Animal, Vegetable, Miracle_ A Year of Food Life - Barbara Kingsolver [80]
“You make cheese yourself,” she repeated reverently. “You are a real housewife.”
It has taken me decades to get here, but I took that as a compliment.
Our search kept us moving through Montreal’s global neighborhoods until we arrived at the grand farmers’ market of Petite Italie. An arrangement of flowering plants near the entrance spelled out “Benvenuto.” Under an awning that covered several blocks, matrons with bulging bags crowded the aisles between open stalls spilling over with fresh goods. This was the place to shop, in any language.
I tried French, since I don’t speak Italian. Elles sont d’où, les tomates?
D’ici, madame! From right here, Quebec, the vendors replied proudly, again and again. (Except for one sardonic farmer who answered, when I asked about his eggs, “From chickens, madame.”) We were flat-out amazed to see what enterprising Quebecois growers had managed to bring out already, on the first official day of summer here in the recently frozen north: asparagus, carrots, lettuce, rhubarb, hothouse tomatoes, and small, sweet strawberries. Maple syrup and countless other maple products were also abundant, of course, here where a maple leaf is literally the flag. More surprising were the local apples, plenty of them, that had been stored since their harvest late last fall but still burst sweet and crisp under our teeth when we sampled them. English orchardists once prized certain apples for their late-bearing and good storage qualities—varieties now mostly lost from the British Isles, crowded out by off-season imports from New Zealand. Evidently the good storage heirlooms have not been lost from Quebec.
I picked up a gargantuan head of broccoli. It looked too good to be true, but the cabbage family are cool-season crops. I asked the vendor where it came from.
“L’Amérique du Sud, madame,” he replied. South America.
Too bad, I thought. But really, South America, where it’s either tropical or now wintertime? “Quel pays?” I asked him—which country?
“La Californie, madame.”
I laughed. It was a natural mistake. In the world map of produce, California might as well be its own country. A superpower in fact, one state that exports more fresh produce than most countries of the world. If not for the fossil fuels involved, this culinary export could have filled me with patriotic pride. Our country is not only arches and cowboy hats, after all. We just don’t get credit for this as “American food” because vegetables are ingredients. The California broccoli would be diced into Asian stir-fries, tossed with Italian pasta primavera, or served with a bowl of mac-and-cheese, according to the food traditions of us housewives.
Still, whether we get cultural points for them or not, those truckloads of California broccoli and artichokes bring winter cheer and vitamins to people in drearier climes all over the world. From now until September the Quebecois would have local options, but in February, when the snow is piled up to the windowsills and it takes a heating pad on the engine block to get the car started, fresh spinach and broccoli would be a welcome sight. I’d buy it if I lived here, and fly the flag of La Californie in my kitchen. Even down in Dixie I’d bought winter cucumbers before, and would probably do it again. I wondered: once I was out of our industrial-food dry-out, would I be able to sample the world’s vegetable delights responsibly—as a social broccoli buyer—without falling into dependency? California vegetables are not the serpent, it’s all of us who open our veins to the flow of gas-fueled foods, becoming yawning addicts, while our neighborhood farms dry up and blow away. We seem to be built with a faulty gauge for moderation.
In the market we bought apples, maple syrup, bedding plants for our hosts’ garden, and asparagus, because the season was over at home. Like those jet-setters who fly across the country on New Year’s Eve, we were going to cheat time