Day three: Food, part 1

I'm doing this backwards, truly -- I should be talking about growing food before I talk about cooking with what you grow and preserving it. But the latter is what we did today, so that's what I'm going to talk about.

Ever read the ingredients on the back of a box of processed food? Don't, unless you want to learn how to cook. The number of things in your food that aren't at all food is truly frightening and I have to wonder how many of the first world's burgeoning medical problems are due to eating not-food.

I'll skim over the huge amounts of petroleum required, in one way or another, to grow food in the modern industrial manner and save that post for when I talk about growing food -- but trust me on this, between tractors, fertilizer, and all the gas needed to get food here from Guam or something (when, really, there are plenty of people in Guam or wherever who'd happily eat it too), it's a lot. Growing your own food, or buying it from someone who grows it locally using proper organic techniques, is just a better idea.

But this means learning to cook it. I didn't learn to cook from my mother when I was growing up as girls have done for millennia -- Dad wanted a boy he could teach to build things and didn't get one, so I was elected. I didn't learn to cook from my ex until very late in our relationship, either. I've learned a lot from Tim (and Julia Child!) but don't go thinking that I've been cooking for my entire life or any such. It doesn't take long and, frankly, it's not that hard. If I can do it, really, anyone can.

And cooking from ingredients instead of from a box or a can is so much more satisfying -- yes, it's a bit more work and more planning, but the food just tastes better. Think you don't have time? Bet you'll make time once you taste the difference. Think you don't have the money? The money you'll save on multivitamins and health care will cover whatever extra money you might spend on food made out of food and not chemicals.

Because I tell you what, I feel better. Not just from an emotional standpoint, the satisfaction of doing something I think is right and proper (though that's not a small thing), but straight-up physically. My allergies have lessened or plain disappeared. I haven't gotten a cold in nearly a year (previously every two months or so). The last cold I got didn't turn into bronchitis as they inevitably used to. My joints feel better. I have more energy. It's an astounding difference.

Today we cooked -- a Flemish vegetable tarte, two loaves of bread (and o, the scent of fresh-baked bread in your kitchen!), a quiche, pork and veggies for dinner, and four quarts of applesauce and three of salsa for canning tomorrow.

Which brings me to the other part of this post -- preserving food. Yeah, you can buy the stuff in cans and jars at the store and it's a lot less work, and you can buy it any time of year so why stock up? Apart from blizzards and such, preserving your own food in season just makes a lot of sense. You know exactly what's going in it -- I started on the thought of canning when I read the back of a can of stewed tomatoes and discovered that one of the ingredients was high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup? In tomatoes?

As I recall I said several awfully rude things, and threatened to throw one of the jars (Tim got hold of it so the windows and dog are safe). I was (and still am) furious. That's it, I said, I'm canning my own tomatoes so I know exactly what goes in em.

We found a local place that sold us twenty-five pounds of canning tomatoes for fifteen dollars, and added about five pounds of our own tomatoes, and spent the afternoon cutting them up, bringing them up to temperature, pouring them into quart jars, and processing the lot. Yup, a long afternoon's work and we all hurt some at the end of it. But now we have enough tomatoes to last at least the winter if not until next tomato season, and there's nothing in them but tomatoes and a bit of lemon juice to keep the acidity high enough.

That got us going. Three kinds of pickles, zucchini relish, salsa, goose stock, applesauce, and our cabinets are full of good, wholesome, fairly inexpensive food. We could be snowed in for a good long time and wouldn't be hungry. It's a lovely secure feeling.

As gas becomes more scarce the price of food, which depends so heavily on it, will only go up. Learning to cook and preserve what's available, what's local and in season and thus less expensive, will make things a lot easier as time goes on.

Also? Worth it if only for the flavour.