I finally made the sumac tea. It's pretty easy: add cold water to the berries and let sit for a while. Strain and drink. As reported, it is very much like a lemonade. I would like to add that it soothed my hangover, cured my acne, and made me a sparkling wit for 24 hours, but that is not true. It is refreshing and simple. That's enough.
Since graduating last year and starting work at Beardsley Farm I've been cooking more. My half CSA share from A Place of the Heart Farm has helped push my food experimenting. As I write, napa cabbage sits in brine waiting to become kimchi. In November I'll attend a canning class by my friend Kat Raese. I enjoy the labor of cooking as much as I like to eat the food, but am continually amazed at how easily I can pass several hours cooking. And then it's time to think about the next meal.
This experience reinforces for me that the obesity epidemic (and our other failings of health, both physical and ecological) are far more complex and difficult than a matter of will or making good choices. It's hard to argue for things like canning your own food (which takes several hours) in comparison with buying canned goods from the grocery store. Especially when the store bought food is so inexpensive. I have the benefit of several factors that make it easier for me to cook and experiment with things like canning and kimchi, but chief among them is time. I have time to cook because I don't work three or four jobs or have several children or older relatives in my care. Were I responsible for feeding people beyond myself and my husband, you can bet there would be a couple nights of fish sticks and ketchup.
I enjoy fantasizing about a life lived more closely off the land: growing more of the food we eat, having bees, making our own clothes and furniture, etc. etc. but the reality of that lifestyle is that it demands a lot more of your time. As of yet, I cannot figure a way to be the super urban homesteader and have a contemporary career. I follow the flickr images of a woman who goes by the name Wilderness Gal. She and her husband and daughter are living a back-to-the-land life of homesteading. It looks gorgeous and rugged, but it also seems isolated and all consuming. Their sustenance is her primary occupation, where as I approach things like gardening and wildcrafting as hobbies with aesthetic and metaphoric value.
I like how you, too, are trying to connect the disrupted links between what seems essential: sustenance and the idea of a "contemporary career." I've been reading (very slowly) the book _Radical Homemakers_, and it's been helping me get my ideas in order.
ReplyDeleteI recently had an opportunity to take a second job--minimum wage, late hours, but easy. We really could have used the money, but I turned it down because I evaluated the time spent earning the few dollars against the time I spend cooking, planning next year's (small) garden, and canning...and I couldn't imagine that the money would be worth giving up those things. So: yes, for some it is necessary to work multiple jobs, but for more than a few, the money from a second job doesn't make up for the time spent working. For some, it is that second or third job that means being addicted to convenience. It doesn't buy lasting satisfaction, connection to community, and awareness of environment. And because those are integral parts of my value system, I act on them daily.
I keep thinking about this post--the idea of time as luxury, and the idea of reverting to sub-par convenience food if there were more people to feed.
ReplyDeleteTime is something everyone has, and spending time on things that are important and self-edifying isn't an indulgence, it's a necessity that people sometimes forget about.
Matt and I were talking about this more, and if we were to have children (one of the options of "more people to feed"), we would have to do more of what we already do, not less of it. We would have to cook more, would have to get more serious about growing things, continue to can things. Would it be all-consuming? For a while, until it became part of the everyday routine. Largely, it's a matter of choice and identifying what is important, and then acting in ways that unite action and ideology. Part of it is also re-structuring thinking away from the idea that being overworked and constantly rushed is acceptable--because it isn't; it takes a toll on individuals and communities.
I don't know, I keep wanting to answer the implicit questions in your post, but I'm not quite there yet. I'll keep thinking about it more.