Victory Gardens
July 9, 2008
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One of the niftiest things I stumbled upon while trekking through London was a Victory Garden in Hyde Park. It' s difficult to believe that there was a time in recent history where a first-world country of Great Britain' s stature would have to impose strict rationing and recycling on all of its consumer goods—including food. The British allocated their comestibles from the bottom up: even waste for compost 
was a hot commodity. Aside from the obvious lure of absolute self-sustainability, there is something awe-inspiring about seeing food coming out of the ground. 
One of the great luxuries of today is not having to ration ourselves strictly. Where would I be without bacon on a Saturday morning of sugar to make a cake? Very sad indeed. I am by no means suggesting a return to the days of a strictly rationed pantry. But I do think an important lesson can be taken from the gustatory
collaboration of World War II: urban people were in touch with their food, they knew where it came from and they shared it. One of the things that seems glaringly responsible for many of America' s food problems—from diabetes to obesity to plastic food packaging glutting our landfills—is the industrialization of sustenance and 
our alienation from it. Not understanding the origins of our food means that we don' t understand fully the needs of our bodies and the value of nutrition. (I read recently that in a survey in urban-American middle schools, young kids were asked to identify a favorite vegetable. An alarmingly high percent said, “spaghetti.”A charming answer if from a four or five year old, but from a seventh or eighth grader… scary.) Worse still, we' ve lost touch with the real value of food. It takes a lot of time, energy and attention to grow a healthy head of lettuce. If you' ve ever walked in a garden in early spring when things are just pushing up from the ground, you' ve likely been 
struck by how delicate and fragile a plant' s life is. Food is precious, and should be treated that way. If we all grew even one or two plants in our back yards or windowsills we' d understand the frailty and value of life. Imagine how much more a dinner could mean if everyone knew 
the shape of an onion bursting from the ground, or the graceful angle of a flowering zucchini weighing down its plant' s leaf. In my experience, having a hand at what goes onto the table (whether by gardening, going to a farmer' s market or cooking) makes a meal satisfying in ways beyond a full belly. When you eat food fresh from the ground, you are eating the soul of the earth—and sharing something with everyone who brought your food into being.
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