Harvest Season: The Annual Tribute to My Grandmothers
“I think grandma would say that it should be a bit creamier,” my mom said on our biannual sweet corn freezing day. So, we adjusted the cook time shorter and made sure our corn would be just the right cream and just the right kernel.
I am thirty-three years old and I can remember back to the days when I would stand on a stool in my grandmother’s kitchen and help move the corn cobs from the cold water to the very cold water as we chilled the freshly blanched corn. Some days, I would help fill pint jars with whole round juicy cherries or watch as my mother and grandmother peeled and canned baskets of peaches. Canned fruit from the store leaves me wishing for “real” canned fruit…the kind that comes with ripe fruit, sugar, and a hint of old-fashioned cooking.
I’ve never thought much about how unique my childhood was growing up on the farm with my conservative Mennonite grandparents. Oh, they drove a car, a large sedan that had a bench seat in the front that I could sit in between them. My grandma wore a covering and wore dresses everyday with an apron to keep the kitchen dirt off of her. My family didn’t…we dressed like everybody else and my grandparents didn’t seem to mind. But living with them and having that type of community as my background, I learned beautiful, community building skills that started and ended in the kitchen with food.
On canning or freezing days, our kitchen would be piled full of baskets or boxes of the fruit or vegetable we were preparing to store for winter. It was a family affair with everyone doing a job, even little me in my bare feet, getting under foot. We’d talk and laugh and eat and work…for hours. Freezing corn or canning peaches for a large family is a day’s work. My grandma would have peppermint water…water made with a little peppermint extract and sugar to keep us going or Meadow tea from the side of the house. It was hard work, but with many hands, the time would fly by.
So in August each year, as the harvested tomatoes, sweet corn, and cucumbers fill my house, I do an annual tribute to my grandmothers that came before me. I freeze corn, can tomato soup, braid onions, and store fresh potatoes from my garden. I can pickled beets, make salsa, and start freezing vegetables as my jars start filling up. It is hard work…often filling my day, but there is something relaxing, calming in the chopping of vegetables, filling of jars, boiling of water. Perhaps it is that I enjoy cooking or maybe, its a small bit of the women who came before me…my grandmothers, my great-grandmothers, my great-aunts, and on and on and on back through the history of my family, working alongside to make this task light.
Cooking, preserving, and homemade meals are a legacy and tradition in my family…
What sorts of traditions do you have that were passed down through yours?
The Power of Food: Building a Sense of Community
This time of year is always a time of immense satisfaction to me. I feel wealthy, decadent, spoiled, as I eat meal after meal after meal of meats, cheeses, fruits, and vegetables that come directly from my own farm and from the work of my hands. My husband and I love to eat well. We love the idea of slow food and of taking the time to enjoy each bite. Yes, food is for sustenance, but when you look at what food does for us as people, it is so much more.
Food builds community. Think about the times you have spent hanging out with friends around a dining table, connecting with your children or parents each day or eating a romantic dinner with your favorite person. Food helps us to slow down, to talk, to laugh, and to see each other where we are at. Growing up, our family put a lot of importance on our meals at the table. Books needed to be set aside and we were taught to give each other intentional attention, using our listening to see each other and love each other over delicious and filling food. These times fill more than our stomachs. They fill our hearts and our minds as well.
But food builds community in even deeper ways. When we step outside our homes, we move from our small units to our larger spheres of life. We interact with people who are different from us. We learn grow and see the beauty of diversity around us. Food can transport us to an awareness and love for other cultures. Think about the times you’ve sat down at a Mexican, Indian, Puerto Rican restaurant. As you eat the foods prepared for you, you are being given a gift of seeing a culture through its taste buds. When I think of food as sharing cultures, I think of my friend, Michiyo, who when she visits from Japan, loves to cook large beautiful meals for my family. She makes tempura, rice, curry and shares the seasonings..spices…snacks…and sauces with us. As we eat her lovingly made meal, she eats chicken corn noodle soup, Italian Hoagies, and scrapple. The beauty of sharing food, culture and ourselves with one another.
As a farmer, my attachment for food goes beyond my own family and into my community. I love to hear of meals prepared by my customers for their families whether for holidays, daily meals, or for a special friend. I love knowing that the food I labor to provide to my community is creating these pockets of relationship, these connections between people. Food is a beautiful thing. Farming is a beautiful thing. And I am lucky to be a part of it.
