Mr. Hugh,
There are significant facts to be gleaned from the post: A Plea For Culinary Modernism. This post should be read by all. This should be read slowly to glean the correct viewpoints. For example: Those who are not “prepared” will be thrust back to the 1200’s and gathering roots and berries, which will kill them due to their lack of knowledge. We have been enjoying fresh chick weed salads from random patches of weeds from our fence rows this spring. It tastes 10 times as good as lettuce from the store.
Some think that if not prepared, they will just return to the days of the “wild west” and ride horses. This is not true, because there are not enough trained horses, blacksmiths, or people who have the tools or knowledge to trim their own horses hooves. There are not enough wagons for horses to pull. Most of the horse-drawn plows are rusting away in people’s front yards as “decorations”. People today can’t think outside the box enough to improvise if a major disruption wrecks life as we know it.
As for me and my food choices, I totally reject McDonald’s. I prefer food that is not that “processed”. Everything they sell is “factory” to me. There are fast food places where I will eat. My favorite type of “fast food” is when I go to my freezer and take out a link of smoked sausage made from a pig I butchered, ground, stuffed, and smoked myself and nuke it for a sandwich. I certainly don’t want to go back to the “primitive food” days, but our society has gone too far in the other direction. At our farm we raise and can our own green beans, butter beans, purple hull peas, pumpkins, squash, and corn. We also raise our own potatoes and save seed for the next planting. I just finished butchering, cutting up, and wrapping two (250 lb) pigs. I’m making and smoking bacon and sausage at this time. I have a 600+ pound calf being fed out to butcher in a month or so.
As far as time at the “grindstone”, I have my own hand powered grain mill for grinding wheat and corn into corn meal and wheat into flour. I have a friend whose wife does not cook. They eat out or do take home most of the time. Sometimes I take him a serving of our “leftovers” of fresh vegetables, meat, and cornbread. He notices the next day how much more vitality and energy he has after he eats this. This lasts for one day, and then he returns to his previous state. I just wanted to provide a little perspective to a very good article. – MER