I Like to keep my food close by. Too far from plate to mouth and there’s a good chance it’ll end up as a tasteful garnish on my cheek or tie.
“There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip” I’ve discovered to my chagrin, as I undress at night.
It may not help that I take gustatory cues from Gonzo’s Book of Etiquette, of Muppet fame.
Question: “Should chicken be eaten with the fingers?” Answer: “Chicken is properly eaten with the mouth, but the fingers may be used to stuff it in there.”
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Of course there are other good reasons to keep food close by. I love sour cherries. And Saskatchewan produces some of the world’s finest.
But you have to search long and hard to find them in a Saskatoon store. It’s U.S. cherries that line our shelves.
Nettie Wiebe and I teach a course called Food, Faith and Rural Community. Our students have to track down the sources of their food for one meal. Most discover that their fruit and veggies have immigrated from very distant lands. ÂÂ
Prices for these foreign foods may seem OK, but there are critical costs not reflected on the supermarket sticker.ÂÂ
Depending on the distance and mode of transportation, one kilogram of food can cost one to 17 kg of CO2 added to the air as it travels to us.ÂÂ
We are charging those costs to our children, who will face the worst effects of climate change. But there are also immediate costs to us. Every fall, when I once again have to buy tomatoes at the supermarket, I realize that tomatoes that have to travel 2,000 kilometres are designed with invulnerability in mind, not taste or nutrition.
And buying from away is a huge cost to our communities. Food doesn’t just feed our physical body. It also keeps our social body alive. I was at a rural church potluck last week. The buzz of conversation and the great variety of homemade food were snapshots of community-building in action.ÂÂ
Local food feeds community especially well. When regional producers, retailers and consumers have to meet and talk, connections are formed. Producers can respond directly to consumer preferences. Consumers get high quality food. Less profit is lost to transportation and
producers can stay in the community,
keeping schools, hospitals and churches alive.
Sure, Burger Barns might suffer if they couldn’t rely on factory systems of distant distribution.
But their “haste cuisine” might give way to real meals where people sit down and talk to each other.
Local food also feeds our souls. I first felt it as a child climbing down into Uncle Dave’s root cellar. Turnips, potatoes, carrots and parsnips all slumbered in earthy beds. It was somehow like getting “inside” creation, a little closer to the Creator.
Food is God’s gift of life. Maybe that’s why so many faith traditions centre around food.
In Eucharist, in Ramadan meals, in Passover and Karamu feasts, the veil between Creator and creation grows thin. So let’s keep our food close by.
It’s good for us.
Cam Harder is associate professor of systematic theology at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon.
