ethical food

"I paid for college by working at restaurants. That gave me a worm's eye view."

On Shrove Tuesday 2010, I ate my last piece of golden, delicious sausage while listening to “When the Saints Go Marching In.” A Lenten practice of consuming no meat unfolded, followed by a turkey-less Thanksgiving, and an Advent with rice and beans.

There were two reasons for my going cold turkey as a vegetarian: survival in an interfaith marriage to a devout Hindu, and a spiritual exploration of what it might mean to practice nonviolence and environmental sustainability as a Christian vegetarian.

U.S. society has shorn food production of its spiritual dimension. Fred Bahnson and Ragan Sutterfield explore this issue from different directions.

Late in life, my mother confessed that she never enjoyed cooking. "But," she said, "I did take satisfaction in serving simple meals to my family." Well, there's no such thing as a simple meal anymore.

"We often have the idea of the feast appearing magically from the kitchen without labor. But the participatory aspect is the most important part of the feast."