Strawberry Fields Forever
One part of a long dream I had last night was so vivid when I awoke, and occupied my thoughts so steadily this morning, I decided to share it and the meaning I believe it has for our community.
In this dream I notice a field of strawberry plants have been elevated on low trellises, so that the strawberries are off the ground. The bottoms of the strawberries have been eaten by some animal, and mold is starting to show on them. I regret that the patch of fruit has been ruined, and I wonder if it is because the plants have been elevated, something I have never seen before.
Then I discover that Rona (wife, business partner, host of the food blog Savoring Kentucky) has rescued the uneaten parts of some of the strawberries and has a large bowl full of them on the kitchen counter. I pick up one of the pieces and discover, in true dream-like fashion, that it is not normal size or shape, but rather huge and thin, almost like a family-size pizza. I take a first bite and it is the sweetest, most delicious fruit I have ever tasted. I realize that I do not want or need to finish eating this first piece to feel fully satisfied.
The initial image of the elevated strawberry vines and the partially ruined strawberries suggests to me both the natural fruitfulness of our land and the agricultural practices we have adopted that are not good for the food we eat. The abundance is there for us, but we fail to take advantage of it, and we fail to take care of it properly. As a result, much of it is lost to our use.
But not all of it is lost. The last part of this dream fragment suggests we can rescue the remaining portion and we will find we have the finest food imaginable in overwhelming abundance.
In Fayette County–and more broadly in the Bluegrass, and still more broadly in Kentucky–we have the fertile land, the attachment to the land, and the knowledge of farming that most places either never had or have all but lost. We are set up, as are few other places, to feed ourselves with some of the best food in the world. Increasing our local food self-sufficiency makes agricultural sense, economic sense, and epicurian sense
The opportunity sits before us. Many people, including myself, have begun to work on ways to make this dream a reality.
