You Wish You Could Eat Like A Peasant
A while back I was piling vegetables onto bread, one after the other, and the thought entered my mind: “I’m eating like a king!” Then I realized every part of the sandwich (except for the olives, which I threw on to get rid of) was locally sourced, and I thought: “No, I’m eating like a peasant.” Which made me feel even better, because I realized that is what I’ve consciously been trying to do of late, eat the sort of food my ancestors ate. Which is an amazing sort of way to eat, really. I’ve never dined with royalty but I imagine the food they eat has to be rare and decadent for them to even cast their eye in its direction. If it’s not a pastry covered with gold leaf or fish from an ocean thousands of miles away, those with more wealth than decency are likely to turn their nose up at it.
As for me, give me root vegetables, things you have to get on your knees to tear out of the ground, food that you never remove the dirt entirely from. This is the sort of food the lowliest of peasants had readily available in all but the leanest of times. Food that, in good years, was provided in bounty even to beggars. At worst, such food provided sustenance, but those who lived the life knew how to make such humble foodstuff come alive on the palette.
And yet, how few of us have access to such foods now. How many people have both the access and the time to grow, prepare, and eat such wonderful food? When’s the last time you brought home a big beautiful rutabaga and cut it up for dinner? Who among us eats the kind of multi-color carrots our ancestors did instead of “baby carrots”? And how many of us have no idea the degree of flavor a proper carrot has?
It seems today that the kind of food available to the meagerest peasant, serf, sharecropper, or homesteader is beyond the reach of most of us. I almost hesitate to talk about such wonders because it leaves me open to such labels as “elitist,” “foodie”, or “gourmet”. I’m just trying to eat the way nature intended, people. I’m just trying to eat as simply as I can while affecting the environment as little as possible. Just trying to live like a peasant.
It’s really weird to think that typical working class people have been so distanced from the type of lives their great grandparents would have lived. Not all of them, of course. A lot of them still appreciate a jar of pickled beets or Brussels sprouts. But for the great majority of the common people, food is Mountain Dew and Doritos and comes not from the ground but from a supermarket or convenience store. We have lost our ties to nature and we have lost more in the trade than we’ve gained.
Being a king is something the vast majority of people will never get to experience, but it’s a shame most of us will never get to experience — or at least never get to fully appreciate — eating like a peasant. It is a sublime way to dine, one I would not trade for all the gold-leafed pastry in the world.