The human side of food

I've been thinking quite a bit about the why of taking the locavore route, at least as it relates to me...

The primary motivator for me personally in joining this adventure has not necessarily been a reduced carbon footprint or healthier/tastier vegetables (although these are important). For me, it’s more about standing face-to-face with the people who have grown (or prepared) my food, to honor the memory of my grandparents’ garden and food cellar, to sink my teeth into a meal with human – not robot – fingerprints all over it.

On or around Day 2 for me in this experiment, I remembered John Steinbeck’s comments on the super-sanitized American food system in Travels with Charley: In Search of America. I drove down to the county library, checked it out and found the passage I was looking for:

Everything that can be captured and held down is sealed in clear plastic. The food is oven-fresh, spotless and tasteless; untouched by human hands. I remembered with an ache certain dishes in France and Italy touched by innumerable human hands.

In another, he recalls sharing tea with an elderly man in North Africa:

He gave me mint tea in a glass so coated with use that it was opaque, but he handed me companionship, and the tea was wonderful because of it.

More often than not, the food I eat has spent more time on a conveyor belt or an Interstate highway than on someone's kitchen counter, and I'd like that to change.

So, by all means, touch my food.