I guess I’ve been in denial about fall. Going apple picking usually helps orient me to the season change, but not this time. Maybe it was because it felt like summer never quite happened this year.
Whatever the reason, it took a couple more experiences to move me into the spirit of autumn. The first occurred on the fall equinox, a date that should have been enough to wake me up to the shift of season. I was taking a walk that evening, and as I passed a neighbor’s house, he suddenly rounded the corner, declaring, “We’re pressing grapes — want to come see?” How could I resist an invitation like that?
So down into Peter’s basement we went, into a scene of great productivity. Two other men were already at work. One was a man who’s been doing this annually with Peter for about 10 years. The other was the man’s adult son, who was just learning the art. Three enormous red vats dominated the room, along with a large stack of wooden grape boxes and several knee high, fourteen gallon glass bottles, called demi-johns. The vats were brimming with three different types of grapes that had just been put through the first process. In all, 1,500 pounds of grapes would eventually be making their way through those vats.
I tasted a sample of the previous year’s wine as I watched the men move with concentration among their simple tools. A delicious sense of being present for an age-old harvest ritual began to dawn on me. What a meaningful way they had found to observe the equinox.
I suspect we can’t fully recognize the import of seasonal change without paying attention to food. Historically, the shifts in what was available to eat were such an essential part of everyone’s lives, determining traditional menus for seasonal celebrations in ways that deeply infused every regional culture. Our modern ability to eat whatever, whenever — much of it scarcely recognizable now as plant and animal material — is part of what allows us to become so stranded outside time, and both physically and psychologically cut off from the earth that sustains us. It may take more than baking a pan or two of apple crisp to make up for this.
A few days later, after a warm spell had confused my fragile, newly-acquired sense of fall, I was again pulled back to the reality of the season when I walked into the Honest Weight Food Co-op with my son. I exclaimed aloud, because the big island of produce that had been greeting us with the summer’s plums, pluots and peaches had dwindled. Now it was replaced by a large display of squash and pumpkins. Finally, I was forced to acknowledge the inevitability of earth’s orbit.
It is no wonder that the pages of the local papers are brimming with announcements about fall festivals, and that people come out in droves to sample garlic, eat pie, pluck apples, and walk in corn mazes. A deep part of us longs to be reconnected with, and reconciled to, the ancient human celebrations of the last fruits of summer — especially in northern climates where winter changes the landscape so dramatically.
And we may be healthier for following this longing, if we can find our way to the festivals that offer us the best of the harvest — the whole foods from local farms that can help us through the winter — rather than drifting over to the fried dough booth or cotton candy stand. With this in mind, I’d encourage you to check out the Local Harvest Festival in Albany’s Washington Park Lakehouse on Sunday, Oct. 25, from 2 to 6 p.m. Cosponsored by Honest Weight FoodCo-op, Metroland, and Capital District Local First, this event will feature local food on a number of levels, as growers, bakers, artisans, and restaurant chefs offer samples of their fare. There will also be children’s activities and performances by local musicians.
Nationwide, emphasis on local food is increasing because it addresses a number of issues: the need to reinvigorate local economies; the need for strong regional food supplies; the need for greater social cohesion and community as a safety net in the face of a teetering global economy; the need for a smaller carbon footprint; the list goes on and on. I also see it as a part of a growing awareness that we need to pay more attention to the sources of our sustenance. By doing so, we can start to make more informed choices and have more influence over processes that have, in many ways, gone awry while we weren’t looking.
I mean the agro-industrial processes that have brought us contaminated spinach, hamburger and peanut butter, and the cultivation practices that add to our body burden of synthetic chemicals. For while the debate goes on about whether organically grown produce is more nutritious (and some fairly convincing evidence exists to suggest that it is), some recent studies demonstrate that pesticides in conventional produce are a great cause for concern, especially for children.
A study I read several years ago motivated me to prioritize organic produce. Once I saw how high the pesticide levels tested for children on a conventional diet, and how quickly they were able to reduce those levels by eating organically grown food, it was hard to reach for the conventional produce.
More recently, the Environmental Working Group has analyzed the pesticide residue levels on a range of fruits and vegetables. Their work indicates that not only are certain kinds of produce more contaminated with pesticide residues than others, some were found to have as many as nine different kinds of pesticides on a single sample. According to a Natural News article, “Peaches had the most pesticides overall, with some combination of up to 53 pesticides found on the samples tested, followed by apples with 50 pesticides and strawberries with 38.” (Click here.)
Even more disturbing, the produce in question was tested after it had been washed, and sometimes even after it had been peeled, suggesting that pesticide residues become part of the food itself. This is of special concern for children, whose immature systems are less equipped to manage the toxic load.
When we turn our attention to the local harvest, we raise our odds of connecting with farmers and producers who can tell us how our food was produced. We can show our support for the farmers and orchardists who avoid spraying, or use methods such as Integrated Pest Management. When we shop in local stores whose labels name the farms and their methods, as is the case at Honest Weight, we can further support the practices that leave our children, our land, and our watersheds freer of contaminants. That’s a harvest well worth celebrating.
About the author: Ruth Ann Smalley, Ph.D., is an educator and a certified Eden Energy medicine practitioner with a practice in Albany. She’s also an Honest Weight Food Co-op member worker, and writes a monthly column for the co-op’s newsletter.
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