days, and we could get back to doing it our way when we got home. 


So, here we are. The fridge is stuffed with the box of veggies Shannon D. picked up for me from the CSA while I was away. I have to make my shopping list for the week still and take care of that. I'm going to be home for three full weeks now, so I'm going to make more of an effort to cook some bigger meals, so I can share my recipes and take full advantage of the goodies Dalew's has grown for us. 


Shannon A.