Thursday, November 27, 2008

Fail: Eating sustainably in a strange land.

My family is not one for international travel. My father is a soil scientist, so while I was growing up, non-family related excursions tended to be to sites of geological interest. My father would stand, proud and pleased, and gesture out at the gently rolling hills of the Kettle Moraine: evidence of a mile thick sheet of ice that ground parts of the Midwest into the least imposing countryside in the world. Or at least that small part of the world that I've seen.

In college, I didn't expand my horizons much. This was partly because I was shy, poor, and terrified of debt, and partly because I started dating a man who viewed international travel as a punishment for poor grades. As a newly minted botanist, I did follow the family tradition of travel: I went to Mexico and looked at plants there. I think flowering mistletoe is much more impressive than glacial deposits, but who am I to judge? Instead of rounding out my resume with a handful of semesters abroad and international internships, I stayed home and played house. My roommate and I cooked our way through the very 60s Laurel's Kitchen our sophomore year and never really recovered. We ate peas and kale in the winter, and beans and tomatoes in the summer. We stole fruit from the USDA fields and bought cheap eggs from the egg lab. I also cooked whole wheat bread so dense it sank when fed to ducks. The only person who'd tackle an exceptionally bad loaf was my boyfriend- he'd descend on it muttering misguided compliments; "Each slice is a meal! After eating some of this bread, I don't want anything else! I love how you really have to chew it." How could I keep myself from falling in love?

That's how I found myself traveling off continent for the first time to meet the family of my putative fiance, who still hates leaving home. We went to Chile, or as I dubbed it, Bizarro California. I expected it would be like visiting his mother here (tiny portions of very good food) so I had a dozen Luna Bars hidden in my luggage for sudden drops in blood sugar. I practiced my winning smile and kicked myself for not practicing Spanish.

I spent the next two weeks eating. Breakfast was bread, jam, cheese, turkey, milk, coffee, orange juice, and bread. Lunch was some large piece of meat and bread. Dinner was wine, bread, seafood, bread, meat, bread, and meringue. The bread was fresh and dense- another mystery solved. I also swiftly burned through any sustainable food karma from the last five years. I ate tuna- the waiters demonstrated the impressive size of the fish for our edification, it had been caught off Easter Island, 2000 miles away. I ate the salmon- from the criminally mismanaged farms in the formerly crystal clear lakes of Chile. I ate the anguilitas- though I really wish I hadn't. The next time I want something that unpleasant, I'll order natto and not further diminish the stressed eel fishery. When I was offered abalone, I cheerfully ate that, and then mentioned that I'd never had it before because it was threatened in California. "Oh yes" they said "This one is more endangered! You can farm it, but you'll agree it tastes better when grown wild." I smiled.

After a couple of weeks, his cousin asked if she could make anything I missed from home. "Beans," I said. Beans are for poor people, apparently. "Salad", I said. Apparently it was too dangerous for my digestive system to gamble with raw vegetables. "Whole wheat bread", I pleaded. Whole wheat bread is disgusting and it's impossible that I like it. I thought for a bit. There were feral artichokes growing on roadsides, and I had glimpsed them on the menu before being fed another delicious endangered species. "Artichokes?" She smiled, took six artichokes, cooked them, and ground them into a paste.

Two days before we went home, we visited my fiance's aunt- the only member of the family to still live in the countryside. My future mother in law almost leaped out of the car to see her favorite sister, who offered us a small plate of homemade mayonnaise and artichoke hearts while they caught up. Five minutes later, they were gone. They explained that we wouldn't eat the excellent food of the city- only plain Chilean food. They fed us a meal I still dream about- wild mushrooms with garlic, garden peas with bacon, a beautiful steak, and bread. Everyone drank red wine- (It's not from our vineyard, that's for every day, this is from the neighbors)- and watched me eat. And eat. They offered me more steak, and I demanded more peas. Desert was a cold fruit soup, made from last autumn's preserves.

And there. That's a meal I was thankful for.

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