As a child in the rural district of Penal I remember sharing meals from the same pot with neighbours of different racial, ethnic, social and economic backgrounds.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was in Yorkshire. We were a family of five and I used to be sent sometimes to get the rations for the week and I was easily able to carry them back. It was like one egg and a tiny bit of tea.
Sharing the same meal reaffirms kinship.
Local and regional food systems are about opportunity.
As a chef, I had started working with groups like Share Our Strength and various local food banks in New York, raising money for hunger-related issues. And not only me, but the entire restaurant industry has been very focused on this issue.
My father belonged to a commune, and the food was ghastly. My idea of food hell is the salad cream they'd pour all over bits of lettuce, cucumber and tomato. It was just disgusting.
I grew up with that farm-to-table dining before it was sweeping the nation. I do think there's some value to really throwing yourself into food and embracing where it comes from.
My family was a poor farming family, and we lived under absolute segregation.
The sharing of food is the basis of social life.
I grew up in Harlem. My grandmother was one of the best cooks around, but the first thing she did on Sunday mornings when she started cooking a daylong meal was to take a big block of lard from the back of the refrigerator and throw it into the pan. I know how Hispanics buy their food, and it is not always nutritious.
The first meal was an object lesson of much variety. My father produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking, from little tin cans that had printing all over them.