Opinion
Reclaiming the food process
By Harry Davidson
Process matters. That thought keeps returning as we examine our modern food production and distribution systems. In just fifty years we have managed to completely remake the way we feed ourselves. I remember an incident that took place about fifteen years ago when the Iron Curtain collapsed and Russia opened up. A contingency of Russian businessmen were touring around Anchorage and one of the stops was a Carrs grocery store. As they walked through the aisles of packed shelves and displays of fruit and vegetables spilling over in abundance, several of the delegates were overcome with emotion. It was too much. They could not contain themselves. Tears flowed down their faces. They were not tears of envy or covetousness, but tears of shock and surprise at the abundance and the realization that this abundance was available to them also. Such is the appearance of the modern agriculture system. But what is the hidden cost? What have we lost in order to build this brave new world of food production and distribution? We have lost the process. And in so doing we are the poorer for it.
Throughout history societies have celebrated planting and harvest seasons as occasions to express gratitude for the basic things of life and to transmit the community’s spiritual life and values, which have always been linked to the good provision of the earth. These seasonal celebrations have been an occasion for community building and renewal of the connections and relationships that are the glue of a living community. The sense of the sacredness of the earth as the means through which we receive Divine provision has played a central role in these community celebrations. Together we celebrate. That is the origin of our American Thanksgiving Day celebration. It isn’t “turkey day”. It is meant to be a day of gratitude. Alaska Native traditions associated with harvesting fish and wildlife have been and still are an important occasion to transmit spiritual life and community values of stewardship and respect for the land and its bounty. But as a society is slowly disconnected from the process of harvest and food preparation it is simultaneously being disconnected from a basic human apparatus through which it experiences the goodness of life. Returning from a trip to the garden with armfuls of carrots and broccoli mediates something and transmits something critical that we need to receive and understand. Harvesting salmon from our abundant waters says something to us that we cannot hear otherwise, and cannot afford not to hear. These words are continually being spoken to us. Because we are embodied beings, one of the important ways we receive understanding is through the embodied experiences of life. These are the processes of life that we must not lose. For in their loss we lose the very means through which we receive wisdom, that quality of life that recognizes and names goodness, truth, and beauty.
If we cannot grow our own food we can at least prepare it. We can immerse our hands in the abundance of the earth and so we can, in some measure, know it. Reclaiming is far more difficult than losing. But we must begin to reclaim the basic processes of life. Let us find our way back to the forests and rivers and inlets, back to the farm where we can again behold, in the goodness of the earthly, it’s Divine Source, and so fulfill our human duty to be wise stewards of this priceless gift of life.
Harry Davidson was born in Kodiak, raised in Southwest Alaska, and is now a business owner in Anchorage. E-mail: