A Hands-On Education in Food

My daughter, Belle, is 18 and has a sticker on her computer that reads, “I care about where my food comes from.” My spouse and I have chuckled about that for the couple years she’s had it as we find Pringles cans and a variety of empty bags of fast food—all foods whose origin are a bit of a mystery— on the floor of her car.

She got the sticker after spending a semester in Maine at a program in which she received a hands-on education and participated in daily living tasks such as chopping her own wood for heat and preparing food for the dining hall. All the food they ate grew on their campus or was raised on nearby farms. Belle’s diet broadened and she came home interested in eating a wider range of food; but in reality that sticker is just cool and the farm-to-table movement is trendy, even among Traverse City high school students. The Pringles cans still came and went and remnants of other junk food remained on the floor of her car. But there has been a shift of behavior from Belle recently and I believe the cause is from her current employment.

This past spring Belle began juggling two jobs: one at Providence Farm in Central Lake and the other at The Cooks’ House in Traverse City. The days at the farm have included typical farm activity such as planting, weeding and harvesting. Her closet of ratty long pants and hats has expanded this summer and she comes home with dirt lines from sweat along her arms daily. She loves the work, though, and loves being outside most hours of the day. There are great conversations among the workers while they plant and this comradery eases the hard labor.

Every week she excitedly throws a bag of “flawed” produce on our counter: potatoes that have cracks, funky-shaped carrots, etc. “I grew those!” she says, obviously proud. This week it was squash blossoms—something I’ve read about and been intrigued by but likely wouldn’t have bought. She gave me recommendations from some of her coworkers.

While I find her advice entertaining (this would never have happened a year ago), a couple of weeks ago she really surprised me. Like me, Belle gets food cravings that she is determined to fix the moment she has them. The other day she came home from work and plopped a bag of potatoes on the counter and informed her family she was making French fries. Belle isn’t very versatile in the kitchen so I worried about the end product. She also tends to destroy a kitchen, even when she pours a bowl of Cheerios. Fortunately, I had somewhere to go for the evening so I didn’t have to watch the new chef at work. When I returned in an hour I was pleasantly surprised. She had saved me a plate of her homemade fries and they were delicious.

Saturday mornings you can find Belle at the farmers’ market selling the produce she has helped grow. Last month one of the chefs from The Cooks’ House, her other place of employment, came and bought fresh beets from her stand. Later that evening, while waiting tables at the restaurant, she served those beets as a salad with red cabbage and fresh chèvre. She had to hold herself back from telling the diners, “I grew that!”

She recapped her experience with beets for me the following morning. She had planted them, weeded around them, harvested them, sold them and then served them. With the exception of preparing them, she had personally participated in the farm-to-table movement. It reminds a little of the fable about the little red hen who planted the wheat seed and eventually went through the whole process to make a loaf of bread. Thankfully, unlike that hen, Belle shares of her labor.

I’ve always valued nutrition, I serve my family good food, eat well myself and shop at the farmers’ market. As a parent, I’ve hoped to pass these values on to my children. But once they become teenagers and have their own income and more freedom, outside of the meals in our home they consume what they may. I wish I had tilled the soil with my kids at an early age and helped them grow and then prepare something to eat with what they had personally harvested. The pride of this process has significantly changed Belle’s eating habits and I believe it would do so for most people.

Last night the two of us were alone for dinner. Considering I have a fridge full of vegetables I asked what she was in the mood for. She replied, “Pizza!” And though I’d have liked to think she meant a homemade pizza Margherita, I knew she meant dialing a number. I guess some old habits are hard to break entirely.