That's a wrap (not a burrito)

My mom and dad grew up in the piney woods of southern Arkansas during the Great Depression. Most folks kept chickens in their dirt yards (nobody could afford a grass lawn), and just about everybody grew a little food like potatoes, onions and tomatoes. My maternal grandfather was a traveling preacher, and their family moved a lot through little towns like Marvell, Holly Grove, Marianna and Gould. Oftentimes, the country congregations couldn't afford to pay their pastor in cash, so my mom's family often dined on the generous contributions of the community her father served: a couple dozen eggs here, a chicken there, a wheelbarrow full of potatoes here, a bag of flour there. My grandparents had three kids to feed, and food was pay.

Back then, the trees and shrubs in southern Arkansas were copious providers of a slew of edible fruits and nuts. From the mulberry trees bursting with sweet purple berries to the joyously red Mayhaw fruit to the nut-filled burrs of the Ozark chiquapin (a sub-species of chestnut) to the trout, bass and crappie filling the streams and lakes, free food was all over the place. My dad had a soft spot for chinquapins as a kid, and even played a game called "hully-gully," which involved several kids shaking the tree so the other kids could catch the delicious nuts falling into their waiting hands. There was a song that went with it too -- Chinquapin Woman -- but I won't recount that here. The point is, even in an era where many Americans were living in what we would today call "abject poverty," including my ancestors, there was plenty of food.

I bring up these familial memories here as we wind down the Hunger Challenge because this week has really got me to thinking about the state of our food system. It is broken, and in danger of getting worse. A whole lot worse. Sure, there are amazing things happening right now, particularly here in the northwest: the many urban agriculture projects now up and growing or in the works; the proliferation of city-dwellers keeping chickens and goats, and planting gardens; the numerous P-Patches and community gardens in Seattle; community kitchens and the revival of the communal meal; the Beacon food forest. All these and other projects happening now illustrate the ingenuity, resourcefulness, consciousness and authenticity that make living in Seattle hard to beat.

BUT. There are many corners of our glorious land that are not so lucky. By the time I was born, my grandmothers' chicken neck-wringing days -- and those of most everyone else -- were long past. Chicken didn't come from the yard anymore, it came from a styrofoam tray wrapped in plastic.  The chinquapin trees had all but died out in the South. The delectable Mayhaw jelly folks used to make and stockpile for the year had become the stuff of legend.

And while there are laudable efforts locally and worldwide to revive the populations of the vast array of edible plants and animals our forebears enjoyed in great bounty (like the chinquapin tree), the sad truth is that overall, the diversity of our food system has drastically dwindled; the nutritional value of even our best organic fruits and vegetables is measurably less than it was even a generation ago; and people in general are severed from the source of what's on their plates. Homogeneity is the name of the new game, and it is spelled with letters including G, M, and O. The hour is late, but it is still not too late to change.

At last week's Hunger Action Forum, keynote speaker and food system activist Ellen Gustafson urged everyone present to "Occupy your kitchen!" Here's how I took her admonition: cultivate a meaningful relationship with your food -- know where it comes from (including where it was grown or raised and by whom), know how it was harvested or slaughtered, know how it tastes, know how to prepare it, know what goes with it, and know what kind of nutritional bang you're getting for your buck. Cook with other people. Keep it simple and delicious. Explore. Grow. Share. Eat.

My colleagues and I who have reported our experiences here have all taken slightly different approaches to the Hunger Challenge.  Some of us failed to stay on budget, some of us bent (or broke) the rules a little, some of us did okay on all counts. But we all spent a lot of time thinking about, talking about, shopping for, preparing and eating food for ourselves and our families.

If you're wondering whether my chicken and bean stew made it through the week, I can tell you it went even farther than I expected. We had it for three full meals and there's still enough left for a couple of bowls full! We made it through five days and stayed on budget, even with almost all of the foods we ate 100% organic. We did not turn to the miles of aisles of cheap processed foods, we neither bought nor consumed anything remotely "fast." We didn't even make burritos. And that's a wrap.