SOMETHING TO CHEW ON
I want to eat like a modern-day Indian. Please hear me out. Whether you know it, I bet you want to eat like one, too, and reading this article can be a step towards us eating that way together.
Lately, cosmic logic has found me spelunking through the culture of the indigenous peoples who lived in Central and Northern California, through books, conversation, harvests, and museums, paying particular attention to the peoples' relationship with food. (The Grace Hudson Museum’s current exhibit is “Seaweed, Salmon, and Manzanita Cider: A California Indian Feast,” and remains open until November 4th).
At the risk of sounding like a naïve young white woman gazing at Native American existence through rose-tinted glasses, here is how I describe the indigenous peoples' relationship with food: food production was a community endeavor. Food was shared within the community. Knowledge of food, gained through centuries of working with the land, was passed down from generation to generation, and the generations labored together. Food was an integral part of the daily landscape, not something physically and chronologically separate from daily existence. Food grounded the people in a magical physical realm. Food was celebrated, revered, and imbued with spirit. Food was generally abundant, while simultaneously seasonal and episodic.
I wish life was still like that. What is our dominant food system now? It’s no fun! We drive to the store, burning dinosaurs, and load up on anonymous, plasticized food stuffs. Industrial food production erodes community like acid rain. Food consumption rarely grounds us in or connects us to the awesomeness of the physical world, and we live segregated from the very plant, animal, and mineral life that sustains us.
I realize things have changed and returning to this original model will be a challenge now. Flora and fauna have been drastically depleted while human population has swollen dangerously. Much knowledge has been lost. The serpent seduced us and we are doing some falling. But just as we fall, it is our beautiful privilege to spend at least one lifetime in pursuit of a return to Eden. What else is there to do? Restoring the positive dynamics of indigenous food production is not impossible - it is a dream waiting to be realized. Our world is still abundant and ready to give, and humanity, despite our follies, is still resilient, clever, compassionate and, ultimately, self-interested.
What would eating with the spirit of the indigenous peoples look like in Ukiah? Maybe something like this: tree lovers will plant bountiful fruit trees along State Street for all to harvest. There will be less pavement. Dora will be for grazers. Knowledge and power will be with the people – not with corporations. Plants on School Street will be useful and abundant and there will be signs telling us how to tend to them so that the wisdom gathered over so many generations and lost in so few can be regained. Houses will have rain catchment and grey water systems. A community farm will sprout somewhere in the many irrigated acres of the golf course and young and old will work there together, sharing wisdom and vitality. In late August, we will enjoy a festival in Alex Thomas Plaza celebrating the tomato harvest, with every imaginable tomato dish, dancing, singing, art, and story telling about tomatoes. Gardens will flourish at every school, senior center, community center, and business. There will be large community kitchens where people can cook meals together. We will build and smell the fire we cook with more often. The lawn outside the Civic Center will be a source of the knowledge and plant matter we need to make the town edible and useful. The town will hum with pollinators. A gleaning force will collect extra fruit before it spoils and jam, dry, and juice it. People who pick up road kill will comprise the venison jerky making cooperative. The salmon run will be restored. There will be more food growing everywhere you look, more ritual, more celebration, more dancing, more singing, more community. Our society will allow for time for food in our lives, and the reverberation of that time spent together will echo through our minds and our stomachs and our hearts and help to make us whole. It’s something to chew on.
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