Sunday we decided to finally do something with a few of the Delicata Squash that have been ripening in a bowl on our counter for about four weeks. I have been extremely skeptical of how edible they’d turn out to be because they were grown way out of season, and for the last few weeks of that time they sat on plants sickened first by a massive aphid infestation (see Convergent lady killers, posted Nov. 17) and then by powdery mildew — the same pest that kept all the other out-of-season winter squash from producing and killed them (see Death by a billion spores, posted Oct. 15).
So, I harvested these squash not because they were ready, but because the plants were dead or dying. Not a confidence builder in terms of quality.
We cut a few of them up, and they looked and smelled like squash should look and smell. The recipe called for carrots, which we were able to pull from the yard, too. And we threw together a salad made from greens from our garden as well as from Paul and Amy’s. It turned out to be a flavorful and hearty soup, more so than the split pea we made a month or so ago (see A whole meal of food, posted Dec. 8).
I have never been reticent about sharing the food we grow, but since I started this calorie-counting effort, I can’t help but to — just for a second — think of the shared food as calories lost. The thought never lasts because I enjoy giving food I’ve grown (especially when it tastes good). In truth, the people receiving the shared food have been more hesitant in accepting, often saying, “But you could be eating this!” Friends also counsel us to just count the calories anyway toward our 15 percent (actually, until last night my wife had no idea we weren’t doing just that). However, what other people eat doesn’t really have anything to do with our annual calories and where they come from. It has to do with theirs. But if they’re eating from our yard, it’s definitely local and raised responsibly — so it should be counted in some way. Where everyone’s food comes from and how it is grown matters. And, sharing the food we grow is part of the community side of this effort: people getting together to grow as much of their food as they can, eat it, and share it. Ultimately, it’s not just about what I or my wife eat.
So we’re going to count shared calories, separately, as a way to acknowledge that responsible food that gets eaten is never wasted.
This could get embarrassing. What if I eat the most calories? You’d have to start an individual section “calories lost from Amy” and it’d be like a million. Yum.
Amy, if you hit one million calories from my yard, I’ll make you your own page.
I’m glad that there’s a record being kept. Are you going into the past to count for the split pea soup, etc?
I can’t wait for the chickens to arrive.
I did go back for the split pea soup, but that’s the only past shared calorie I went for because it wasn’t that long ago and I know exactly what we used from the yard.
I can’t wait for the chickens, either. Soon.