She didn't know that I had spent hours and hours of time counseling seniors one-on-one after health screenings on nutrition from the establishment viewpoint. I could never do that again.
Do you know what it's like to tell people all kinds of advise without certainty? Ever felt the aweful out-of-place, it's-just-not-right awkwardness when pressuring your elders to change their way of life, assuming your elders are living unhealthy, and pretending like your different when your not? Plus, the fact is... I get really excited about food and could never spend more than a few seconds thinking about dieting and calorie counting.
Sally Solesby directs the Knowles Senior Center in Nashville, Tennessee. As an AmeriCorps member, I led the Arthritis Foundation's Exercise Program every Wednesday morning. When my term of service came to an end, she asked me to consider creating a nutrition class for a small stipend from a health grant.
It would be different, I told her. No food guide pyramid and fat gram charts. We would delve into the history and social context of the food we eat. We would explore.
As the date of the first class approached quickly, I had brainstormed and researched. But, I wasn't ready to ask for committments from guest speakers or to involve myself too much in preparations when only two or three seniors had enrolled. We would cancel if we didn't have six or more.
Even beginning to nail down a class syllabus seemed crazy. This subject has been in discussion since the dawn of time! The history of food alone fills thousands of pages. Considering cultural meal time practices, the significance of each item of the modern place setting, the impact of food choices on American communities, the taste and use of little-noticed produce, folklore and song, moral and ethical writings, practices that encourage thankfulness - how could I delineate eight one-hour sessions on the topic of food!
Stories from the Table became the name of this yet-to-be-designed course. It was a title that could come to mean many things, but first and foremost it highlights the nature of food as more than fuel and as full of meaning and a means of relationship with others.
The first day nine learners sat closely around a circle table in one of the classrooms. We had a class!
After our first mini-lecture, I promised the students I would have a class syllabus for them by the next class. They loved the idea of trips. We decided we did not need to rent the center van but would carpool to save money. I gave them a copy of Wendell Berry's The Pleasure of Eating and told them I would call them with the questions to answer.
I knew this meant business. There were a group of thoughtful, intelligent men and women eager to spend a part of their week learning with me. I did not want to disappoint them.
Several weeks earlier, I had spoken with Allan - the man who coordinates the CSA in which my wife and I participate. He knew several people I should talk to about my course, and he promised to put me in touch with them. Little did I know - I had joined a CSA whose members were movers and shakers in the Nashville whole foods movement. Consider the following members:
- A past official of the Tennessee Organic Growers Association who was responsible for bringing The Future of Food (movie) to Nashville
- A past co-owner of one of Nashville's truly vegetarian restaurants who now invites over forty people to her home every couple weeks for a fresh, homemade, vegetarian feast
- An entrepreneur in raw foods expanding the market of her fresh, innovative totally raw dishes
- The two coordinators of one of only two whole and organic food co-ops in the Nashville area
In addition, I found myself in a prime location for a class delving into the very heart of fascinating and critical food issues:
- The farmer of the CSA my wife and I joined happened to be a regular speaker on television, the writer of newspaper columns and a book, and well practiced in the art of biodynamic and organic farming. His farm is the place that several innovators in this field come to do workshops.
- The senior center and several of the seniors were not more than a few miles from one of Nashville's premier whole and organic foods superstores.
- The school my wife attends - Vanderbilt University - has a special collection of dozens and dozens of cookbooks and literature on food.
- Nashville is home to a wide variety of ethnic groups including significant Somalian and Curdish populations. These ethnic groups have attracted a number of ethnic restaurants and markets.
With all the connections I began to make as I scouted out the city and introduced myself to the contacts from Allan, I soon had a palate full of explorations - more than enough to fill the eight-week course.
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