Chacra to Cuchara

They say in situations like mine, when you are a volunteer trying to help others, you end up learning more than you teach. As cheesy sounding and cringe worthy as that is, it’s true. My whole life my parents, teachers, & friends have told me I’m smart and in some subjects I am. But here in rural Peru I am gaining an education that I never could have gotten without being here and experiencing new things.

Some of my most eye opening moments have been related to the food chain, and what farm to table actually means. While healthy eating is a popular trend in the US I am realizing how wide of a disconnect there is between what we eat and how it gets onto our plate. I think if one really wants a healthy relationship with the nutrients we are putting into our bodies it does some good to learn about the work it takes to grow, harvest and prepare the food. If I didn’t live in a community that practices subsistence farming and raises their own chicken and pigs among other animals, I would have never known these things.

For example, yesterday I saw a live turkey. How many of you have seen a live turkey frequently in your life? Ok, maybe at the zoo or some animal farm. But how frequently do you go to those? And let me tell you… I was shocked at what a turkey looked like! Hint: it was nothing like the emoji 🦃 or what I drew in elementary school by tracing my hand for Thanksgiving. Now I know the turkeys in the US bred for slaughter & eating look a little different with white feathers but I think the turkeys here look similar to wild turkeys at home. My new turkey friend here had a blue head- BLUE! It was so beautiful. And none of the plume of feathers I was expecting. Honestly I don’t know if I was more shocked by seeing what a turkey looks like up close and personal or by realizing that I didn’t really know what a turkey looked like! I do remember driving by some when I was younger but it was so far away and quick that I didn’t get such a good look. So if you’re like me and you grew up in the suburbs, you might have never had the chance to see what a real, live turkey looks like. You only see the frozen body in the grocery store without the head and then the finished product stuffed and sitting on your dining room table. I believe that this knowledge gap in what the food chain looks like in the US, what it takes to raise an animal for consumption, is what allows the horrors of industrial animal meat farming to continue.

Let’s stay on the subject of animals for a bit. In the US I had also never seen an animal be slaughtered. My host mother here raises her pigs, chickens, guinea pigs, rabbits, ducks, and sheep to eat. So when there’s a special lunch for a birthday or a party someone has to kill the animals. When it’s just a chicken or guinea pig my mom does that. When it’s a bigger pig or sheep there are usually a few people. The quantity of blood, the innards and the whole process are not for observers faint of heart. For me it is special and yet a necessity to witness the killing of an animal if I want to eat it. I want to know where my food comes from and see if I still feel ethically ok with the killing of other creatures for our purposes. (Update: I still do eat meat and enjoy it but don’t eat it often here and believe the US needs to reduce meat consumption). If I were not working as a Peace Corps volunteer and living in the community I don’t think I would have ever witnessed the slaughter of an animal in my daily life. I would have never known that pigs make the most horrible screeching yelling sound while sheep don’t scream at all. I would have never known that hot water is used after killing the pig to get the hair off before skinning it and cutting it open. I would have never known that liver, blood and innards such as tripe could be common foods (and yummy when well fried. But then again what isn’t delicious when well fried!). I do not think I could bring myself to kill an animal for food, but I did not grow up in a culture where that was something in plain view. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn more about where my food comes from and what realistically that means to be a more informed consumer.

And finally, we all know food tastes better when you make it yourself. Somehow the blood, sweat & tears of food prep and cooking make it that much tastier. But what about when you harvest that food yourself. The pride of growing even just herbs in your garden that then end up as part of a fancy dish. It seems that nowadays every trendy restaurant features “farm to table” food. There’s even one restaurant on the Harbor in Baltimore that is “seed to table” because they grow some of their own vegetables. How cute is that?! I’m picturing now the farmer’s markets with ripe red tomatoes and abundant leafy greens that make this lifestyle accessible to more people in the urban US. Living with a host family of agriculturists I have seen and helped with the process of planting seeds to grow into food that is then harvested. All by hand, without machines. When I was visiting Arequipa the tour guide romanticized this tradition of tilling the land with only men and cows, no modern machines. But I can tell you that it is unforgiving, back breaking manual labor. My host dad starts by carving from wood the till that will be attached to the bulls. The droppings from the guinea pigs are used as fertilizer. Then all day in the burning sun during the dry season and incessant rain in the rainy season, they work the fields- dropping seeds in a row then following with natural fertilizer, then a stomp of the foot to cover it. Watching the crops grow is beautiful. I never knew potatoes had flowers. They’re purple! My favorite color. Corn starts small then all of a sudden it’s taller than you! Lettuce creates bright pops of green against the dry, dull, brown dirt. After the hard work of harvesting potatoes, dirt getting into every toenail and crease in your clothes, and carrying the heavy sack back to the house (or on a donkey if you’re lucky), I have a deeper appreciation for my food.

What makes this experience even more heart wrenching is that now potatoes are being imported from countries like Chile for cheaper than selling home grown ones. In Peru, the country with 2,000+ native potato species! So families like my host family are harvesting their potatoes and can’t get a fair price in the market now. I’ll remember the sweat (but not blood or tears) that I one time put in to sowing potato seeds then harvesting them the next time I buy potatoes in a bag at the grocery store and think that washing them and hand mashing is a lot of work.

So the next time you think about where the food in the produce aisle at Giant has come from, think about the fields of corn, potatoes, tomatoes, & lettuce that grow in the US and other countries for import. Check out that little sticker on your avocado, chances are if it’s not from Mexico, it’s from Peru! And I challenge everyone to join a farming Community Supported Agriculture to support those local to you doing the grueling work of providing you with food. Hell, volunteer on the farm for a day to see what it’s really like. And I promise you’ll sleep better that night.