That Nagging Citrus Question
Much as we hate to admit it, we’ve lately been taking a little break from the farmer’s markets. You see, it’s the beginning of February, and though the weather has started to point towards spring, at the farmer’s market, it’s still October of last year: cabbage, parsnips, squash and potatoes, and that’s about it. The one bright spot in all of this culinary gloom is the fabulous citrus available this time of year, but you won’t find that at the farmer’s market.
This post was supposed to be short and sweet, a guide to the ever-proliferating varieties of wintertime citrus available in 2009: Meyer lemons, Cara cara oranges, Blood oranges, Honey tangerines. Then, unfortunately, we made the mistake of mentioning it to a friend who is particularly adept at asking the one question you’d most like to avoid; which in this case was: “Aren’t we supposed to buy local produce?”
It was like when a small child asks how it could be that so-and-so could be pregnant when everybody knows that you have to be married to have babies. The answer, as we adults all know, is that its just more complicated. Like sex, the factors that go into our food decisions are numerous, and often not entirely motivated by a desire to be virtuous.
Our friend’s question should have prompted us to deliver a clear explanation of our own food choices, but we were temporarily at a loss. Food is both our livelihood and one of our greatest pleasures, but explaining the value system the motivates our choices was not so simple.
Today, the decisions we make about food are increasingly complicated, by the arrival of new products, new stores and expanding farmer’s markets, not to mention recent food literature that encourages us to eat seasonally, eat locally, eat organic. Without even touching on other huge factors such as say, cost, a straightjacket of food rules seems to be enveloping us. So, given that for most of us, researching the pros and cons of every food choice is not an option, how best to make decisions?
For ourselves, we follow a simple guideline. We buy food that tastes good. This means that we eat meat as well as cheese and chocolate that comes from far far away. It means we only buy strawberries in the summer and that every August we fill our freezer with blackberries from around the neighborhood. It means that whenever we roast a chicken, we make the carcass into stock and that--though they do not and will not ever grow here--we eat bananas and avocados and of course, citrus. Basically, we buy local produce from the farmer’s market when it is convenient and affordable, we try to keep our packaged/processed foods to a minimum, and beyond that, we cut ourselves some slack.
There are many ways to eat, each with its own impact on ourselves, our community and the planet. But we have to believe that encouraging a people to adopt a food ethos predicated on eating good food is more enticing than one in which “being a good person” is the primary draw. For a few of us to self-righteously declare ourselves locavores will not effect the change that would come about if everyone started making the (selfishly motivated) decision to feed themselves better food. All that is to say, buy food that tastes good, and more importantly, just do what makes you happy.
Tomorrow we’ll be back with our post as it was originally intended: “A Guide to Exotic Citrus, plus Blood Orange Punch.”
