<od Truth Week is quickly becoming a tradition at Carleton. This year’s Food Truth week has been organized by Food Truth members including Katie Blanchard ‘10, Ben Hellerstein ‘12, Pete Kerns ‘12, Milli Harris ‘12 and Jaclyn Bovee ‘12.
Food Truth Week this year entailed five events: the Eat the Lawn Garden project, the Food Truth Recipe Book Debut, the showing of the movie “The Garden,” the Back to the Land and Forward discussion, Susannah Morgan’s convocation and Empty Bowls.
The Eat the Lawn Garden project, which broke ground last weekend, is an idea generated by Katie Blanchard ’10.
“I’ve wanted to do this since freshman year because people perceive the garden at Farm as really far away, and because this garden acts as an art project that looks at food in a different way…it doesn’t have to be planted in rows-it can be beautiful too,” Blanchard said.
“The goal of the garden is to have food produced to go to the cafeteria, [but more importantly] to have community based effort. It is not about putting up a fence saying this food is just for theses people. It is about creating an area that shows the beauty of food. Carrots, radishes, lettuce, edible flowers, beans, cherry tomatoes will be planted, stuff you can pick and eat right there and put in your sandwich or salad.”
The project is based on the Fritz Haeg’s project called Edible Estates. For more information visit www.fritzhaeg.com
Monday, Farm House hosted a dinner celebrating the debut of the Food Truth Recipe Book. The recipes have been compiling since winter term and the dinner was composed of various dishes outlined in the book. “It is a great idea for a fundraiser because it is hard to get funding from CSA, [since] most of our events are centered around food. It shows the character of each member of the group,” said Blanchard.
“The Garden,” which was shown Tuesday night, is an Academy Award-nominated documentary about community gardeners being evicted from their plots in south central L.A.
Amelia Harris ’12, Food Truth member, said, “I was particularly impressed by the movie that Pete Kerns showed… ‘The Garden’ is about the largest urban garden in the United States, sustained predominantly by first and second generation Mexican immigrants. The movie focuses on the long struggle between the city, the private owner of the land and the farmers to decide which has rights to the land. It was quite a powerful movie! At least half of the audience was crying by the end.”
Wednesday’s discussion, titled Back to the Land, and Forward: Northfield’s Food landscape past, present, future, invited local Northfield Farms to campus to discuss Northfield’s past of food production and future activism.
“Students are interested in what Northfield looked like before the college was here…[they] want to know how much food we can grow locally,” Blanchard said.
Thursday, Food Truth offered the opportunity to dine with convo speaker Susannah Morgan and a local food shelf representative and to discuss hunger in America, and especially Northfield.
Finally, Friday, Carleton students, faculty and staff are welcomed onto the Bald Spot for the Empty Bowls tradition to support Food Shelf. The Food Truth addition of the Carleton Progressive will also be published Friday.
Food Truth was founded in 2006 with inspiration from Vera Chang, who was president of the organization through Spring 2008.
Food Truth as a group is “dedicated to raising food consciousness on campus and in the greater community,” Chang said.
“Food Truth became an organization dedicated to raising food consciousness by examining the environmental, political, social and ethical impacts of the way we eat. Food Truth is committed to supporting sustainable and responsible food decisions for Carleton and our global community. Food Truth organizes around issues ranging from human rights to sustainable agriculture to consumer choices to food politics.”
Blanchard describes Food Truth Week as “learning about celebrating, creating and eating our local food system.”
“Food Truth Week allows the Carleton community to come together to learn about and enjoy local, sustainable, delicious food. We hope to keep the tradition going in years to come,” Harris said.
