Victory Gardens -- Can all you can!

When I was in grade school in New Orleans, I spent a lot of time at my grandfather's house. On many evenings, his neighbor, an amateur chef whom he also dated for many years, came over to cook for us. Mike (her given name was Ruby) had lived through the Great Depression, and though she didn't often prepare the cream cheese and olive sandwiches her mother had made from the family rations, I knew about them.

By the time I was a teenager, I'd learned about the Depression and the Dust Bowl, the Stock Market Crash of 1929. I was aware of how hungry I might have been had I grown up just half a century earlier.

It wasn't until last month when I visited the Rosie the Riveter Visitor Center in Richmond, CA that I learned in detail about Victory Gardens, grown in abundance in the United States between WWI and WWII. The goal was to alleviate pressure on the public food stores. Gardening helped feed families and boosted morale for civilians on the home front. In the winter, excess food from VG's was canned and shipped to the troops.

To help get the gardens started, the government sometimes provided seeds, soil, water and expertise. Food was grown in public parks, backyards, on school grounds, and even in a crater in London.

The refrain "Can All you Can" emerged around 1941 here in the U.S.
In London, you heard things like "Plant more in '44!"

At peak production, Americans boasted 20 million gardens, and at that time VG's were responsible for over 40 percent of the vegetables consumed here. This was good for the government and even better for citizens' health; VG's were responsible for bringing nutrient-packed Swiss chard and kohlrabi into the American diet.

Here's what your standard backyard VG looked like, front to back:

2 rows potatoes
2 rows carrots
2 rows cucumbers
2 rows onions
2 rows lettuce
3 tomato plants

Needless to say, VG's fell out of favor when folks had more money in their pockets, but you'll notice a community garden here and there. With the 60's came a heightened fear (and rightfully so) of pesticide use. And people began planting anew in their own backyards.

I'm still investigating whether all these six items will grow outdoors in the Texas heat. It's a good experiment since my first baby is due six months from now!

I'll keep you posted. It'll be some time before I have access to enough of my own dirt.

Late Night of Vegetables and Folk Music II

Well, that was a rude awakening. I'd just published a post about mistaking late night Guerilla Organics deliverers for car thieves–for no good reason–and I also shared a cute vegetable song, but my original words are all gone now.

Google Blogger warned me that I had faulty HTML but I didn't know it was a fatal error and I was allowed to ignore the warning. Reminder noted: always save blogs into Word documents as well. First. Save them first.

The most important thing about my post is not my backstory about vegetable delivery. It's Steve Goodman's song, "The Vegetable Song (Barnyard Dance)". My babysitter sang it to me when I was a young girl. It's a good thing to teach the wee ones and you'll love it, too.

If his voice sounds familiar it's because he also sang "City of New Orleans." I get teary eyed when I hear him.

Enjoy your night, your vegetables and your folk music. I will enjoy my CTRL + S.


Lyrics to "The Vegetable Song"
by Steve Goodman

It was late one night by the pale moonlight
All the vegetables gave a spree.
They put out a sign that said, "The dancing's at nine"
And all the admissions were free.

There was peas and greens and cabbage and beans,
It was the biggest crowd you ever did see.
And when old man cucumber struck up that number
Well, you should have heard those vegetables scream.

Oh, the little turnip top was doin' the backwards flop,
The cabbage shook the shimmy and she could not stop.
The little red beet shook its feet,
The watermelon died of the cockeyed heat.

The little tomato, agitator,
Shook the shimmy with the sweet potato,
And old man garlic dropped dead of the colic
Down at the barnyard dance, this morning,
Down at the barnyard dance.

Oh the little turnip top was doin' the backwards flop,
The cabbage shook the shimmy, would not stop
The little red beet shook its feet,
The watermelon died of the cockeyed heat.

Little tomato, agitator,
Shook the shimmy with the sweet potato,
And old man garlic dropped dead of the colic
Down at the barnyard dance, this morning.

Down at the barnyard, late this morning.
Down at the barnyard dance.

-MDB

Keys to Food Safety

Given the continued discovery of horse meat in hamburgers in Britain, I felt compelled to get serious about food safety. And in my rapid-fire research, I discovered that about 75% of the new infectious diseases trace back to animal products. See the slideshow "10 Facts on Food Safety" compiled by the World Health Organization. (The link is in bold print; scroll down their web page).

By the WHO's estimates, foodborne and waterborne diarrhoeal diseases kill about 2.2 million people annually, 1.9 million of them children. Food trade and production is increasingly international which forces a constant and careful eye on food handling. The WHO's Zoonoses* and Food Safety department counts itself among the watchdogs.

See the organization's Five Keys to Food Safety. Some of the tips may seem second nature, but I for one didn't know soups should be served at around 70 degrees C/ 160 F or hotter.

Print the slick flyer and slap it on the wall of your nearest industrial kitchen, and on your own refrigerator. Although alone we can't keep horse meat out of burgers in the E.U., strict adherence to food prep guidelines offers us at least some control in our own homes.

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*Zoonoses–a new word for me–refers to infectious diseases that are naturally transmissible between vertebrate animals and humans.

What Every Child Should Say to You

Finally, after ten minutes of frustration, I thought I knew why E.C. was crying. For five-month-olds, so much discomfort, I think, has to do with food. For one thing, E.C. has major trapped gas. Tiny, ineffective teeth are pushing through his gums and he can't numb them with booze. That he also can't get milk from his babysitter–me–must be disconcerting. I see him reach for carrots and crackers now and again, and I push them away because he's not ready for them. He's all white-capped gums.

In these moments, when I think I'm on top of things, I'm filled with hope. But, it's all a big, fat lie. Unless something's terribly wrong–like an ear ache–it's clear I'm just guessing at the real source of his discomfort. The other day, after my epiphany about food and infants, E.C. started crying again so I got him onto my hip and we sashayed around the room. As he quieted down a bit, I stopped to look at a row of books on the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Nope, he wasn't having that. Keep moving, he seemed to say through his tears. 

In the kitchen, I rinsed some dishes and he smiled at the running water for about ten seconds. Nope, don't look at the lovely photographs on the refrigerator. Take me outside with the dogs at your feet. His sobs were slowly breaking my heart.

He does really well with walks, but his dad had already gone out with him, and he'd been tired enough for a nap. I was trying to take him that final mile. We'd go anywhere, I decided, as long as I didn't feel like a failure; as long as he and I could meet with some success. 

But, in terms of taking care of an infant, what does success even mean? And isn't the idea of trying to anticipate a baby's woes crazy-making? Wouldn't it be just as alarming if he never cried at all? As I walked out into the yard, I remembered that childcare is something akin to modern medicine. It's stochastic. A certain randomness is inherent and should be expected. It wasn't E.C. who was making me crazy at all. He wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary. I needed to know this on a deeper level, to build some endurance around it.

Taking care of E.C. makes me appreciate my own mother who raised my sister and me and never once expected us to give her instructions. (She did, I might add, sashay around the house, thereby giving me a tip for later).

At some point when E.C. and I were in the garage looking at his father's artwork, he fell asleep in my arms. I'm not ashamed to say it. I was close to tears. As I walked him to the rocking chair, I was flooded with empathy and gratitude: for the baby, for my mother, for his parents. For any adult who's ever not known what to do, for any child who's been tired out of his mind.

That day, among his father's wonderful prints, I also found the memorable words of a child. It was a get-well card penned in purple crayon on a large white piece of paper.

Dear Uncle  ______

rest for a little while
get up and get on the couch
get a snack and maybe
some coffee
and feel better.

from Dr. _____

And here we have a child who appreciates how hard adulthood can be. These words are good advice for anyone. I'll remember them next time I've got E.C. in my arms.

Pablo Neruda, on Food and Water

Ode to Water 

by Pablo Neruda

Everything on earth bristled, the bramble

pricked and the green thread 

bit, the petal fell

until the only flower was falling.

Water is different,

has no direction but beauty,

runs through all dreams of color,

takes bright lessons 

from the rock

and in those occupations works out 

the unbroken duties of the foam.

That we should all have the artist's lens of the late Chilean poet, who found beauty in the simplest things. In his Memoirs, he said he left his native Chile "to go singing through the world." Certainly his odes to various foods (excerpted below) have the power to pique anyone's interest, whether you have an appetite for poetry or not. 

Ode to the Lemon

...In the lemon

knives cut

a small cathedral,

the hidden aspe

opened acid windows

to the light

and drops poured out

the topazes,

the altars,

the cool architecture...

so when your hand 

grasps the hemisphere

of the cut 

lemon above your plate

you spill a universe of gold,

a goblet yellow

with miracles...

Ode to the Tomato

...The tomato

luminary of the earth,

repeated 

and fertile

star,

shows us 

its convolutions,

its canals,

the illustrious plentitude

and the abundance

without pit,

without husk,

without scales or thorns,

the gift of its fiery color

and the totality of its coolness.

Ode to the Artichoke

...and the gentle artichoke 

stood there in the garden

dressed as a warrior

...

Do read the full length versions of these poems and also Neruda's other odes: to watermelon, salt, onion, and the like.

Unfortunately, I think the pieces are too long to include in a single post. Read and/or listen to them in Neruda's native Spanish. Here's a challenge: find a decent Spanish-language version of these poems on You Tube. I, for one, didn't like what my search produced.

(I did, however, come across a video of my beloved Ralph Fiennes reading Neruda's Ode to the Sea. You may have heard this poem in the 1994 Italian film Il Postino, which features a fictitious Pablo Neruda. I'm still deciding what's more beautiful: Neruda's Ode to the Sea, the Italian language, or the gods and goddesses who act in the film.)

***

The text from which I've quoted includes both the Spanish and English versions of the poems.

It is Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon. Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda. Translated by Stephen Mitchell.