“Eating is an agricultural act.” - Wendell Barry; The Pleasures of Eating

The ways in which, the reasons behind, and the ingredients we use to feed ourselves all tell a much richer story beyond how foods keep our bodies alive and well. And although survival is story enough, it’s worth unpacking the stories of the foods we eat. The term foodway is credited for coming into usage around the time of World War II, when scholars at the intersections of agriculture and sociology hoped to understand the eating habits of the rural and poor to improve the nutrition of a society whose diets were impacted by the war. A foodway can be understood as the cultures, habits, and patterns tied to eating. To understand a dish as part of a foodway is to understand that a single meal is a tool for making meaning in life, a container for how we communicate, and a creative offering.  As living, breathing, eating beings, our foodways reflect our ecosystems. It is possible for us to reintegrate our relationships to food and the wider agricultural systems with thriving ecosystems. To do this, we must understand what it means to connect the cultures of our foodways to place, to our local ecologies in which we are so interdependently a part of. We may connect with these local ecologies by learning and participating in our local foodsheds. A foodshed can be likened to a watershed. Much like the soft changing boundaries of a flowing river to a lake or ocean, a foodshed follows the flow of food within specific geographic regions. Just as the rain, weather, neighboring flora and fauna all are tied to the health of a watershed, there are countless variables and cycles that impact how food flows onto our plates. 

How are well called to support planetary wellbeing while meeting our own hunger?

How do we shape our foodways and agricultural systems through the foods we cook and eat?

How do our local ecologies inform the nature of our eating?

To Eat is an Agricultural Act is a project that sources food from CSAs (community supported agriculture), and other regenerative agricultural practices (such as gardening and foraging) to create shared meals around a table to be in dialogue over the relationship of the foods we eat and an agricultural system that shapes planetary health. 

The recipe is this: Meals are crafted from the CSA box, the garden, and locally foraged herbs and shared with different culture-bearers, foodworkers, and landworkers. Each meal is either prepared or served over an informal interview.