Beyond

I hope I never lose my sense of wonder. If that makes me naive, then so be it.

Monday 23 April 2007

monday and slow food

Another week beginning after a pretty good weekend including a homeschooling conference (good speakers and loads of materials in the vendor hall), a 10km bike ride to get in shape and make some lovely little endorphins, and helping my bro-in-law clean through the rubble of their burnt house. That was well worth it in terms of finding more things that somehow managed to avoid the fire (little tealight candles, not so much as melted?? Huh??) including part of their wedding cake top and some photos.

With the warm weather things are drying up so we can keep working on the farm. I'm looking forward to getting into my veggie garden again. I like to support local farmers and you really don't get much more local that that, I suppose.

While I don't produce enough ... um ... produce (two words, spelled exactly the same, on a verb and the other a noun. See what I mean about English being strange?) to be truly active in it, the Slow Food Movement is something I find intriguing. It began as an anti-fast food movement in Italy and seeks to preserve local foods and avoid the homogenization of food supplies. It seeks to maintain native plants, to promote organic farming and avoid pesticide use.

Slow Food Canada's goals include
"to protect the pleasures of the table from the homogenization of
modern fast food and life. Through a variety of initiatives, it promotes
gastronomic culture, develops taste education, conserves agricultural
biodiversity and protects traditional foods at risk of extinction."
- from Slow Food Canada site


I agree with the premise that rather than buy a tomato shipped from California at the cost of who knows how much gasoline for transport and preservatives so the fruit makes it, buy local and ripe. The flavor or a grocery-store tomato has nothing on one picked off the vine and still warm from the sun, to my mind. And while it may cost a bit more, either through money at the farmer's market or time in my garden, I think it's worth it. And all the while, you're helping to keep local small-scale farmers doing what often their family has done for generations. The huge factory farms are wiping out so many of the family farms who simply can't compete. It's sad, really.

I shall now get off my soapbox.

1 comment:

Jennifer said...

while i completely agree as well, and i fully support local farmers, (my veggie farming too), i will still buy tomatoes, apples, broccoli, green beans and such out of season...i could not resort to eating squash all winter. i'd die of boring food. oh how i wish for a cold cellar! but i do buy organic.