Slow Food on a Tiny Budget

[Robert Waldrop]

I read somewhere that here in Houston, one of the big food pantry operations does have a program where chefs come in and give demonstrations and all of that. I am thinking on a much smaller scale here . . . like a handout sheet of ideas and very basic instructions for what is available that week.

I agree that the budgeting and strategies in the article are an excellent first step. But the next phase . . . I am calling it "Now what?" . . . might be something to be considered. If you are among the urban poor and were brought up going to McDonalds, you might not have a clue.

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This is why we publish periodic editions of the Better Times Almanac. Our initial press run for the 5th edition was 4,000 copies, nearly all of those were distributed in December by various food security groups in the OKC area. We are doing a second printing later this month of 10,000 copies. The text of the publication (format is a 32 page tabloid newspaper) is online at http://www.bettertimesinfo.org/2004index.htm . We send out single copies for free, simply send me a large (9" x 12") envelope with $1.06 postage on it and we can send you a single copy. If anybody would like a larger quantity to give away in a situation such as you describe in your reply, contact me privately.

[Robert Waldrop]

The tricky bit for most of those who worry about where their food is coming from is not paying for the shovel, but acquiring the garden.

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This varies from place to place. Oklahoma City for example is not a dense city, many poor people live in single family homes with plenty of room for gardens that could make significant contributions to food security.

People in densely population urban areas like NYC or Philadelphia have different challenges. Earlier this year we tore down an old detached garage on our property and in the fall we built a cold frame on part of it, the mache, carrots, and chard are growing nicely in their 8 inches of dirt on concrete. In the spring we are building several growing beds on the concrete to see how it works.

Container gardening is also a possibility, especially for high value items like herbs or tomatoes. We've also grown potatoes in buckets set on the sidewalk.

[MarketStEl]

The tricky bit for most of those who worry about where their food is coming from is not paying for the shovel, but acquiring the garden.

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This varies from place to place. Oklahoma City for example is not a dense city, many poor people live in single family homes with plenty of room for gardens that could make significant contributions to food security.

People in densely population urban areas like NYC or Philadelphia have different challenges.

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Welcome to the upside of inner-city abandonment.

There are some areas of Philadelphia--in particular much of North Central Philadelphia, but also some spots in Kensington, South Philadelphia, West Philadelphia and along the Delaware riverfront--where abandoned houses and vacant former factory sites outnumber intact structures. In some of these areas, large community gardens have taken root--Amtrak passengers get a good view of one of these northbound on the right as trains approach North Philadelphia station.

While City Hall would love nothing better than to see all this vacant land sprout houses, offices, stores and factories, right now, all that grows on most of it is weeds. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, various community groups, and other institutions, including my former employer (the University of Pennsylvania), are engaged with local residents to promote and develop community gardens, but more could be done. Many of those empty houses could be torn down (much though this pains the preservationist in me) and the land cleared for gardening. There are still plenty of weed-choked lots that could be converted into city farms and gardens.

Tangent: This isn't really what we're talking about, but high school students in University City grow herbs for local restaurants as part of a Penn-sponsored partnership program. Here's something I wrote about the program for Penn's staff newspaper back in the fall of 2002.

[Mottmott]

If you didn’t find quality olive oil at $2.02/750ml, or didn’t like the quality of what that kind of money purchased for you in your area, and instead paid $0.26 per tablespoon at $13/750ml like I do, you would be spending $16.72 more per week just on olive oil according to the "Slow Food for the Poor Challenge" menus. That would mean skipping meals on a budget this tight.

Of course, I could try poaching for a change...

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Or you might try cheaper oil! It is possible to lower your standards and find decent oil for less than $13/750ml even if you insist on evoo!

[Mottmott]

I agree in principle with the goal of eating good food for less, shopping locally, buying organic when possible, and saving through planning. And I don't doubt one can do it on even less than $30/person/wk. But I think that it's a big hill to climb for an urban single mother trying to make it on a minimum or near minimum wage job who may have to work more hours to even make the rent. Or someone living on a minimum disability or social security payment.

She's not likely to have a big freezer, less likely to have a garden. And it's improbable she'll have access (or time) to shop in farmers' markets. And it's more improbable that she could spend $30/person! in a family of 3+ , pay an urban rent, transportation to work and school. The most she can do is shop well.

Taking Philadelphia as an example, there are resources, though not everyone who needs them knows about them. There are some coop stores in the city where high quality food can be found cheaper than the supers and much cheaper than WF. We do have CSA's in the area, but someone poor probably cannot manage the up-front money. The Reading Terminal and seasonal Farmers' Markets have great food, but with some exceptions, aren't cheap. One really great resource from a price point of view is our 9th St and other ethnic markets.

Another issue is know how: how to cook inexpensive, tasty, and nourishing meals doesn't come easy if one's mother didn't do it. How many people with good financial resources cant/dont/wont cook food that's tasty and nourishing ? Overworked and underpaid, does one have the time and place to find out how to do it. Making pasta and bread, etc., at home is way better in every sense, and can be done without fancy equipment. But it requires learning how to do it, it requires having a sense of being in control of one's life that many of the poor lack because they are in fact, barely in control of their lives. (Try being in control while raising a family on $6-7/hr - not easy.)

And try finding buffalo meat at $3/lb in Philadelphia.

[slbunge]

I think that the skills or even the routine of scratch cooking from a base of pantry ingredients have, to some degree, been lost and that is a very important obstacle in everyday life. Somewhere between the time I grew up and now, the concept of cooking meals from scratch has been twisted so that lots of people in the general population automatically think 'gourmet'. That the only people who shop at farmers markets are those with disposable income and lots of free time to browse.

As the child of a working mother who cooked for a family of five through the 1970s, I know that meal planning, grocery shopping, gardening, and cooking take planning. Balancing the demands of a budget can be difficult. And you may have to deal with a snotty kid occassionally saying 'pork chops again...hmph'. But at the time the choices in prepared foods were limited and those that were available tended to be expensive. Same for fast food.

I'm not sure how to solve the perception problem and teach people the valuable lesson that prepared foods may be costing the generations more: both from the standpoint of the grocery budget and from the standpoint of your health. I can say that those packaging and selling the 'save a minute' meals have a vested interest in keeping the perceptions exactly as they are today.

[Jaymes]

I think we can all agree on a universally-known, well-proved fact, and that is that 'country poor' is different from 'city poor.'

But Mr. Waldrop is living and working in Oklahoma. That's his knowledge base and focus. What may or may not happen in areas where the garden is more difficult to acquire than the shovel is out of his current line of attack.

I say Kudos, Mr. Waldrop. Sounds like you are making a difference, which is more than most folks, I'd wager.

[Mabelline]

I have to say that I am so glad there are folks out there trying to get people to eat the way we used to. Mr. Waldrop, thank you. I work quite a bit with Montana's Food Network, through the Billings Food Bank. There are times I am very depressed filling boxes with boxes of mac and cheese, and packages of Totinos Frozen Pizza roll whatevers. Then I have to sit down and convince myself that it is nutrition, even empty.

We have a very obnoxious sort of insidious thing going on here in town. It is recognizable enough that the Montana Public Advocacy took it to the tv with a large protest.Our poor are concentrated in one area of town. There's one retailer who carries on here. I won't name them, but they are spread all over the corners of 6th Avenue and 27th Street North. Now this is the main retailer for the poorer customers, who use their foodcards here every month. This store has undergone a massive remodeling last year, as did their 5 other stores, which are on the tonier Westend. This store has such higher prices than the other stores that I feel it is just disheartening. They explain that the higher prices are because of lower volume at this location.

SO's firehouse is a few blocks from this store, yet they buy virtually everything from across-town where the quality's better, and there's a 10 to 50 cent difference on almost everything you buy. This amounts to a 15 mile roundtrip, something many of the lower income cannot do. It just makes you feel so helpless.

When I was sick, my pantry went way down. Before the holidays, we went out restocking. The stores I use are generally inaccessible to the lower income people. But, in one afternoon, we managed to restock all the things I'd run out of. It came to about 300 bucks. As previously stated, a pantry is expensive to start, though cheap to maintain. The poor are not able to easily do this, just as they usually don't belong to Costco, or have the ability to use our Big Lots! up on the Rims.

If I seem to be rambling, there is a point. To a certain extent, I think things have changed to the point where living frugally requires a certain mobility and income. It is just TOUGH to do so at a place like here. And I have talked about some Food Bank volunteers taking some groceries to, say, a single mama's home and showing her some healthy low cost meals. Although we have twice a week classes at the Food Bank kitchen, and it is required for FoodCard recipients to attend, we have a lot of working moms unable to attend.

I have a great admiration for the OK project. It pains when there is such abundance, yet we've youngin's not properly nourished.

[fifi]

Mabelline, I hear your frustrations. That is why I have advocated above some very simple approaches for spreading the news about what to do with "real food." I am somewhat distressed that some of the big time food bank efforts here are focusing on how to use processed food. The interesting thing about my, obviously limited, experience is that here was all of this "real stuff" and I am wondering, looking at the shopping lists, if the clients knew how to use it to best advantage. For instance, there weren't enough requests for pasta and rice to balance with the meat items. Some of the alloted meat items I could have maneuvered into enough items to feed a family of four for at least a week. But then, I know what I am doing. I appreciate what the OK folks are doing, but I think that a multipage newsletter might be a little daunting. You really need to get down to the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle to get the message across. Then, if a local operation like I experienced, blossomed into demos and other ideas, great. But you have to start with the basics.

And maybe the market approach should also be addressed. We have the same problem here in the Houston area. The markets available to the urban poor are limited if transportation is a problem. Fiesta Mart has made some inroads but the scale of their stores do demand that they locate at well traveled venues. And Houston does not have a great mass transit situation. The stuff is out there at a good price. The problem I see is getting it to the folks that need it.

[Tess]

The markets are a huge problem in many places!

[Mabelline]

Thanks, fifi and Tess. I just have these very black moods sometimes, where it seems a lot like Sisyphus rollin' that rock. I've been at the Food Bank 5 years this year at Eastertime, and if anything, I see a dumbing down that is really downright intellectually insulting.

I come home and my dear husband plays "Pretty Maids In A Row" by the Eagles for me, I sit and bawl for awhile, and then I can go out and try again.I just wish that the people who can really change this old, fragmented system would get up off their chairs and direct some of that energy. For such a large society I fear for us.