It’s orange season again.
I’ve waited for it for 8 months, and man was that first orange
good. It comes right after peach
season. After stuffing myself everyday
with peaches that grow in every yard here, and I was ready for an orange. We’re also getting into cabbage season. I never would have thought I’d ever get
excited about cabbage, but cooked with a little oil and spice—yum.
One of the things I love (and can also sometimes get frustrated
with) living in rural Lesotho is that I eat according by the season. It’s just what is available, what things grow
here (and in neighboring South Africa, such as oranges) and when it is ready to
be picked. There is something really
satisfying about knowing exactly where my food comes from, and often the exact
person who grew it. It makes me the food
taste better, and it probably does have more flavor since it doesn’t have to be
shipped far.
Being more connected
with the growing process of my food sometimes means seeing the more gory
aspects of food, especially meat. Since
I eat meat, I decided that I needed to be comfortable with the whole process of
killing and butchering the animals I eat myself. My convictions only lasted through killing
one chicken (which I didn’t do very well…).
But I think it was enough to help me re-value meat. In Lesotho the people certainly love and
value meat or “nama”, the particular animal doesn’t seem to matter much. And I have yet to meet a masotho who shied
away from killing their own animals for that meat. I think growing up distanced from the whole process
is what gives me my typical American squeamishness about it.
One of the biggest fears I have about returning to the U.S.
is the abundance, something I never thought I’d dread. Any food I can name (and many that I can’t)
from all over the world will once again be readily available to me, along with
countless processed foods with numerous and mysterious origins. I’m pretty sure American’s food access and
process used to be more like Lesotho, but now there is so much waste, so much
over indulgence. And Lesotho is changing
too. Most of my students eat a snack
called nik-naks (imagine even more processed Cheetos) that leave their fingers
constantly dark red and the school ground littered with the plastic wrappers.
It seems healthier, and certainly more satisfying to eat
things locally grown/made, and in season, and I’ve truly enjoyed eating this
way for the past 2 years. But I still
get cravings. I miss fresh fish, and nuts,
and chocolate, and oddly enough toaster waffles, and I’m not sure I’d be able
to turn them down if they were shipped to my local shop here. When I go back home I’m going to try to eat
locally and seasonally, have a garden and shop at the farmer’s market, but the
self-will required in daunting. But
after waiting almost a year, those first oranges were so wonderful, definitely
worth it.
