Highlights on Eating Rightly

A collection of after-dinner thinks prompted by November's read

Thank you all for your comments on our Michael Pollan reading, both here, on social media, and in emails to me. The month-end roundup was delayed, appropriately enough, by Thanksgiving. (I made pie, below).

And while I interviewed Gracy here, she interviewed me for Mere Orthodoxy about my other substack: Other Feminisms.

Recipe from Smitten Kitchen

One good comment came from Jenny on FB:

The problem with buying a cow isn't that poor people don't have freezers. The problem with buying a cow is that poor people don't have the hundreds of dollars on hand to buy a cow.

She’s absolutely right, and this is a big challenge for a lot of eating recommendations that might save money in the long term but require a bigger outlay to start with. Jenny’s comment reminds me of the “Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness” from Terry Pratchett’s Men at Arms.

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

---

Catherine pointed to this twitter thread from the United Farm Workers which showed the labor behind different Thanksgiving foods.

United Farm Workers @UFWupdates

Tell us your favorite Thanksgiving dish, and we’ll share some of what we know about the work behind the ingredients. #WeFeedYou #ThankAFarmworker

---

Bart sent me an email on limits of what farmers grow (what can be transported) vs what he’s been trying, which I’ve excerpted below:

Even more than that most of the veggies we eat are annuals. They require much more input to grow and cultivate each year which costs resources on a recurring basis. Back to my dandelions. They are perennials. I eat them spring summer and winter. There is also a wild arugula that is a perennial and there other perennial greens. You can eat the radish greens also and they are biannuals. Save some for the greens while you harvest some roots. Win win there. I have shifted some of my veggie production to perennials for that very reason. I don't have to worry about them for the next year they will be there. It is a different feeling to just mulch something and know it will be there for you next year than worry about the next planting season and it uses less resources. 

---

Claire spoke frankly about how hard it is to disentangle ourselves from unjust systems (and the more precarious your life, the harder it is):

For me, questions of food always bring up a sort of existential despair - mass-produced farming seems so harmful to all involved, and yet how else do I feed my family? Where in the budget do I give - health care, mortgage, tithing? I imagine a lot of us are in this situation.

This essay reminds me of my own family’s vulnerability and interdependence within the broader movement for solidarity. There are areas in which I really can make a first big difference at home - in my marriage, with my parenting, with my choices. Food is where I rely on others - I can make small sacrifices, but ultimately in order for me to access/afford well-made food, I’ll need the help of people beyond myself. It’s humbling and scary!

It’s an important point, and I think it’s a good reminder that it’s ok to start small. Sometimes, when a big moral claim is made on us, and we can’t live up to it, everything we do that falls short feels like a failure.

But there’s real merit in picking a single food or a single meal a month you make a big effort to buy as you wish you could afford to do all the time. It keeps you engaged, so you’re prepared to expand as you circumstances allow.

---

Finally, I want to highlight this comment from Ivan, about how his wife’s work at a farmer’s market shifted their perspective on food:

Emma and I were always modishly interested in eating what Instagram reminded us was in season, which was consequently slightly cheaper in the supermarket. But in March it no longer was prudent for us to buy groceries more often than every three weeks, and in July, the Invisible Hand made us a single-income household. Besides the modest unemployment support from the District, Emma's had solace from her weekly shift at our neighborhood farmer's market — which began as a volunteer gig distributing produce to families on food assistance, but has become a weekly sales job paid in (minimal) cash and, more importantly, unsold vegetables. (Lately, she’s begun playing at a higher difficulty setting, trading her take-home greens for other vendors’, say, mushrooms.) As our neighborhood market closes this weekend, she’s been confirmed as working through the winter for the same farm at the year-round Dupont market. This experience has strengthened our awareness, not just of what’s available this week based on the seasons and the weather, but of realistic economic proportion: here’s just how much cabbage and beans are out there, compared to the rare and precious onions or carrots.

Thank you all for your comments and recommendations! I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts this month about our Star Wars-themed reading and whether digital resurrection demeans the work of actors.

Ex libris,

Leah