As an enthusiastic consumer and creator of food, I enjoy browsing around various food-centric blogs. Each author spends much time rejoicing over organic produce and the wonderful farmers-markets of their neighborhoods or regions. I love it! To me, food is the best sort of celebration for bringing people together, and I love the revival of enthusiasm for truly tasty ingredients. It also inspires a self-conscious grin over the irony of it all.
You see, growing up, “organic” was a necessity rather than a luxury. Our family of 7 hungry mouths, and the conscious decision to have a single income earner and an agricultural life-style required that we forgo a few of the conveniences that were ever present in the homes of my peers. How I longed for white bread sandwiches stuffed with non-descript sandwich meat and processed cheese, pudding snacks, juice boxes, and prepackaged Twinkie-like desserts of any sort. And pizza pockets and the like…say no more! What torture it seemed to unwrap my roast beef sandwich (from the roast the night before) on (sometimes homemade) whole wheat bread, and munch on my apple or carrots while potato chip bags crackled all around me. The worst part was that my peers seemed to also feel sorry for me with my unfortunate lunch.
I smile now, to think that the same generation – my peers who shot those pitying glances – are now the ones paying a premium for organic vegetables, artisan breads, and farm-fresh eggs. Oh, to have known the value of the life we lived! I treasure it now…as vehemently as I rejected it then.
Picking green beans by the washtubs full, topping and tailing the same in marathon stretches at the kitchen table, our grumblings minimized by the aural treat of listening to books on tape from the library…that sticks in my memory as a gift. I smile over my mom’s creative genius with our overly abundant zucchini crop on a yearly basis. Who knew you could make an apple pie that was half apples and half zucchini slices and barely notice a difference? I miss, miss, miss having roast beef, new potatoes, carrots, and onions and knowing that the whole delicious, roasted, mess came from our own acres. Store-bought whipping cream was the sign of a crisis moment, and only happened when we didn’t have a freshened Guernsey cow to give gloopy, golden cream by the jars full! And eggs from free range chickens…well, of course! It’s much easier to let them mill about the yard and scavenge than to feed in the henhouse – it just makes it a bit harder to find the eggs.
What a treat! What a treasure! What a legacy to carry on!
5 comments:
I miss those days. I always loved your house. I remember kneeling around the kitchen table for prayer too.
I've been thinking about trying to make some bread next time I run out, because I remember how good it was.
But I have to rain a little on your otherwise honestly nostalgic parade. You are conveniently forgetting the terrible baloney sandwiches, sometimes for days on end. We were not above processed meat if it was cheaper than raising the cow...
Becky - true...but it was on homemade bread so I guess it cancels out. Plus the organ meat sandwiches (tongue, hear) totally negate the baloney days!
I hope you use molasses in your bread if you make it!
Ooo, the memories! And the ones you are sure to make at you new place, I envy you.
Here are a few of my memories from your farms(s)
-I remember you making Jo and I eat grass because we were your cows, now they serve it ar juice bars.
-I rememebr plucking chickens and then going into the kitchen and helping removde teh inerds and as a treat getting the feet to pull the tendons on and scare each other.
- the big old coal/wood(?) furnace in the first house, I thought the boogy man lived in it.
- climbing on hay bales and getting straw stuck down my snow pants
- the shooting of my dads cows and throwing rocks at the stomachs to see if we could bust them open, thank goodness they didn't!
- laying out watching northern lights on sleep overs
- your moms wicked pickeled carrots
c-cyotees howling at the dogs
so many memories, so many blessings, I could go on forever, they are flooding back, Thanks for the trot down memory lane!
Anna! Love it! Thanks for adding more memories. What a fun times we've shared! I totally don't remember making you guys eat grass though...would I really do a thing like that? Probably.
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