The Only Really Good Stuff is at the Store
June 4, 2008 "Like most people visiting Asia, I have experienced the constant dripping of a rain of epiphanies during my stays. One of these occurred on a trip to Northern Thailand, as I was standing on the edge of a new friend’s yard. I admired the grove of towering bamboo that edged her garden boundary, in a row so straight I could have marked it off with a piece of thread, with not a single trace of bamboo growing out into the road.
‘How do you do that?’ I asked her. ‘How do you keep the bamboo from growing all over the place, outside of your yard?’
‘Well, that’s easy,’ she replied. ‘Everyone knows how good bamboo shoots are in their dinner. The minute one shows its head outside of my garden, someone takes it home.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘In Canada we hack down the bamboo and throw it in the bushes and buy bamboo shoots in a can at the store.’
But that is what North America is all about. We have been trained that if it is right in front of our face (e.g. free, accessible) it is somehow inferior, and that the only really good stuff is at the store." (Food Security for the Faint of Heart: Keeping Your Larder Full in Lean Times, by Robin Wheeler, pg. 95)
In North America, the lives are many people are those of abundance. Most North Americans living now have only known good times. Sure there have been some difficult times, but they didn't touch everyone and were soon forgotten. And so we believe the past is forever behind us and the future will be an ever-increasing expansion of technology and scientific developments.
Our distant ancestors were hunter-gatherers. Our more recent ancestors were farmers. What are we? Consumers. We do not grow food. Nor do we know the wealth of food in the wild that surrounds us. What we do know is "charge it." And freezers and microwaves so we can eat the artificial convenience food we charged at the supermarket.
We pride ourselves on being educated and not needing to get our hands dirty as our ancestors did. We believe the good times will go on forever. And we push the past even further away.
We do not live in a sustainable manner because we believe dominion over the earth gave us the right to plunder it. We do not do without so there will be something left for future generations. We are living in a tiny bubble of unprecedented prosperity that cannot be sustained, because we are using up the world's resources.
We are hacking down the bamboo, throwing it in the bushes, and buying bamboo shoots in a can at the store.
Reader Comments (3)
I grew up partly in the midwest and even in the burbs of Waterloo/Cedar Falls, IA most people had lovely veggie gardens. It wasnt about survival, it was just what was DONE.
I wonder if it has changed there in the time since my family moved far from there.
[Nika's blog is at http://www.peaknix.com ]
Thank you so much for visiting and commenting.
It feels like people have less time for gardening now than they did even a few decades ago. The need for vegetable gardens has also diminished as we became lulled into thinking our way of life would continue and just keep getting better and better. So there was not a big need for vegetable gardens.
But in the near future, those who garden and raise chickens and goats will no longer be regarded as radical or strange, but as smart. And soon they'll be asking you for advice!
I love to garden and nurture and find that it is about MUCH more than about eating in those few moments that the veggie is in one's mouth. I know it sounds overblown! Its true tho :-) Maybe I should become a garden consultant for the suburban masses *winks*