<nt to tell you how excited I am about Food Day. Northfield is going to enjoy it, Olaf is going to observe it, but I know Carleton is going to bust Food Day open. We’re going to be eating the best food, by any measure, on October 24th. Bon Appétit will be serving their culinary styling’s, our community will be sharing their wares, and so will our student body. Just look around, and feel free to join in, with the many of us who will be cooking, rejoicing in and sharing the best of our food culture.
I am happy to celebrate the first ever Food Day with you. October 24th will be a day of celebration, unity, community, and food. On Food Day, the farmer, the harvester, the chef, the server, and the consumer are united under one roof. We all honor the food in front of us, its taxonomy, its history, its flavor, and it’s setting. We can celebrate food by being conscious of it, and through this consciousness, Food Day helps us find that is really worth celebrating.
There are some guidelines to Food Day. Firstly, EAT GOOD FOOD. IF you don’t eat good food, you are clearly doing Food Day wrong. It would be akin to getting the date wrong on New Year’s Eve. The second thing to do is to appreciate the food before you, before you eat it. This is a more involved process that requires you to engage your higher levels of thinking, and not your internal cravings for mere sustenance. You can appreciate the living legacy of the meal in front of you, the role your food played before it became your food. Then you might consider the people who raised, reared, and reaped what you heaped upon your plate. I suggest you think about how your food will interact with your body. As it becomes part of you, food changes the composition of who you are chemically – affecting mood, energy levels, and even gene expression.
Food Day is about how impactful food really is. You can almost certainly consider food in an unending number of ways. But we can shrink the size of the food cosmos by thinking small, small town Northfield small. Local food will almost always be the best food; it’s fresh, friendly, and farmed by someone who you can probably get to know. Food Day is your chance to consider the farmers and pay homage to their work – your meal. Northfield gives us access to so much good local food, and the upcoming 24th is the best time you’ll have all year to groove with it.
There is nothing like eating a nice meal with friends and family. Thanksgiving is the quintessential American example. But Food Day isn’t about going home and eating your mother’s famous brisket, nor is it about plenty and abundance. Food Day is a celebration of process over product. Communities have been coming together to make a product in a way that is fair to all, that is good from beginning to end, and that tastes better than words can convey. Food Day is a new celebration of food, a more thoughtful one, but an ultimately more satisfying one.
Happy Food Day!
–Submitted by Taylor Owen ‘13