Revolutionary!

I am working this morning on the curriculum guide for a forthcoming book on Alabama food traditions. (I won't say a whole lot more about the book, since its title and release date both aren't set by the publisher, and as far as I know no press releases have been issued about it.) I was just working on the chapter on fried green tomatoes, which tells the story of not only the famed novel by Fannie Flagg but also begins with chefs Frank Stitt and Scott Peacock's input about eating seasonally with local ingredients. A connection I had not made previously was that the subsistence farming lifestyle of most Alabamians prior to the mid-twentieth-century was exactly what the new trends suggest is the best way to eat and live: grow it yourself if you can, and if not get it from close by and eat it very soon after it is picked.

This idea that the Farmers Market Authority have wrapped into the slogan "BUY LOCAL" is truly revolutionary, in the most exact sense of that word. Revolutionary, as in a revolution, as in to revolve, as in circular, as in returning back to the way things were (before they got screwed up). To be revolutionary means that the person wants society to make a great big U-turn and cycle back to the old ways. Isn't it weird that rural people who lead such a life as they could grow their own food are often demeaned by more sophisticated city people as dull, uncivilized, and culture-less, while now the city dwellers are trying to be like them, at least in this one way?

Well, now back to work on this curriculum guide . . .