Food Memories

Most of us have some powerful food memories.  I have heard so many of them: memories of picking apples or blueberries, planting a garden, making a pumpkin pie from a local pumpkin and more.  Often these memories are also linked with very positive relationships in our lives, our grandmothers, children and other family members.  I think this is part of what is behind the emerging agrarian romanticism - we long for some of these same feelings and connections with our food, but often struggle to find them in our modern food system.

I have powerful memories linked to food, farming and my family.  For me though, they are primarily with our conventional family farm.  We are fifth generation farmers.  I have fond memories playing on the hay bales that fed our cattle, watching the hundreds of little piglets (or so it seemed!) run off the truck into their new pen, riding on the back of the old fashioned wheat drill as we planted our fields and countless other memories.

I think one of our challenges is helping people today feel good about the food they are eating.  I'm contemplating ways in which this can be done.  I know some people feel strongly that we should buy locally grown food so that we can be more connected to our food and support local farmers.  Some of the research I have been reading though (see links on the side) suggests that this isn't the environmentally friendly or sustainable solution that it is touted to be, but it does seem to help people feel good.  I wonder what other solutions there might be?