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My first childhood food memory
isn't a dazzling birthday cake or a melting ice cream
cone, as one might expect. Rather, it's a small blue
bowl of bright red radishes.
When I was growing up, my grandfather
ate radishes at every summer supper. As a devoted five-year-old
who wanted to be just like him, I tenaciously set out
to do the same. That year, I began to mimic his every
move as he methodically reached for a newly stemmed
radish, dipped it gently into sprinkled salt, and unceremoniously
popped it into his mouth. I'd sit at the table next
to him and
unconvincingly exclaim, "Mmmmmmmm! These are good!"
even as my mouth burned and tears ran down my face.
If eating them would make me more like Gramps, I would
happily endure the pain.
Within a few days, my grandmother
asked me if I'd help her as she washed the dirt from
that evening's radish crop. I vividly recall my pride
at being entrusted with such an adult responsibility
as I pulled the step-stool from the utility closet and
dragged it to the sink for my first experience in meal
preparation. My grandmother stood by my side praising
my cooking skills and telling me that my efforts would
mean the world to Gramps. As my grandmother had predicted,
Gramps' face beamed when I presented him with my work,
and the feeling I experienced that day of delighting
others with food has never left me.
My childhood relationship with
the radish evolved still further when I returned home
later that summer and excitedly told my mom of my new
favorite food. She promptly bought a package of radish
seeds and helped me plant them in the foot-wide flower
bed between the house and driveway. As I watched over
the tiny plants during the next few weeks, I learned
not only of their need for water, sun and weeding, but
of my own intimate connection with my planet and my
food. The simple radish had taught me to appreciate
the fundamental links between growing, cooking and eating.
Today, 40 years later, our nation's
children seem to have fewer opportunities for such personal
contacts with their food. Instead, most of their food
mysteriously arrives in sterile stores encased in flashy
packages bearing a laundry list of unpronounceable ingredients,
most of which have been "grown" in corporate
science labs. Their contents have been freeze-dried,
pre-cooked, concentrated and vacuum-packed. And even
the whole foods they consume have often been genetically
modified, sprayed with myriad pesticides, or derived
from animals injected with a virtual pharmacy of antibiotics
and hormones.
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Our
children now live in a world in which more than 25%
of their meals are eaten in front of a television set
and another 25% in the car. Fully one-third of American
children eat in fast food chains every day. Under such
circumstances, rarely do children learn that meals are
an opportunity for leisure, conversation and hospitality.
Rather, millions of media messages each year scream
out to them that food is about convenience, image and
instant gratification.
But there is hope. In the past
year, I have had the good fortune to observe a classroom
full of six-year olds shout "Me! Me! Me!"
when asked who wanted more of the beans they had just
sautéed together as a group, to hear an eight-year-old
exclaim, "It has veins just like I do!" when
examining a leafy collard green under a magnifying glass,
and to witness a teenager utter in amazement, "It's
magic!" after pulling a carrot from the ground.
But while certainly magical,
these children's experiences are hardly magic. Rather,
they are nothing more than opportunities diligently
discovered and passionately pursued. With a little imagination
and initiative, class-
rooms become make-shift kitchens, city balconies become
urban vegetable gardens, family field trips become agricultural
adventures to farmers' markets and farms, and narrow
suburban flower beds become miniature patches of radishes.
Unfortunately, in our never-ending
efforts to give our children more of what we think they
want, our frenzied schedules often prevent us from providing
them with more of what they really need. As a result,
we all too quickly fall into the habit of picking up
ready-to-eat meals on the way home from work or stopping
for burgers on the way home from soccer practice. But
as adults, the responsibility for shepherding our youth
through the perils of our modern industrialized society,
and reconnecting them to their own roots in the natural
world, rests squarely and unequivocally on our shoulders.
Perhaps the best way to accomplish this overwhelming
task is by exposing our children to food in ways that
not only feed their growing bodies, but nurture their
very souls. Perhaps the best way is by teaching our
children to relish the radish.
Kate Adamick, JD, is a consultant
specializing in school food reform and is featured in
the upcoming school food documentary, Two Angry Moms.
She can be reached at chefkate@nyc.rr.com.
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