Food Family Tree

I just read an interview with Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire and more recently, The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

What struck me was his comment on food stories. He said, “Stories are very powerful ways to connect with people, and one of the problems with our food is that the stories have been removed from them. The stories of how they were made and where they came from, to the extent that you can restore people’s knowledge that there is a connection between what they’re eating.”

I was immediately reminded of a series of interviews I did for work with children and adults about nutrition and physical activity. I opened each interview with an exercise I created called the Food Family Tree. I asked each person to draw their family tree and talk about the connections each family member has to food. At first, most people said they had no connection. Nothing. Couldn’t think of anything. But as we talked and I asked them more questions about their family, the connections revealed themselves.

A high school student told me about her mother who grew up working on a tobacco farm in the summers. She realized she did have a connection to the rich agricultural heritage of Western North Carolina.

There is a burgeoning immigrant population in Asheville and I learned about the food experiences of young Latino, Ukrainian and Moldovan children. Latino children told me about family members who worked in restaurants. A Moldovan girl described her family’s farm and orchard in Moldova in beautiful detail.

But the interview I remember the most was with a woman who started out skeptical, uncertain if she would say the right things or give me the correct information. On the surface, she seemed far removed from food and agriculture. However, as our conversation unfolded, she remembered family memories long forgotten. She told me about shelling peas with her grandmother on the side porch, a breeze blowing and laundry drying on the line. She recalled the easy conversation and slow pace and the pile of peas. It moved her deeply to remember that experience and she seemed proud to learn that she too, had a food family tree.

It gets me thinking about my own family. My childhood memories are planting peppers and tomatoes with my father. And watching the spring onions grow. We always had a small area of the backyard dedicated to a few summer vegetables. I remember potatoes and squash too. I can still see my grandfather, Pappy, pulling out fresh spring onions, cleaning them, dipping them in salt and eating them raw. As a kid I thought he was crazy, but now I understand his simple pleasure of eating a freshly picked vegetable that he grew for himself.

Think back through your own family history. Did anyone grow up on a farm? Who worked at a restaurant? Who made your favorite food? Who planted potatoes or spring onions? Where does your food family tree take you?