Growing good food stories
Why it matters
Once we recognize the stories we want more of, we deliberately strengthen, celebrate, grow and connect them, weaving them together and lifting them up to make them more impactful. In this session we continue to “grow” the insights and themes we harvested on May 7th.
Stories
John Ebata opened by adding a musical layer to the recording of Coco Love Alcorn’s performance from last session. Chéne Swart then talked about “thickening” and weaving together stories to make them stronger.
Maggie Burton invited Duncan Ebata and Joshua Smee to share their experience of finding creative ways to bring food and community together.
Duncan, who works with rural communities to imagine new tourism opportunities through Rising Tide Experiences & Consulting, engaged his community of Wolfville, NS, in launching the Front Street Community Oven in 2019. He shared moments of community coming together to bake bread and pizza crust, of children stretching dough, and members of Glooskap First Nation teaching others how to make their traditional Luski bread.
Josh, who is CEO of Food First NL, recalled recent moments of stepping into the food crises created by Snowmageddon and then COVID-19. As he and others distributed food and emergency funds, they noticed how quickly new ways of thinking and organizing could take hold whenever they were bold enough to step in and advocate on behalf of those who were most vulnerable.
HARVEST
Following are final comments from the Zoom chat-box, organized by themes. See the original transcript.
What struck us
Hidden hunger
The word “hunger” was previously hidden or unspoken in conversations and policies regarding food insecurity.
Our “gorgeous moments” with food should be examined in the context of our privilege(s).
I’m seeing the connection between inherited trauma and our current scarcity mindset around food.
Trust, don’t judge.
The importance of building trust; give them money and don’t judge.
Trusting each other, trusting our capacities, also trusting these stories we are writing .
There is nothing that builds trust faster than playing together/cooking together and eating together.
Lived experience is critical
Having to live the experience to understand what’s true .
The importance of local food knowledge (what is available, where and when to harvest it, how to cook it). Especially how to cook!
We talk about food security, but often haven’t known hunger personally
Remembering hunger—real words and experiences ground policy work and remind us of the essentiality of food and food systems .
Kids stretching the dough, saying "pulling apart together.”
Last week Sally Bernard said, “We haven’t been in crisis long enough to feel hungry for real change.”
Food as a pivotal issue
The relationship between food security and poverty. Locally grown food may be more expensive and unaffordable for those living in poverty.
Food is woven through so many of the "big" issues that we work on—climate, truth and reconciliation, economic regeneration, etc—and can be a way of getting people thinking a bit more radically about how to solve them.
Cracks in the system
Our emergency food system (e.g. food banks) is not set up to deal with emergencies like this pandemic.
How can more people in our communities access nourishing and appropriate stories about food?
Silver linings
Snow and COVID stressors open up cracks, reset terms of the conversations, the mindsets, shift the stories .
This is a time where messages are able to carry farther than they often do. A time to ask, what becomes possible if we try something differently?
Hopefully some of the systems we have for addressing hunger in our communities will change, along with so many other things, when this pandemic is over.
A crisis interrupts bureaucracy and makes more things possible.
Abundance, feeling fed
The image of a mansion, with tables full of beans and food for distribution, and a little girl joyfully doing what she loves, helping with her father beside her.
Gardening and bread-making have become so important to people in this time of isolation .
Music, food, relationship, love, kindness, all wrapped in a gorgeous bow :)
The vastness of the meaning of food, gathering, nourishment, survival, ritual, stories, connection .
The beauty and magic in sharing food, which can bring forward stories of the past and create new stories filled with love, hope, and happiness.
Images of outdoor music festivals with friends, campfire meals, main-stage picnics and tents full of food vendors.
Bear meat in a free food freezer.
Good food is like a conversation with an old friend. It satiates me for hours .
So nice to step back from the grind for a bit :-)
Thank you everyone for beautiful words, insights, stories, music, energy, joy!
Thank you for the beautiful stories shared today ❤️❤️❤️
What we’re called to do
Act locally, remove barriers
Would love to create a community oven!
Adam Barnett and I (Duncan Ebata) are working on an operations manual template and community oven get-started guide, which will be ready in early June .
Working to elect people at the Municipal level who have progressive ideas and are willing to work creatively to solve problems and change our food systems toward the local.
The importance of community food hubs that are about sharing and abundance and social interaction. Such things have fallen prey to pandemic-induced fear...yet they are so powerful in addressing community health and well-being.
What if our town could grow 15% of the food we consume? Poverty and our relationship to food is the most significant barrier to food security.
Build a movement, starting now
We’ve enslaved our food. We need a massive relocalization.
How we bring fuel to the oven, how we take out the ashes and begin again .
Wildest dream: Beautiful food moments for everyone.
My wildest dream is a pan-Canadian framework that quickly addresses food system reform in order to improve the quality of life for as many people as possible.
Weaving a food narrative
Adding some of this week’s words and phrases to the May 7th harvest.
The closer we get to the farmers who grow our food, the more connected we feel to the land that nourishes and supports us, and to the generations that came before us. We have a deep appreciation for the commitment, knowledge and hard work of local farmers.
Growing and sharing good food is part of the life we love. It feeds our well-being and connects our families, friends and communities. Like music, food is a universal language.
We are hungry for change in our food systems. The model of the centralized supply chain is too fragile and doesn't meet our needs. We are committed to rebuilding a broken system.
We are also seeing that food is connected to so many of the big issues—like poverty, climate, truth and reconciliation, economic regeneration. Food is immediate, part of our shared, everyday experience. Crises that stress our food system also open up cracks in bureaucracies and mindsets. Hunger gets people’s attention. This is a good time to ask, what becomes possible if we try doing things differently? What if we trust each other more and start trusting our own wildest dreams?
Each of us has a role to play, from growing our own food to supporting local farmers, raising awareness in our communities, rewriting policy, and making sure no one goes hungry. In this time of transition we are stepping into the possibility of real change. It is up to us and the time is now.