The local food movement is about place and the desire to reconnect oneself to foods that are either grown, raised or native to where we live. Learning the locality of our foods is not only a challenge to engage but an education to gain. For all of our technological gadgets and modern amenities, there is something romantic and pragmatic about knowing where you live and what foods are grown there. Some might say this is about redefining ‘home.’ Our sense of place effects our identity, whether urban or rural, rich or poor. The local food movement deepens this shift in self, now we can literally taste and smell and touch those earthly things that make our environment, home.
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Foraging (part 1)
When it comes to procuring food and preparing it to the best of one’s ability, three resources are required: time, money and knowledge. In the last couple posts I discussed the role of convenience in our modern American appetite. On the spectrum of food preparation, convenient foods are at one end and at the other lies foraged foods. The “hunter/gather” mentality is rarely practicted among populations in industrialized societies. And yet there is a romanticization of this “primitive” means of gathering sustenance. Like many people who want to be connected to their food, foraging seems like an obvious next step.
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