by Mike Bendzela
Mother used to say to me when I was growing up, “Mikey, you’re going places! Thursday’s child has far to go!” She was referring to Thursday, February 18, 1960 and the traditional English nursery rhyme. She didn’t seem to realize that “has far to go” could mean “perpetually behind” as well as “going places.” I ended up moving 850 miles away from my Midwestern hometown to rural Maine, finding a husband, learning how to use a shovel and hoe, and never wanting to leave the old farm. So, take your pick about what “far to go” means in my case.
We never travel, mainly because working a farm is a career, even a small one like ours, and also because my spouse’s Type 1 diabetes is better managed in a sedentary, predictable existence. I realized in marriage that I would never become “worldly” and didn’t care. I would have to learn whatever I could about the world on this “postage stamp of soil” (1), in William Faulkner’s memorable phrase. This existence has certainly turned us into “foodies” (scare quotes indicating how much I detest the term), even bad-ass foodies in our case, foodies such as our grandparents were. No, strike that–our great grandparents. How many people can say they grow their own stew?
During my twenties and thirties, when we first embarked on this course of Do It Yourself food production, I aspired to be “Green,” “Sustainable,” and “Self-sufficient”–even “Organic”! These are lofty ideals that died directly during their attempted implementation. All these decades later, I’ve settled for home food production and preservation that is cheap, fun, delicious, and humane. Much of it now depends on one big green secret ingredient of farming that I shall reveal at the end. Read more »