Me, Myself, and Food: A Memoir

As my own personal gourmet chef in training, I try to source fresh ingredients when they're in season as much as possible. It's hard to believe, but I was once an extremely picky eater and I never, ever, ate vegetables (wait, do corn and potatoes count?). During my ungraduate career, I began to expand my culinary expertise to new veggies--I'm assuming that all the scary food documentaries, like Food, Inc., played a major role in this transition. I always tried to eat healthy (I think I had a spinach and feta salad with freshly prepared lemon-herbed chicken every single day for a year...), but these sensational movies pushed me to explore more and more veggies. I started juicing as many veggies as I could daily, and cooking up broccoli, carrots, and zucchini. With this drastic transformation--from puerile, yet sophisticated (filet mignon and potatoes) to conscious and refined (asparagus bisque)--I began to inextricably relate my food's source and season to what I wanted to eat and what I should/could.


In triangulating the relationship between food, the environment, and myself, I feel that my position as a wanna-be professional chef is the most relevant because it is, in large part, my strongest connection to a food experience. The more you consider how food should be cultivated, a.k.a not year round, the more you start to realize that we are trapped in an absurdist culture, where even our diets are reflected in our Western-demand of "I want everything right now." Your average American probably doesn't know when certain vegetables are in season--myself included--because the agricultural industry has prevented that thought from crossing our minds entirely. You can buy an apple, an orange, or a zucchini at any time of the year, and at certain months, it may be a little larger or tastier or more abundant, but we probably won't remember the pattern year-after-year. But, hope may have surfaced; the burgeoning trends in culinary arts are pushing people to know that what you've picked out on a menu is local and exactly what farm it came from. Chefs are experimenting with diverse and eclectic preparations of foods that focus on uncommon, yet compatible vegetable combinations, super-foods, and seasonal, wholesome, organic ingredients. Although this trend is not quite yet far-reaching, its onset should bring delight to the food conscious among us.


So what is the relationship to environment? It is relevant in more ways than one. If consumers continue to educate themselves on what's in season, and to only buy in-season foods, perhaps we would cause a disruption in the agricultural industry. Farmers may be encouraged to pursue crop rotation methods, focused on micro-nutrients, which is a far more sustainable practice. By seasonally rotating crops, the quality of the soil can remain in tact, as opposed to the depletion of certain minerals and nutrients that help crops grow. If this is employed at a large scale, it could in fact reduce the required land area for agricultural systems, and provide relief to the natural ecosystems and cycles (e.g. carbon, nitrogen). It may be possible to achieve because the rotation of crops on the same land extends the longevity of the soils to be cultivated longer before turning to a new plot, whereas turnover rates would be higher with monocrops that deplete the land quicker. Conversion of agricultural land is a very real threat to the preservation of agriculture in present time, both to urban development and expansion of its own self. Further, agricultural lands are reputable for runoff pollution which overloads many natural and built systems in irreversible ways. If the system is altered comprehensively, we can assume some relief to the previous tenets of irrevocable damage agriculture has placed on the existing natural systems.Crop rotation, a deeper, personal connection to the natural land (in knowing the source of your foods and being health conscious), a stronger foundation of posterity, and perpetuating a "know-your-food" culture in restaurants and groceries alike, are central to preserving agricultural lands, balancing the environment, and satisfying consumers.


As a consumer, I've tried to alter my shopping habits as much as I can to reflect what I know about harvest seasons, but it is not a perfect system, information can be hard to find, sometimes I just want strawberry in October, and if there's anything we know for certain, Florida is it's own universe. I can only buy asparagus in the spring (its ripest season) because I researched its nutrients, its harvest periods, and all the different ways to prepare it (sauteed, pureed, sliced, shaved, steamed, you name it--I love asparagus). Things are only made worse by Florida's completely wacky growing seasons, where its too hot to grow the really good stuff, so we import from other states/countries, or pretend to think that this is exactly what a zucchini should taste like in the middle of summer (zucchini flowers, anyone?!). Educating myself on produce seasons is a continued measure in my path to being a great chef and a healthy human; I can only hope that the culinary shift towards locally sourced, veggie-dominated menus becomes a principle and not just a trend in our food experience.