I Was a Teenage Yokel

In honor of the Eat Local challenge this week, I’d like to make an observation: isn’t it nice that eating local is so fashionable? I don't mean that in a facetious or offhand way. Here we are – bright, interesting 30- and 40- and 50-somethings, all eager to do something meaningful. Even though it might take some extra effort to seek out local ingredients, it’s very rewarding; not only do we get to do contribute to our own communities, but it also tastes so good and is so much fun. We’re not gnawing on bran flakes or choking back aloe vera shots; we’re marveling over tender spears of asparagus and unctuous cheeses. With our friends, no less. Life is good.

But I’m worried. Marian Burros’ New York Times article about the Eat Local Movement on Wednesday introduced a word that made me recoil in horror – at the end of the piece, she mentions people who eat really local; they grow their own food. All well and good, but here’s what they’re calling themselves: yokelvores.

Yokelvores? Please: say it ain’t so.

Check out the picture accompanying the article (I dare not re-post it here, so you’ll have to look for yourself) of the novelist Barbara Kingsolver and her family. Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite writers, and I would prostrate at her feet if I met her in person, but the photo of she and her husband with their teenage daughters made me cringe.

I’ve been that teenage daughter.

During the 80’s and 90’s, my family grew most of our own food, thanks to the forward-thinking convictions of my mother, who didn’t allow hydrogenated vegetable oil or high-fructose corn syrup to cross her threshold, ever. We spent our summers weeding rows of carrots and peas; we could never be away from home too long without rushing back to water the lettuce or check on the tomatoes. Many summer nights, we ate stir-fry and salad for dinner, composed entirely of vegetables we grew several feet from the kitchen door. For years on end, we spent the months of July and August canning hundreds – and that is no exaggeration – of jars of fruits and vegetables.

I’m grateful for the amazing food we ate, but at the time I thought we were incredibly weird. Okay, we were weird. We were not even remotely hip or fashionable. Which may sound trivial, but it’s actually my whole point – that being hip (yech, another word I don’t like) is reallyreallyreally important when you’re 16, and while a hokey/dorky/dweeby front might be a savvy marketing angle for movies like Napoleon Dynamite, it might not extend the life expectancy of a burgeoning movement.

When you were 15, would you have wanted the New York Times to publish a photo of you standing with your parents and holding a basket of eggs for an article that describes you as a “yokel”? Maybe you would have. But I doubt it.

In order for eating locally sourced foods to be more than a passing phase, we have to make sure that the younger generation doesn’t roll their eyes at our antics and resume munching on Twinkies. There are many, many huge corporations who are hoping for just that… so let’s not help them out by coining phrases like “yokel.”

Oh, me. I just wrote “the younger generation.”  Now I’m scaring myself.

**Photo above: my mother’s corn patch last November.

Comments

[cookiecrumb]

Ha ha ha!
Kids. Can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em.
They grow up and become lovely (like you), no matter what indignities their parents foisted on them.
My mom allowed me the occasional "cool" treat, like altering my jeans so the pant legs didn't flap all over -- and it really made me feel cool! But otherwise she was in charge.
(Then I went away to college and became wild and bohemian and ate vegetarian hippie rice dishes... I thought it was cool, but was it?)
What we really want to accomplish with this way of eating is making it appealing, not a forced march. Twinkies? Not appealing. Lots of educating to do.

[Catherine]

This is such a great thought, Jennifer, and it seems ripe to me for a much longer essay, op-ed style piece. You should consider pitching it somewhere...I feel like it's one idea that, so far, has been missing from all the Eat Local, Save the Planet, et al. discussions.

[Tea]

I'm laughing because that looks very much like MY childhood corn patch. I think we might have had the same childhood:-)

I was lucky in some ways that we moved away from the country and closer to the city when I was 11, by age 13 my country friends were doing all they could do to get out of the sticks and into the city. But I think at that age you rebel against anything you're given. In order to rebel against my ultra liberal family I got super conservative and registered Republican (I never voted for them, it was just for the shock value).

This is a great topic, and I agree with Catherine--submit it somewhere. I know you're not dying to talk about it, but your farm stories are fascinating.

[sam]

During the 70’s and 80’s, my family grew most of our own food, thanks to the fact we had no money and not because it was forward thinking at all - no - but because that was what working class people absolutely had to do to in order to survive in those days.

I would love for you to elongate these thoughts, but I don't think the idea of growing your own food is anything at all new and that should be part of it too.

[Garrett]

OMG I am digging the title of this post! Hilarious!

[Jennifer Jeffrey]

Cookie - hippie vegetarian rice dishes are verrry cool.

Catherine - thanks! If only I had the time...

Tea - it does seem to be essential to rebel at some point, doesn't it, if only to understand more deeply what you're rebelling against.

Sam - like they say, farming is the oldest profession...

Garret - glad I could make you smile!

[The Purloined Letter]

While I'm not sure she'd like the "yokels" label, Kingsolver's daughter is actually a co-author of the book and her sections imply that she is at least as active as her mother--even when she's away at college.

Love your post and its larger analysis.

[Jennifer Jeffrey]

Purloined, my copy of "Animal, Vegetable..." is due to arrive from Amazon tomorrow. I'm so excited to read it, and fascinated to hear that her daughter helped to write it.

I think it's wonderful that her daughter is so enthusiastic, and I doubt that the Kingsolvers had anything to do with the "yokel" title - I was simply saying that engaging the majority of "younger people" over the long haul will require more savvy messages than the "yokel" bit.

[LeOgAhEr]

I Love you girls

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