March was essay-writing time as I applied for scholarships and the HECUA summer program. I wrote an essay for the iModules scholarship about how my time with Food Not Bombs affected myself and the group. Unfortunately, I was not one of the eight lucky recipients. Tune in next week for an essay that did pay off.
The Power of Meals: Food Not Bombs and Reciprocal Impacts
“Class projects don’t have to be dull,” I reassured myself. “I can make it something I’m interested in.” The assignment was to volunteer with an organization, any organization, and write about it. A classmate invited me to cook with her at the Food Not Bombs (FNB) house in Minneapolis. Cooking a free meal for the community from food that had been gleaned or rescued from a dumpster sounded much more interesting than sorting canned goods at a food shelf. Indeed, after one afternoon with FNB at their house, I was hooked, and returned week after week. Making meals with FNB had a profound impact on my understanding of waste in the food system, my perspective on dinnertime, and how an individual can make a difference.
That fall of 2008, my understanding of how our food is distributed and wasted was limited. Stepping into the FNB kitchen showed me the enormous amounts of food waste associated with grocery stores alone. A garbage bag brimming with bun, rolls, and loaves of all varieties would be sitting in the corner, waiting to be made into bread pudding. Three or four boxes of produce would be stacked in the middle of the floor. After sorting out the few items into the compost that were spoiled, the sweetly ripe and fragrant remainders were chopped into a fruit salad. Talking to those who had picked up the culled produce from the co-op or plucked the baked goods out of a grocery store’s dumpster was eye-opening. This tasty, edible food was either not pretty enough, past its expiration date, or pulled simply to make room for a new shipment. It went straight to the dumpster because that was easier, legally and logistically, than donating it to food shelves. I had not realized the extent to which grocery stores were willing to waste food in order to keep their shelves brimming with food, and unwilling to feed the hungry with the excess.
Transforming the urban harvest into a meal for the hungry was only half of FNB; building community was the other. That winter, FNB had not been able to find an indoor alternative to the local park where they normally served, so they invited people to dine in their living room. Spending the evening enjoying each other’s company without the aid of electronics, was an embarrassingly foreign experience to me. Caleb, organizer of most meals, played the guitar and regaled us with stories about tapping maple trees in a blizzard. We made up knock-knock jokes with Gabe, a bright six year-old. We took turns struggling with a marble tilt maze. In short, FNB meals were much more than fruit salad and bread pudding. The whole evening, we shared our talents and experiences with food or music or jokes. Furthermore, we strengthened the ties between the diverse people that shared FNB meals. To me, this is a model for mealtimes – they should be about more than just eating, and be a time to enjoy and appreciate each others’ talents over good food.
I relied on FNB for food and friendship through the winter, but my attendance became spotty the next semester. When I arrived one spring day ready to cook, I was stunned by what I saw. Unfamiliar people were picking over the contents of the house that were spread all over the porch and front lawn. I spotted Caleb in the back yard. “What’s going on?” I asked. “We got evicted,” he replied. I was stunned. Where would the residents go? Where would they cook? “Are you going to serve tonight?” I asked. Caleb distractedly listed some of the elements that had to come together: someone needed to pick up produce from the co-op, makeshift wood-burning stoves needed to be transported to the park so that we could cook there, and there were some mung beans left in the kitchen to prepare. I could not bear to abandon Caleb, so I headed to the disarrayed kitchen to tackle the beans. Caleb made some calls and found someone to pick up the produce. Together we packed dishes, utensils, stoves, and all the food I could scrounge up onto bike trailers. We hauled it to the park, where a small crowd was waiting for us. The produce arrived from the co-op and everyone rummaged through the boxes of berries, plums, and lettuce while I set up the food and Caleb lit the stoves. More people arrived. I greeted some familiar faces and some visitors from out of town. Finally, incredibly, the meal was in full swing. Despite the confusion and disorder of the afternoon, we had managed to distribute good food and build community, as scheduled. “You helped make a miracle here today,” Caleb smiled a twinkle in his eye.
This experience more than any other showed me the power of one person to make an impact on a community. I had set out to have fun assisting in a routine activity, but when I saw the house and its residents in disorder, I could not just walk away. I realized that my ties were deeper and that I could take on the more serious work of preparing a meal. Because I supported Caleb through preparing and serving a meal in the midst of an eviction, a few dozen people got healthy food and caught up with friends that night. This sense of empowerment compounds the other impacts FNB made on me: in the face of meals on the run, as one person, I can invite a group to spend the evening making dinner and entertaining ourselves. In the face of excessive waste, I can ask my managers at work about reducing waste or composting. The lessons from one class assignment that was decidedly not dull expanded my conception of nutrition to include the health of both the food system and my community.
