Foodstories

Latest on the reading list: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and her family.

Now I know it might be silly to be reading about the faults in the American food system (I am somewhat obsessed, if I haven't mentioned it before) while living in Colombia, but it has actually sparked some interesting thoughts and conversations. Sorry for the massive quote, but I love her writing and would quote the whole book if I could:

Strong food cultures are both aesthetic and functional, keeping the quality and quantity of foods consumed relatively consistent from one generation to the next, and so, while the economies of many Western countries expanded massively in the 20th century, their citizens did not...Food culture in the US has long been cast as the property of a privileged class. It is nothing of the kind. Culture is the property of a species. Humans don't do everything we crave to do--that is what arguably makes us human. We're genetically predisposed toward certain behaviors that we've collectively decided are unhelpful; adultery and racism being examples. With reasonable success, we mitigate those impulses through civil codes, religious rituals, maternal warnings--the whole bag of tricks we call culture. Food cultures concentrate a population's collective wisdom about the plants and animals that grow in a place, and the complex ways of rendering them tasty. These are mores of survival, good health, and control of excess. Living without such a culture would seem dangerous...At its heart, a genuine food culture is an affinity between people and the land that feeds them. (emphasis my own)

One of my favorite parts of traveling is immersing myself into a new food culture and learning as much as I can about the fuel that drives people. In Medellin, people always seem to be sitting down to eat a meal, snacking, drinking coffee, or discussing the best place in the country to eat a certain something. I think it's because food is yet another excuse to talk--either while eating or about eating, and paisas sure do like to talk. But I do have to admit that the food here is exceptional, so they have reason enough to raise some noise about it.

During my first month here I was too excited to try new dishes and as many different kinds of arepas as possible to really think about where it all came from, but I slowly started picking up a granadilla or looking at a piece of steak on the end of my fork and asking it "where did you come from?" Living in the middle of a city means that food generally comes shrink-wrapped with pretty labels stamped on the packages, but I love wandering through side-street markets with the hand-pulled carts stacked high with dirty piles of potatoes, corn, cabbage, red beans, huge grapes, bananas, and papayas. It makes food seem more real to buy it while it is still covered in earth (the whole point of Kingsolver's book).

Since my fruit and meat never answered, I turned to my trusted friend/research advisor/learned man Octavio. When I asked how far food generally has to travel to get to Medellin he looked at me as if I was joking. After realizing that I was serious he slowly chuckled and said "Oh, about 10 km." Now I think this must be an exaggeration since we were sitting within a 10-km radius of city (cement, buses, apartment buildings), but I do know that Medellin is located within the 'cafetero' region which is lush with farms and various crops. I learned that everything from cows to cotton to coal and rice to broccoli to strawberries are all grown nearby, and therefore transported into the city fresh every day in one form or another. Within the entire country the main thing they import is wheat; in pretty much every other way Colombia is self-sustainable.

People here don't need to ask themselves from where their food comes, they grow up knowing what farmers in what regions produce the vegetables in their soup and pass the fields that feed them whenever they leave the city. This affinity betwee the people and the land is exactly what Kingsolver discusses, and from what I can tell it has yielded a culture that is overall very healthy and happy. To me this seems like a luxury, but it really shouldn't. With the amount of fuel costs that go into transporting our food these days every city should be focusing on growing compatible crops in their open spaces. I could go on and on, but I think Kingsolver explians it with much more wit and research so recommend reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle or anything by Michael Polan.

What I am trying to say is that I feel lucky that I have chosen a place to live where my daily food purchases don't have to involve a moral struggle like they did in the US. I can eat healthy, gluten- and guilt-free for very inexpensively, and by choosing to shop at the local stands closest to my house know that the easiest consumer choice is the one that also supports the local farmers. It's a win-win situation!