I'm Manabe, head of the production department.
People who read my previous article about the Food Hub Project have been asking me more and more, "Why did you want to start this business?" So this time, I would like to write about how I feel right now.
In the book "Humans Cook" ( Volume 1: Fire and Water , Volume 2: Air and Earth ) by American journalist Michael Pollan, there is an introduction titled "Why Cook?" In it, he writes about some questions that had been bothering him for a long time.
Some of the questions were personal.
-How can we have a healthier, happier family?
-How can I best manage this, especially with my teenage son?The other questions are somewhat political.
- As a citizen, how can I make the American food system healthier and more sustainable?
- How can we become more self-sufficient while living in a consumer society?There are more philosophical questions.
- How can we gain a deeper understanding of the natural world and the role of humans in our daily lives?Then I realized that while I could head into the woods to confront these questions, the answers could also be found by simply going into my kitchen.
"How Humans Cook: Fire and Water" by Michael Pollan (NTT Publishing, 2014)
This book is based on the experiences of Michael Pollan, who studied under various chefs, and contains most of the answers to my questions about food. However, the point is that "you can't really understand the essence of food unless you cook it yourself on a daily basis."
So I thought I'd give it a try.
So for about a month, I took on all the housework (cooking, laundry, cleaning, etc.) on my own, working under the theme " I cook almost every day ." I've been married for 12 years, and for the last eight years since our oldest child was born, I've left all the housework to my wife. What did I feel from this experience? I'd like to write about it in light of Michael Pollan's questions ("personal," "political," and "philosophical").
"Personal" Question: Cooking and Family
-How can we have a healthier, happier family?
-How can I best manage this, especially with my teenage son?
I have an 8-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old son.
Every day, when my son comes home from elementary school and nursery school, he starts shouting "I'm hungry!" My wife told me to feed him mainly Japanese food, but mix in some Western food because he gets bored of it.
It's not what they want to eat, nor what I want to make, but how to make what they should eat for every meal. I try to make miso soup and rice as much as possible for breakfast, but dinner always ends up being mainly Western food. Also, on weekends, I eat more and more wheat, such as soup, pancakes, and pasta.
Conclusion: From a health perspective, it was impossible.
I'm confident that I'm not feeding her anything bad, but I always end up eating too much oil, dairy products (butter, cheese), flour (pasta, bread), etc. at night, and as a result, my daughter gained 2kg in the past month. (She weighs about 20kg, so that's about 10% weight gain...lol. For an adult, it would be about 5kg.) From a health perspective, I think it was a terrible thing.
Of course, there were good things too.
It is often said that "it is important to eat dinner together as a family," but since becoming a father I have hardly been able to do this at all due to being busy with work, and I now realize how important this is.
The introduction to "Humans Cook" includes the following passage:
Cooking not only provided food, but also led to the development of society. Humans began to eat in groups at set times and in set places. This was something new. Until then, like other animals, each person found food and ate it by themselves. (In that sense, it is similar to modern people who increasingly eat alone outside.) Sitting around cooked food, exchanging glances, sharing food, and self-control fostered sociality.
Every day, every meal, my children and I talk about what we cook, asking each other what it is like. Of course, if there are seasonal ingredients, we also talk about the season.
They tasted, analyzed, and commented on things that other people had made. As this was a one-month experiment, it was not part of the children's everyday lives, but I think it is important for them to properly verbalize and evaluate things, such as "I like it! I don't like it!", and to frequently discuss these things at the dinner table.
It was also interesting to see the children trying to think of ways to help their father make even more delicious food.
I think that this kind of time spent at home is a process that forms "sociality" not only for children but also for adults. On the other hand, I feel that if we continue to eat different foods separately and frequently put factory-produced foods on the table, the social aspect of eating will be significantly weakened.
But even so, "everyday life" is really tough. I have a lot of respect for mothers (and fathers) who work and do housework every day.
It's important to cherish the precious time spent cooking with ingredients and eating together as a family. During this month, I once again felt the importance of choosing properly processed foods and eating out as a family. (To be honest, I wanted to eat out once a week lol)
"Political" Questions: Food Safety and Security Left to Others
- As a citizen, how can I make the American food system healthier and more sustainable?
- How can we become more self-sufficient while living in a consumer society?
Freshly harvested potatoes grown by a group of farmers called "Satoyama no Kai." The tofu in the bottom left of the photo is "Ossan Tofu" from Sanagouchi Village (the neighboring village), which has no additives and tastes just like soybeans, so it's delicious with just salt.
We often hear people say, "We want safe and secure food that we would want to feed our children."
However, in this day and age, it is extremely difficult to secure "safety and security" on your own. There are no so-called natural food stores in Kamiyama, where I live, so if I have to leave my "safety and security" to someone else, I have no choice but to drive about an hour and a half round trip to Tokushima City to get the ingredients I need.
In order to maintain the standard of daily housework (cooking, laundry, cleaning, etc.) that one envisions, while also raising children and doing what one wants to do as a job, division of labor is unavoidable. In the midst of hectic days spent focused on raising children (although whether child-rearing is the main focus depends on the family), I truly felt that I wanted to ensure that at the very least, "safe and secure" ingredients and seasonings could be secured on a daily basis, even in Kamiyama, where depopulation is progressing.
One of the ingredients grown locally (specifically in the neighboring town of Ishii) is a type of chicken called "Sudachi Chicken," which can be purchased at butchers in Kamiyama. Just being able to have "safe and secure" chicken, raised on domestic feed and without antibiotics, makes me think that it's a wonderful environment. On the other hand, I also realize that I am ensuring "safe and secure" chicken by leaving it to others to raise and kill the chicken, and by paying them money.
What I've come to realise over the past month is how much I've been leaving so many aspects of my eating up to others.
Cooking in the kitchen every day gives me the feeling that I am a producer. My children eat the food I make without any hesitation because it was made by their parents. (Sometimes it looks like it tastes bad.)
What's important is that cooking allows me to realize on a daily basis that I usually leave many of the things I do to others. Also, from the perspective of "increasing self-sufficiency while living in a consumer society," I think it's important to deepen relationships with the "people who grow" safe and secure ingredients and work together to find balance, I think.
"Philosophical" Questions: Considering Reason
- How can we gain a deeper understanding of the natural world and the role of humans in our daily lives?
Organically grown carrots are grown by members of the Kamiyama Satoyama Association. Currently, most of these are shipped outside the prefecture, so they are working with the Food Hub to find a way to properly circulate them locally.
Cooking is all about measuring reason,
You should not try to do anything unnatural or forcible.
These are the words of Kitaoji Rosanjin.
What I realized after spending a month in the kitchen every day was how shallow my understanding of what it means to "eat" was and how little skill I had in using ingredients. This is a sin.
In Kamiyama, food waste cannot be dumped.
Most homes have compost piles in their gardens, and I have two in my own garden. In addition to purchased ingredients, I also receive a lot of seasonal vegetables and wild plants, and I use freezing technology (people from a time before refrigerators were invented were really amazing!) to use them all up while cooking delicious dishes.
In the beginning, I felt really sorry for myself for not being able to use up all the food (quite often) and putting it in the compost. To be honest, after only a month in the kitchen, I haven't reached a level where I can say I have acquired the skills to use up all the food in my fridge.
It is important to advocate for food safety and the importance of a good quality life. However, I also felt that it is very important to think about the "food waste" we produce by cooking for our families every day, before thinking about how to procure good ingredients, and to face the diversity and depth of things that spread from our kitchens at home, and furthermore, our connection to society on a daily basis.
Finally: Maybe they do it because they don't understand.
What I realized through about a month of "I make things almost every day" is that I didn't know anything about myself. What do you think, everyone who has read this far?
After everyone planted glutinous rice, a traditional Kamiyama practice, in the rice fields, they made their own rice balls using the rice grown in Kamiyama and ate them together. The basis of the Food Hub Project is to grow, cook, and eat together.
Assuming we don't know anything yet, what can we do to pass on agriculture in local communities and the culture it supports to the next generation? I feel like this can only become clear by cooking and eating together. This is because cooking allows anyone to easily and willingly, every day, set aside their role as a consumer and become a producer, someone who cooks for a specific person.
I also think it's important that things are "ordinary" rather than "unusual."
The restaurants, bakeries, and grocery stores that the Food Hub Project is planning are places where people can feel the importance of making things on a daily basis. While we live in a capitalist society and continue to be consumers using the money we earn, when it comes to cooking, we can also become producers right away.
We hope that the Food Hub Project can help people to switch between being a consumer and a producer, and, if possible, to remain "producers" for as long as possible.
This project is a journey to explore my personal thoughts, but I also hope that it will be a meaningful journey for many people. It is still an endeavor that has just begun, but I hope that we can deepen it together as we have fun in our daily lives.
For an overview of the Food Hub Project, click here .
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