Food Spaces - Farmers Markets

Madrona-Capitol Hill Farmers Market is located in the parking lot of the Grocery Outlet, across from a local pea-patch garden and surrounded by busy streets. The parking lot fills quickly with flower vendors, lots of produce, bread, some delicious food stands and a few small products stands such as soap and personal care items. On the edges of the market a man sells Real Change newspaper. The market is friendly, lively and filled with sights, smells and sounds to enlighten your senses. Mad-Cap is held seasonally on Fridays from May through September.

Seven and a half miles down the road and around the corner the Ballard Farmers Market opens in old-town Ballard and takes up the historical, cobbled Ballard Avenue. The market is held year-round on Sundays and is filled with numerous vendors offering many different products - produce, chocolate, bread, personal care items, jewelry and much more. Ballard Avenue is surrounded by shops selling coffee, baked goods, art galleries, restaurants and more. The market at Ballard has a family feel to it and the vendors confirm this by stating, "I've known people since they were first coming here with their dogs and now they come with their kids and make it a family outing day". The street is quieter and a bit more low-key.  A man is also selling Real Change at Ballard, but he is a bit more hidden and does not call out what he is selling.

Soul Food

I believe there is no small irony in the name of our new favorite coffee shop in our new neighborhood - SoulFood.  Especially as it relates to a new community we have found in our busy lives which allows the people who enter this space to be their best, authentic selves.  A 'come as you are' joint which exudes the calming scent of incense, home, acceptance and love.

In my life currently, I am working on being a truer, more authentic self.  I decided I was not able to complete this work on my own and have sought the guidance of someone willing to help and guide me through this journey.  A part of this journey has been searching out communities and people who support authenticity and  seek truth as well.  SoulFood Books is one of these places and I/we have been blessed to find several other spots, such as Wilderness Awareness School (WAS), Oxbow Farm and some incredible friends who are totally cool with me being my wacky, weird self.

Farmer, Farm, Farming, Food: Trends in book references

I have asked several friends and family members to help me with writing some guest blog posts to offer different perspectives and add voices to the dialogue I hope to create through this blog.

Recently, my husband, Nicholas (check out his blog here!), has taken a significant interest in the data you can pull from the work I am interested in.  He is very intrigued by how the data shows our disconnect from the land, our food and those amazing people who help put said food on our plates - farmers!  While I have been blogging away on my research and activism, Nick has been pulling stats and reveling in all of the data you can find related to food and farming.

I am posting one of his recent search results which shows a disturbing lack of interest in where our food comes from, how it is grown and who grows it.

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Farmer, Farm, Farming, Food: Trends in book references since 1820

I happened across a TED talk about a tool that Google built that allows you to search a series of words across the ~15 million books that they have scanned. I was interested to see what people have been saying over time regarding the “farmer”, their “farm”, the act of “farming”, and “food”. I was hoping to find some interesting data but what I found was more interesting than I expected.

Here is the graph from the data:

No Small Potatoes

This past quarter I decided to change things up in my classes and look more closely at grassroots movements and resistance outside the United States.  I had never studied Latin America and have found the culture surrounding food in the Americas fascinating.  The work being done in Latin America surrounding fair trade, shade grown, the banning of GE products, co-ops and more is phenomenal.  I feel because more money is spent on food by people in lower socioeconomic groups, these are the people the most aware of food politics and the centrality of food to life.  

I specifically wanted to focus on the recent banning of GE products from Peru in a record setting case placing a moratorium on all GE products for the next ten years.  I wanted to include information on the centrality of the potato to Peruvian culture as well.  While there has not been a GE potato developed at this point, I believe the immense importance of preserving the biodiversity of this central crop to Peruvian culture played into the involvement of Peruvian farmers and peasants in the resistance movement against Monsanto and other GE corporations.

While this tuber may seem humble in many ways, it is of vital importance to cultures, food sources, economies and biodiversity.  It became the nickname for a war, caused a tragic famine and secondary massive migration of Irish immigrants and is an incredibly popular children's toy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Potato_Head).  The potato is not humble by any stretch of the imagination!

No Small Potatoes by rtomczek

Humane Slaughter: an Oxymoron?

One aspect missing from my research has been a truly critical look at the meat industry in the United States.  Therefore I signed up for an undergraduate class Fall quarter 2012 taught by Katie Gillespie through the Comparative History of Ideas (CHID) program at the UW.  I was very excited to take this class from the moment I read the syllabus description: Students enrolled in this course should gain a better understanding of the workings of the U.S. food system (at both an industrial and small scale) and the experience of animals within this system. Using animals in the food system as a case study, this course will explore notions of power and difference, ethics and responsibility, and creativity in reimagining the status quo. This course will push the boundaries of how we think about difference and discrimination and recognize the intersections between human and animal oppression.

I knew this class would fit perfectly into my research as I am looking at food spaces and one of these food spaces was that of the production of meat and dairy products.  One of the first books we read in class was 1984 by George Orwell and I wrote a think piece looking at how I practiced the concept of 'doublethink' and 'doublespeak' in my life.

For the kiddos

I have been following a lovely blog for a bit now (Serenity in the Storm) and there has been much conversation about having, or not having, children.  While my husband and I, at this point, have decided not to add children to our lives (we do have the four-legged variety) I work with children on a regular basis and am very passionate about these little humans on our planet.

What I have begun to notice as I have progressed through my food journey is I am beginning to reach a place where I want to pass this information on to others, specifically little ones.  While I am still not ready to enter the realm of motherhood, I have some pretty amazing tools I am continually adding to my repertoire and would like to share those with you all.

I believe children are the greatest promise of our future so why not start when they are very young by introducing them to some amazing products, thoughts, ideas and beliefs?!?  Raising children is not only about feeding bodies, but also feeding minds and I hope this list offers some ideas to feed the little ones growing in your lives.

Always bringing it back to food... (The Journey Part 5)

I started my final year in the MACS program in September 2012 with a core/required class revisiting the work of Stuart Hall and diving deeper into the layers of cultural studies.  Every chapter of the book we read, Representation, I attempted to find ties to my research within food activism and food spaces.  For some of the assignments it was nearly impossible to find pieces of cultural criticism where someone (or some people) is (are) questioning the politics of representation in the way that the authors do in the Hall book.  It was extremely easy to find data to critique, but the reverse was much more difficult.

I have included here the assignments I was able to relate to food with some critiques of my own work.

Potato or Tomato?
Seacrest, R., Oliver, J., Norris, R., Smith, B., Fresh One Productions., Ryan Seacrest Productions.,

      Channel Ten (Television station), ... American Broadcasting Company. (2010). Jamie Oliver's food 

      revolution.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/us/foundation/jamies-food-revolution/home