B is for Beef (and Lamb)

Fellow Lawrentian Gabrielle Prouty Stratton moved to Australia one day, and I finally got around to asking her about life in the Southern Hemisphere.

When Hannah first asked me to write something about my food experiences in Australia, the first thing that came to mind was meat. Like Americans, Australians consume a lot of meat and produce a lot of it too, leaning toward beef and lamb in particular. In my current location in the city of Armidale, New South Wales, one doesn't even need to drive outside of town to see evidence to this fact, as there are both sheep and cattle within the city limits. However, the most startling difference between the two countries is that most of that beef and lamb here is grass-fed and pasture raised.

While there is plenty of local lamb being eaten in New South Wales,
 this is wool country and the sheep here are primarily Merinos.
Photo credit: Gabrielle Stratton,

Even after living in Australia for almost a year, I am still astounded by the size of this country and how few people inhabit it. To speak broadly, the population density of the U.S. is 88.6 people per square mile, where Australia is a measly 7.3 per square mile (for comparison, think Montana—6.9 per square mile). Therefore, there's an awful lot of open land for sheep and cattle to graze. Take the largest cattle ranch in South Australia, which is roughly the size of New Hampshire. Or that there are grazing herds in the Northern Territories and Queensland that number in the hundreds of thousands. Or the fact that 860 cattle could disappear from Cape York without a trace. (That was only three years ago.)

Dietetics: It's like water

I had a moment last year. You know the kind: When you hit a bend in the river of life and you're not sure you're headed the right direction anymore. I fretted over the field of dietetics, feeling I relegated myself to the edges by working at Extension in communications.

"Food is hopelessly broad and complex," I complained to my fellow #rdpoet Garnet one night. "I just don't know why I'm a dietitian right now."

Luckily, Garnet knew.

"Yes, it's a harder-to-conceptualize position than say, an architect, or a lawyer, or a construction worker," he said. "But a dietitian's greatest asset is in REALIZING that the scope of humans and food is broader than you can really understand. It leads one to seek out research and knowledge that is more broad and holistic—to make connections that might not be obvious and might not be taught in a narrow setting."

I lapped it up.

"It's like water," he continued. "Society can use water in a variety of different ways. You can grow your crops, you can generate power, you can swim in it. So you can decide what you want to do with food, whether it be economics, or preventative health, or nourishing children."

Or tweeting about SNAP-Ed in Minnesota.

Anyway, happy registered dietitian nutritionist day to all you RDNs out there, working at the edges of this broad and beautiful field. Especially my beloved HEN DPG colleagues.

Me and GB on the New River Gorge Bridge in WV. #rdsatwork

Get out there and swim upstream.

A cause for celebration

My friend Maria is teaching English in Georgia this spring and summer (the country, not the state). I asked her to write about the food, because I know nothing about Georgian food. Or Georgia, for that matter. Three weeks in, here's what she has to report. 

The food here is attached to Georgian communal collective culture. Here in a little mountain village, people live similarly to the pioneers with everyone congregating in the one room in their house where there is a wood burning stove. The family I live with has grandparents who live with the family, the father who does something with the environment (the language barrier is difficult), the mother who is cooking constantly, and their two teenage kids who take turns on Facebook for most of the evening. Modernity meets the villages...

Hospitality is inextricably tied to the culture. My family has friends and family over every evening. They often stay for a few hours. Even if someone stops by, the cakes and fruit appear. They have the most wonderful type of cherries here, which they also press into juice. I just went on a run past everyone's grape vines in their backyards. My family has a fair amount of vines that they press into wine that seems to carry them throughout the year. They drink wine. Lots of it. People tell me that there are few alcoholics in Georgia because they never drink alone. Perhaps it’s true because every day seems like a cause for celebration. They have these supras, or Georgian feasts, which can last for hours.

The motivation of people to work hard and be independent is rare. People value their families above education. I have two co-teachers who are Georgians who learned English in the national university in Tbilisi and teach in the village. Since I have been here, they have asked me to teach by myself because they had to go home for a birthday party or something.... The mentality is just as important to understand as the food.