An omnivore talks turkey
We're approaching Thanksgiving, the traditional American holiday which celebrates the first successful harvest season of the New World. Over time the celebration has morphed into an annual day of travel, family, gluttony, football, and shopping. Thanksgiving isn't the first holiday whose identity changes over time, but it is probably the only one which features food with such prominence. When you think Thanksgiving, you think turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. Nothing wrong with that.
I'm doing something different for Thanksgiving this year, and it's something I've been planning for several months. I'm eschewing the traditional "run to the store and load up the cart" thing in favor of buying locally-raised foods, organic if possible, for as much of the meal as possible. Ideally, most of what we eat will have come from within a hundred miles of Charleston.
A few years ago I read The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. It was an interesting book, and it — along with Super Size Me (thanks, Morgan) — started me down the road of paying more attention to the food I put in my body. The old adage "you are what you eat" is 100% true. Every cell in your body is built of stuff, and that stuff comes directly from the food you eat. If you're not completely sure where that food comes from, well, that should raise some interesting ethical and philosophical questions.
This weekend I bought our Thanksgiving turkey. It spent its days outside, eating grain, wild grass, and insects. It was raised 40 miles from Charleston by Craig and Lorna Canterbury of Canterbury Farms in Jackson County. I've been corresponding with Craig since July, and over that time, he has kept me informed about the progress of this and the other turkeys on their farm. He said I was more than welcome to visit his farm and witness the entire operation for myself, something I seriously doubt would be an option from any of the large-scale turkey processors. On Saturday, I drove to Ripley to pick up the turkey — and I was honored to shake Craig's hand, meet his wife, and personally thank them both for the service they provided to me and for the alternative they're offering to big-name, big-store poultry.
There's some blog buzz this evening about Food, Inc., eating in general, how we do it, and why we do it the way we do. At the basest level, eating is a human need and completely unavoidable. Beyond that, an entire world opens up, its lands taste and texture, its seas sometimes calm and sometimes dangerous. Merchants of the food industry are cut from every imaginable cloth, but ultimately, they all want to peddle their wares to you. And much like any other purchase, it is a matter of choice.
I realize not everyone has the economic liberty of choice when it comes to food. I've been in that situation myself. But I think it goes beyond that. I think we also eat what we become accustomed to eating, these habits being influenced by family, culture, and tradition. I think sometimes even when we do have a choice, we're too deeply ingrained in old habits to realize it. And believe me, the merchants you support with those habits certainly aren't going to be the ones to tell you about the alternatives.
So this year, we're doing something a little different for Thanksgiving. I think it's important to keep some money in West Virginia and I think it's important to know where our food is coming from, so I'm making some choices which reflect those beliefs. These may be small choices, but if everyone makes small choices like these, they will eventually make a big difference.
Comments on "An omnivore talks turkey":
I blogged about something very similar today.
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