What’s our First Lady going to do with her produce?
What’s more “local” than a vegetable garden? Michelle Obama is building one after all. The New York Times reports the new garden will be the first since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in WWII, which was roughly 60 years ago.
We consider WWI and WWII to be the catalysts for our modern food industry, resulting in the abandonment worldwide of practices of raising, cultivation, and preparation of foods by hand. During the Great Depression our grandmothers were still using the whole chicken, feeding the family, and growing some tomatoes in the backyard. But by the end of WWII the government had found a nationwide solution in the form of industry, giving the public a break from cooking and nutrition.
Now here were are broke, in 2009, and Michelle Obama is building a victory garden at the White House.
Can we again find comfort and support in gardening? Can we learn to to grow some 40% of our own produce? The instability and scarcity of food during war caused us to outsource our health and groceries for cheap. Today can we learn to reexamine the quality of our lives, and put attention to our bodies and food sources?
While my subvocal ticker says “there could be baby radishes sprouting already?!”, in reality seeds, politics, children, and education all run on their own schedule.
Political images are powerful, but they are always incomplete. Michelle Obama’s garden needs to be a physical space for all types of food discussion (political, nutritional, ethical, environmental), and it needs to happen over a “slut-red” tomato shared between dirt-stained hands. I’m going to hedge my bets and wait to see what the Lady can grow.
What do you think?