Author: Benjamin Harris

Ever since I read the book “Goat Song,” by Brad Kessler, I’ve been in love with the concept of “terroir.” It’s a term that belongs to the world of winemaking, and refers to the unique environmental conditions that create the inimitable taste of a certain wine. Subtle differences in soil, temperature, humidity, and numerous other factors mean that no two bottles are ever the same, at least in the eyes of an aficionado (which I am most definitely not). Once upon a time, I saw viticulture’s vocabulary as kind of exclusive and maybe even esoteric. From my first sips of wine at the family dinner table, I struggled to overcome my skepticism. Hints of chocolate? Velvety undertones? Notes of liquorice, vanilla, and cloves? Wine descriptions were not only tongue-twisters to say, but also to taste.

That was until my time in Haiti converted me into a connoisseur of a different sort: not of sophisticated and expensive wines, but simple and everyday food. After long hours building houses in the rugged mountains, I was ready to refuel with my fellow volunteers—“refuel” the operative word here, as we ate solely to sustain our energy. My trip was an adventure in every sense except the culinary. The humanitarian organization that we worked with didn’t pack in specialty dishes or drinks, so I went to bed never full, but always nourished for another day of arduous construction. Yet our smaller rations were much more substantial than what the Haitians have on a weekly basis (an average of seven meals). To be honest, a privileged dining experience for American “voluntourists” would have been insulting to the residents of the village who subsisted on the most basic of staples: rice, beans, plantains, and on rare occasions, scrawny chickens that make America’s definition of “free-range” seem restrictive. Even so, the nightly, nearly identical rice and bean meal that the villagers prepared for the volunteers could not have been better. There were few, if any spices, to supplement the dish. Yet I found that raw, pure ingredients satisfied me.

I can’t attribute my affection for Haitian food to the “technical” taste. It’s the more abstract qualities that I appreciated, the social and cultural terroir that I savored. We were well-fed American volunteers, and Haitian mothers inexplicably and generously fed us what could have—and should have—gone to their own children. It was difficult to reconcile our service work, regardless of its value to the village, with the saddening sacrifice they made on our behalf. As I look back on the experience, I’ve come to believe that Haitian hospitality is so rich and complex that it exposes the injustice and illogic of our socioeconomic distinctions. How can we call Haiti a “developing nation” when its food—symbolic of Haitians’ willingness to open their lives to strangers who live literal and figurative worlds apart—is so far above American fast-food? It’s a tragedy that the “developed” label suggests superiority somehow, yet entails a loss of connection with food, and ultimately, a detachment from place-based culture. Can the United States be a nation of homogenous chain restaurants and at the same time a cultural “melting pot”? I’m more skeptical about this apparent contradiction than I am about winemaking adjectives. The give-and-take nature of my time in Haiti—we helped Haitians improve their infrastructure, while their gratitude manifested in lodging and meals—is the relationship that we should share with our food in the U.S. If we pay better attention to the origins of our diet—the care of both place (environment) and people (culture) who cultivate—I think our empathy will deepen. We’ll be able to bridge cultural divides and recognize the commonality of the human experience, with food the ultimate and universal element.

The mornings at Middlebury when I can barely stomach burnt coffee in the dining hall, I reminisce about those two brief weeks in a country that could hardly be considered a “destination” hotspot. And yet for me, happiness in the Western hemisphere’s poorest nation was as simple as a thick, rich cup of Haitian coffee, loaded with frothy milk and fresh-cut cane sugar. Even more important than the unique flavor was the fact that Haitians and American volunteers drank the coffee side-by-side in silence, welcoming the warmth of the sunrise. No faltering words were needed—the strong coffee easily broke the language barrier. I remember getting up at the crack of dawn once to watch a Haitian woman tend to a cauldron of the bubbling brew with loving care, like it was her own child. Given the superstition surrounding cauldrons, there are many mysterious ingredients that could’ve been in that enormous pot. But I wasn’t wary. I’d witnessed the craftsmanship and sacrifice that went into a beverage that many people don’t take time to think twice about, so it was no mystery to me why Haitian coffee could taste better than any Starbucks special blend.

“They esteem farming as both a practical art and a spiritual discipline”

On a NOLS Semester in the Rockies, I found myself surrounded by the most picturesque scenery I’d ever seen. The thing was, it was aesthetically overwhelming. It sounds strange to say, but there almost a surplus of beauty—the grass was too green, the alpine lakes too aquamarine, everything flawless and therefore somehow false to my eyes. Maybe it’s not so different from industrial agriculture’s overabundant and unnaturally “perfect” crops. In retrospect, it’s also surprising to realize that the most poignant moments that I experienced in the Western wilds happened to me in the desert, a place that we often see as barren and lifeless. Yet I was intensely moved by the desert, and not alone in this sentiment—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s famous protagonist agrees in The Little Prince: “I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams…” What I took away from my short time in canyon country was the reassurance that there’s no single “right” interpretation of Eden. It doesn’t have to mean some far-removed and incredibly lush Garden. Somehow, I had fallen for a place that might be considered classically “ugly” with its spiny cacti, thick-skinned creatures, and endless (arid) soil. This is why I think farming’s emphasis on the soil beneath our feet is so important—it forces us to locate our small selves in a single place within the context of the larger world. Ultimately, it makes us appreciate even the smallest signs of life as evidence of beauty. My backcountry adventures impressed upon me the old saying that sometimes, less is more…meaning that farmers can be just as spiritual through the simplicity of soil as someone who grapples with the complexity of organized religion.

Although the spiritual often has “lofty” associations because we tend to think of the afterlife as located above, I’m becoming more convinced that spirituality is strongest when it grounds us. Is so-called “soul-searching” an oxymoron if what we search for—some hidden aspect of our identity­—has been intrinsic to us all along? Spirituality should not be a journey that draws us further away from ourselves towards an anticipated and distant end, but rather brings us closer to home in the here and now. I think it could be said that our spirituality ultimately lies in the soil that cultivates our personal growth as much as any plant. Wendell Berry’s praise of the Amish ability to “esteem farming as both a practical art and a spiritual discipline” rings true to me, though I’m neither Amish nor religious in the traditional sense. Some might accuse Berry of romanticism, but I agree with his belief that the intimacy of family farming is a kind of spirituality. The small-scale farmer has a self-awareness that modern agribusiness lacks, simply because the latter is mechanized. Machines may shorten the tedium of repetitive tasks that “inefficient” manual labor prolongs, but ironically, I think there is meditation in the monotony of working with one’s hands. When you think about it, just as a churchgoer folds his hands in prayer, the farmer “supplicates” to the soil. Farm rituals are religious rites. The farmer performs each daily chore as an act of faith that the soil will reward diligence with the miracle of metamorphosis, the moment when small, vulnerable seeds sprout and flourish.

At some level, there seem to be uncanny similarities between “conventional,” churchgoing religion and conventional, modern agriculture. It could be argued that both are “institutionalized” in the sense that they adhere to a set of standards, whether it’s observance of the Sabbath or a certain production quota (in contrast, subsistence-based family farms are less likely to resort to rigid numbers-crunching). Corporate agriculture calls for the consolidation and aggregation of resources, time, and personnel. Conventional religion congregates people and “preaches to the “choir.” In a literal sense, farmers do not fit the “pure” standards of religion. They do “dirty work” in every sense. Their thankless, tedious tasks are unromantic, but make them the backbone of America. What’s more, they engage in labor that others are reluctant to undertake. Yet society shows a double standard because it doesn’t glorify farmers like it does soldiers (for instance), both of whom make significant sacrifices for the greater good.

The point that I mean to make from drawing these parallels is that we’ve become too narrow in our belief system, be it theistic or agricultural. What constitutes official “religion” and what we might call “official” farming—the grossly over-productive operations valued over small farms because they enhance America’s overall economic prosperity, rather than enable only a single family’s survival—are more stringently defined than ever before. Somewhere along the way, we’ve allowed a puzzling hypocrisy to evolve. Here in America, where individualism is supposed to be sacrosanct, the farmers who still sow, till, plow, and harvest by hand are somehow seen as “behind the times,” maybe even “backwards,” even though their direct connection to the soil instills them with a unique knowledge of nature (the terroir of their farm) and awareness of their individual identity in relation to the land. It seems that we’ve stigmatized spirituality as a selfish pursuit, a claim that the subsistence farmer “substantiates” when he produces only for himself. But that’s so utterly untrue when we think about the ethics of smaller, more sustainable farming and its invisible implications. We fail to account for this type of farming’s close ties to wildlife, ecosystems, and neighbors, all of which benefit in ways that may not be monetary, but are most definitely holistic, eco-friendly, and enduring. The relationship between neighbors who have mutual respect for each other’s farming practices epitomizes the priceless social capital of small agriculture, something that can’t be quantified—at least in how agribusiness measures success. So in fact, the spirituality of the small farmer is selfless. Maybe it’s time to rethink the symbolic hierarchy of life, so that we start to see soil just as “heavenly” or “high” as the sky.