Carmen’s Weekword Challenge: Rebel

In thinking about the word “rebel,” I wondered in what way I might be considered one. I’m not really the rebellious type. And then, while preparing dinner one evening, it struck me: I am a food rebel.

Current view of this year's garden. So far, so good!

Our pond crayfish, "poor man's lobster."

Yes, my food consumption flies in the face of the establishment. I go out of my way to procure food in diverse ways. I’m an open-minded, experimental eater, yet I generally shun mainstream America’s grocery store food (exception: my favorite chips, oops). I grow, forage, catch, dispatch & eat foods that others might never dare to prepare!

I strive to produce a bang-up garden every year — even when the tending, harvesting & preserving wrings me out  — because fresh, homegrown, organic food tastes so darn good. I raise hens for eggs, and yes, then kill them sometimes for meat. Fishing neighbors give us their catches & I carve them up. We have fruit trees & berry bushes. We even eat certain wild mushrooms (ones that aren’t deadly poisonous are preferrable). I shell peas, can tomato sauce & pickles, root cellar enough potatoes & braid enough onions & garlic to last all year, dry hot peppers & herbs, freeze gallons of blueberries & home-pressed apple cider, ferment cabbage into sauerkraut. I can’t even list all the strange food rituals that were once commonplace in most households, but now make me & my husband just plain weird. Weird in a good way, of course. In a rebel way.

A sample of one morning's harvest last summer.

So… if you want to join a rebellion, read Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma or Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle & try what they did. I highly recommend their adventures. But if you just want a really good, rebellious meal, then come on over to my house :-)

A 40 lb. striped bass our spear-fishing neighbor gave us. You can gauge size by the spoon in the photo.

The same fish, as a meal for the grill tonight... and 5 future meals for the chest freezer!

Our homegrown peaches are small but sweet!

Ken, with a wild mushroom score.

2010 sweet corn, due in any day now. YUM!

For more Weekword interpretations of the word “rebel,” visit Carmen for a links list.

Tags: creative challenge, eating habits, fresh food, gardening, healthy eating, local food, organic food, rebel, weekword, weird