In those days the source of our food was the shops on the High Street whose owners stocked up at Covent Garden, Smithfield and Billingsgate markets in the wee hours of the morning to bring us food that the farmers and fishers had harvested the day before. We shopped daily and I learned how to choose fresh vegetables at the greengrocer, to select the freshest fish at the fishmonger, to ask for the right cut of meat at the butcher. I remember butter being custom cut for us from a large block with two wooden paddles patting it into shape, and cheese rounds spread along the grocer’s counter. My mother also loved roaming the food markets on our summer holidays in continental Europe discovering new vegetables to cook for us.
When I moved to Canada in 1966, I discovered what then seemed to me to be the wonders of supermarket shopping in the big city of Toronto. Five years later my food shopping experience changed again when I moved to the Yukon and grew my first vegetable garden. Living in Dawson City the ‘heart of the Klondike’ I was able to plant in the richest soil in the North, and marvel at the speed of growth in the land of the midnight sun. As my garden became ready to harvest, so too did the wild berries, the salmon in the Yukon River, the moose and caribou up the Dempster Highway.
My table began to tell its own stories of where the food came from, who harvested it, where the fish were caught and which hunting trip had been successful. I took pride in knowing exactly the source of my food. In summer we would feast on green salads from the garden full of cucumbers and tomatoes grown under glass, salmon steaks and fresh home made sourdough bread. Later in the season we’d be eating our first potatoes, then carrots, beets and turnips pulled from the soil after the first frost. The huge green cabbages were eaten fresh and preserved as sauerkraut for hot winter dinners. Late summer days found me in my cabin with the wood stove fired up canning and preserving, filling the root cellar and the freezer with the summer’s bounty.
When I left the Yukon I moved away from my food source again, and became a supermarket shopper for the convenience of it. It has taken a few years to find my way back and this summer once again I have been sitting down to the table able to name my food source.
Shopping at the farmer’s markets brings me the greatest joy. To be surrounded by locally produced, organic foods lovingly tended and harvested by the very folks who stand at the stalls on market days is an inspiring and soul nourishing experience. As Thomas Moore author of Care of the Soul says in his book The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life:“A good food market that has excellent produce, in great variety, presented with imagination, and filled with sights and smells and gustatory possibilities can be one of the most enchanting places on earth……. A soul-inspiring market can make you passionate about buying and preparing food.”
I find our farmers’ markets soul inspiring places that feed my passion for food and I am so very grateful for them. I am grateful to have such easy access to the amazing variety and quality of food that is available. I am grateful for every person who grows and raises and processes the foods I buy there. I am so grateful once again to be able to name the source of my food.
Our table now boasts fish, lamb, goat and cow cheeses and yogurts, vegetables and fruit from farms and farmers as close as the Fraser Valley and as far as the Nicola Valley and the Okanagan. Regularly I bless salmon caught by Iron Maiden or lamb raised by Jay Springs served with vegetables from Glen Valley Farm, Yarrow Eco Village, Forstbauer Farms, to name just a few of the many wonderful local suppliers. We eat goat cheese from McLennan Creek and cow cheese from Little Qualicum Cheeseworks. Our eggs are laid by happy local organically raised chickens. Our rhubarb, blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries, all come from farmers I personally know and can name in the Fraser valley. Peaches, nectarines, and apricots filled my fruit bowl all summer produced by organic farmers in Peachland and area. Now we’re eating apples, pears and plums from the Nicola Valley and Cawston. One of nature’s greatest food gifts, the artichoke shows up regularly on our plates bought directly from the grower at Glen Valley artichoke farm.
I am a shareholder in Glen Valley Organic Farm Cooperative, through which I have the privilege of close contact with some of the farmers who bring us this bounty and I now understand how much goes in to bringing food to my table. For this reason I want to acknowledge the extraordinary work these people do. There is no such thing as a set work-week, or even work day for the farmers. During the growing and harvesting season they simply work every day to plant, raise and gather the food they produce, and then they pile it all in a truck and drive to a market somewhere and sell it. In the dark months the work turns to repairs and maintenance, paperwork for various local and national agencies to ensure their business remains in good standing, and then to preparation for the next season. These folks have passion for what they do – without passion I doubt they could do it for there’s certainly never been much money in farming. That passion has its roots in caring for the land, and for a sustainable future.
If we all make it a priority to know the source of our food, there will be far more support for these farmers. More support for local farmers means less reliance on imported food. Eating locally means eating fresher and gaining more of the nutrition in our food. Next time you prepare a meal, ask yourself “do I know the source of this food?”.
Written by Medwyn McConachy
jmcconachy@shaw.ca
