Berry’s reading for this week reminded me of a conversation I had with a great coworker in the office about community and food memories. We were discussing the role of home gardening in everyday life, which was part of a greater conversation about state wide rural and urban planning. Both of us were in favor of home gardening for several reasons, but his main reason was that gardening, and a strong connection to food in its natural environment is key to inspiring people about food and its place in society. I couldn’t agree more.

The question, as in many occasions, is how do we create and promote such access to food inspiration on state wide development policies, both in rural and urban environments. I believe that regional planning that focuses on neighborhoods and small towns (or sections of cities) is the key, and we should avoid investing solely in highly populated urban areas. This would enable regional development of the economy, education, health care and create a stronger local food system. A key benefit would be that it would mitigate urban migration, thus reducing unemployment, overcrowding and the associated effects of these.

Regional planning of this kind still does not provide food inspiration by itself. To address this, there must be an emphasis on community and neighborhood based food and energy projects. Picture this: a city block that has one main community farm (either a typical soil garden or vertical farm), and most of the other buildings also have rooftop gardens that supplement / support the greater production of the block. The majority of the food will be consumed by the neighborhood, and any surplus could be stored/ sold/shared with another neighborhood. Specialty crops, and probably some other variety would still be available at farm stands that deliver from farms outside the city (probably more common in areas with much limited vertical space).

Naturally, the value system of such neighborhoods would be very different from what it is today. To begin with, gardening (and farming), wouldn’t look like a burden or a chore, but as a way of life that everyone contributes to the food system. This in turn would bring the realization of the sense of interconnectedness we have with the social, environmental and economic spheres of our lives, and cultivate mutual responsibility. A necessary outcome of such an approach is also, in my opinion, a change to our diets and menu – we will mainly eat much more vegetables and much less meat. To begin with, in order to support more vegetable and fruits demand the out-of-city farmers would transition away from corn (that feeds cattle mostly) and soy in order to grow fruits and vegetables. This would also greatly reduce the environmental impacts of agriculture but that is a different conversation. To inspire in the way that our conversation begun, and as my coworker said recounting his childhood memories from wild berries, we have to focus on sparking the imagination of food in order for this to happen.

Reading the Wendell Berry piece for this week, in which Andy Catlett tells a story about watching his grandmother make pie, was interesting to me in what it said about cooking as a way to relate to one another. In the piece, Catlett explains how his grandmother talked while she cooked, updating him on the latest news from the family, and how he followed her around and listened intently. Through spending time with his grandmother as she cooks, he becomes closer to her and closer to his family, demonstrating how cooking can help individuals connect to one another. We’ve talked about food and community a lot in this class, and this piece was interesting to me because it seemed to describe a different process of creating connection through food, one that seems more relevant to me and my internship this summer than our discussions of eating local or food justice.

In general, I’ve been working two days a week at the Parent-Child Center in the town of Middlebury, an organization that works with families and children, especially young mothers and their children. I work in the kitchen with some young women who participate in the job training program, as well as whoever is our supervisor for the day. I spend most of my time helping with basic food prep by cutting vegetables or preparing food to send to the childcare rooms, or washing the dishes from the childcare rooms after everyone has eaten. I’ve really enjoyed the work environment because of how much the kitchen seems to be a space in which community is built. The women with whom I work are constantly sharing and comparing stories about the growth of their children and how they’re adjusting to new schools and new summer schedules, and how they themselves are doing in their relationships with husbands and boyfriends. Throughout the day, the women share words of support about how they handled similar situations, or make plans to share time and resources outside of the kitchen once work is over. It’s been interesting to see just how well the women know each other and their families, for instance when every meal is considered for allergies or diet preferences. They seem to carry around long and detailed mental lists of who can eat what, down to whether each child drinks whole or 1% milk. Additionally, at the beginning of each day when we look at the schedule to see what lunch will be for that day, the items on the menu often prompt funny stories involving the women’s families.

In Andy Catlett’s story, his grandmother is using mostly local ingredients and recipes that were probably handed down through the generations. While there has been some talk of how to increase the amount of local food used in the meals at the Parent-Child Center, my guess is that few ingredients are local, and Michael Pollan would not be please to hear that sometimes the meals include items that Berry’s grandmother certainly would not recognize as food (like today’s fishsticks). However, I think it’s important to recognize the small ways that people are connecting around food in order to better understand how the realities of our current food system compare to the huge goals that we’ve set for ourselves. For instance, budget concerns were the first thing mentioned at the suggestion of increasing local food. One of my questions about increasing local food would be the children’s response to new local vegetables, some of which may be unfamiliar. Overall, I appreciate the experience I’ve had at my internship because I’ve been able to see the community that can be formed in a kitchen, even when we have so far to go in terms of changing the way our society at large relates to food.

In reading Wendell Berry’s  piece this week, he offers us such subtle and succinct wording to describe a very intimate moment, which brought back memories for me in my own life. Berry describes food as comforting and welcoming, which reminds me of when I was younger and siting at the table watching my Grandmother cook. I would always engage in dialogue, which is so memorable and vivid in the presence of food. For me, he demonstrates a “southern style” food moment through his word choices in this piece. For example, I was struck by how simple, but powerful Berry’s words were in this piece. The sensory details that are present take the reader to the exact moment and place in which Berry is referring to from the life of Andy Catlett. The piece provides a very inviting picture for the reader; a picture that allows the reader to become one with food.

I love how Wendell Berry uses pie as a symbol and theme of this piece because it really brings out the message of how we should use food as a symbol of our everyday life. Food has so many meanings, and brings to light so many emotions and stories. The magnitude and power of the stories told and shared through food is amazing. Food is used as a political, social, and religious symbol throughout all of mankind. I know in my own life, food gives the ability for individuals to relate to one another. It provides a vivid and personal moment between multiple groups of people. I think through Wendell Berry’s diction and sensory details in this piece, the reader can learn to use food as a commonality that helps bring people together no matter what race, creed, or belief an individual comes from.

I took a winter course on “Food, Culture, and Communication” co-taught by the lovely Sohpie Esser-Calvi and her husband Ben. We spent a lot of time sharing our own food stories and listening and reading those of others. It was incredibly powerful to hear students’ experiences with food; everything from diving for clams in Cape Cod to trading traditional Jewish foods in middle school during lunch time for the highly coveted Gushers. I could connect with every story and it wasn’t like we were all great storytellers. Reading Wendell Berry’s piece about Andy Catlett made me realize that the reason I found these food stories so fascinating and relatable was that they were all about food. Even though I hadn’t eaten spam musubi nor had I eaten the mangos in Costa Rica, Berry’s story made me realize that I could relate because I know what it is like to eat.

Andy Catlett’s experience with his grandmother really struck a cord with me. His writing is incredibly accessible as even though not all are familiar with rural farm life, grandmothers, or even pies, we all know food. There is something about sharing food stories that is palpable in a way no other fiction is.

I think this is because food is the ultimate sensory experience. It provides us with an endless array of smells, tastes, textures, and sounds. Often times food sticks around long after it was first consumed in our bodies, providing a friendly reminder of the experience we have had. Eating is the most physically-holistic experience out there. Food forms our bodies and our experiences affecting everything from energy levels, sleep habits, and overall health and is something that we engage with everyday. Stories like Berry’s connect us in ways that other literature can’t as they play on this common experience and joy of eating.

Going back to Sophie’s comment during the video panel with Bill McKibben, Helen Young, Dara Scott, and Kirk Webster, the way to connect with people and create meaningful change is by taping into the pleasure and love for and from food. Sharing food stories, while seemingly not much more than an entertaining ice-breaker has the ability to connect and unite people prompting greater systemic change. If someone were to tell me now, after having read Berry’s story, that wild black raspberries were becoming endangered I am much more likely to stand up and do something about it as now I better understand the significance it has to real people if they were to become extinct.