I learned to love food in the mid 1970s, on a ridge top 10 minutes from town. We were pretty poor -- when my mom made orange juice from concentrate, she poured four cans of water into the pitcher, instead of three, to make it last longer.
We ate locally and organically long before it was trendy, but we did it out of necessity. Since we had more time than money, my mom planted a garden half the size of a basketball court, which doesn't sound all that big unless you're an eight-year-old boy and have to weed it.
The results, though, were fantastic. We?d get strawberries early in summer. Then there was asparagus. Later, tomatoes, and peppers, and eggplants, sweet corn and watermelons. Pumpkins in the fall.
When something was in season, we ate a lot of it and froze more for later. I liked green beans. But I liked them a little less after my mom opened the 8th frozen bag of them...
Read the full transcript