Allow me to introduce myself (although if you are reading this, you probably know me already and find the pretense of a pseudonym beyond ridiculous). I am a 27-year-old high school English teacher living in a former industrial hub of the Northeast. I was born and raised in the Midwest, however, and went to college in Maryland.
Food featured prominently throughout my formative years, and I began to notice a difference between the cuisines served by my WASPy maternal grandparents and my father’s Keillor-esque relatives. As I ventured further afield, I discovered even greater variation such as Maryland Crab Cakes and Yankee Pot Roast. While engaged in this personal discovery, I simultaneously became aware of the ‘eat humane’ and ‘eat local’ food movements that have gained popularity in the last decade or so. This came to a head in late 2008 when my family began to prepare for our first truly ‘blended’ Christmas Dinner.
In 2008 both my older brother and I each got married. While each of our spouses had visited my parents’ house for prior holiday feasts, this was the first where they would be expected to transcend that intangible yet frequently insurmountable barrier between ‘guest,’ and ‘family.’ As we began to plan this theoretically blissful joint celebration, it turned out that there were questions beyond simply how to prepare the turkey (roasted or deep-fried) and what stuffing is appropriate (cornbread? Sage? Oyster? Stovetop?). The most interesting question was raised by an email that my older brother Karl sent out in mid December. Along with ideas about turkey, stuffing and dessert, he added this input:
“We West Coasters are striving to eat seasonally, so to the extent we can jive that with Christmas and our other dinners, I'd certainly like to. Therefore, any good winter veggies or starches would be a good starting point for other dishes.”
I suppose it should be noted that Karl, his wife Allie, and my younger brother Cody live in the heart of San Francisco and would be flying in several days prior to Christmas.
What ensued was a debate over exactly what was ‘seasonal’ in Michigan in December. While our forefathers (and mothers) ate squash, potatoes, and rutabaga during the winter, they did not harvest them in December but rather spend the greater part of the fall preparing them for long-term storage. I shot back a snarky (read ‘bitchy’) email that questioned the seasonal nature of any winter crop in Michigan. Allie, with her trademark good naturedness, replied with a t-chart of food seasonally available in Michigan and California. On the California side, she listed a plethora of delicious treats available nearly year round in that welcoming clime; on the Michigan side she listed one item: Christmas trees. She then suggested the possibility of deep-frying a Christmas tree as the seasonal Michigan contribution to our festivities - hence the name of this blog.
To me, this incident underscores the difference between the principles of the west coast locavore movement and the reality of living in the Midwest, the Northeast, or any other region subjected to more climate variations than the Bay Area.
In this project, I propose to explore food and its relationship to place, income, time of life, and family. Barbara Kingsolver suggested that, as a nation, we are lacking a food culture. I don’t believe that, but perhaps with seasonal and occasional food that is now available year round and formerly fresh food that has been processed within in an inch of its life, we have lost our way. Part of my goal, therefore, is to rediscover a healthy American food culture. Short of that, I would like to create an Eggleston family food culture that incorporates my Midwestern upbringing, my husband Damien’s Maryland heritage, and the place in which we currently reside. So grab a plate and a micro brew and come along. Let the questing begin.
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