Letters to the Editor
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Nashville inner city farmer's market
Check out what a friend of mine, Darcy Freedman, is doing about this issue in Nashville. She's a doctoral student in public health/community psychology.
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Food, glorious food
Its all well and good to tout organic, fresh la ti da, but what's wrong with advocating baby steps? You can't expect someone in the inner city to suddenly embrace organic slow cooking after years of tasty calorically dense fast food. Conventionally grown produce won't kill you.
Instead of the elitist notion that we all have to turn into Alice Waters' devoted followers, why not accept that while grocery tomatoes are not the tastiest, they do have some nutritive value?
I grew up on iceberg lettuce and hothouse tomato salads, mac n' cheese, tuna casserole and franks n' beans, and I managed to grow pretty tall and not too wide.
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In the much hated state of Texas, fresh, inexpensive produce is abundant
I grew up in El Paso. My parents are working class and we lived in a working class neighborhood. My grandmother would bring fresh pomegranites, jicama and other fruits from Mexico whenever she crossed the border to visit us.
Here in Houston, I can find fresh jicama and all sorts fruits (including cactus and platanos), for reasonable prices at Fiesta.
While I was in the Valley (South Texas) in June, I was able to buy cheap fresh avacadoes, was regularly given free limes (abundant in this citrus growing mecca), and fruit stands laden with watermelon, mangos, and other goodies dotted almost every side street.
In Central Texas, peach vendors also dot the highways. Good peaches!
When I lived in Manhattan 4 years ago, fruit was expensive and it was hard to find anything good. I did find pomegranits though. YUM.