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Gina Rae La Cerva is a geographer, environmental anthropologist and writer. She is the author of Feasting Wild: In Search of the Last Untamed Food.
If there was one thing that united us throughout the pandemic, it was food. Whether we were stress-eating, panic-shopping, learning to cook, or wondering where our next meal might come from, the subject of food was never far from our minds.
Those privileged with extra time were ambitious, cooking meals that took all day, feasts with more steps and ingredients than we had used in the previous six months. Sous vide, sauté, slice and simmer. We made grapefruit marmalades and pear butters that required hours in front of the stove, each stir of the spoon a way to calm our anxieties amid this new configuration of the world.
When quarantine life became more routine, we went back to the old easy favourites. We cooked the dishes we knew by heart until we couldn’t stand them any more. How many ways could we dress up boxed mac and cheese? So we dusted off old cookbooks and realized how surprisingly meat-heavy the recipes were, a testament to the increasing move toward vegetarianism and veganism on a global scale. One survey found that the demand for plant-based meat rose by 454 per cent during quarantine.
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Sardines and other tinned fish were also suddenly ubiquitous. The internet was flooded with tasty recipes using whatever ingredients we had on hand. We rooted around in the back of the freezer for whatever was left. We went exploring in the dark corners of the pantry and ate things we had been saving for a special time. A bottle of wine from a particularly good vintage. A tin of caviar. A wild boar terrine. What better a moment to celebrate being alive than with special edibles. And when it got too tough to cook, day in and day out, we turned to take-out with a conflicted feeling in our bellies. Supporting restaurants was important. But was it putting the employees at risk? Did my freshly delivered pizza mean I was causing someone else to be exposed?
Perhaps one of the most fascinating transformations was that after years of gluten-free and paleo diets reprimanding our carbohydrate intake, baked goods became a staple and a comfort again. Recipes for chocolate cakes you could make without eggs, a wartime recipe our grandmothers used, were shared and reshared. It seemed the whole world took up sourdough bread making all at once. One baker even sent dehydrated starter around the world, spreading the yeasty culture to a diverse community of people, uniting them around a common spore.
And yet even as some of us indulged, many others went hungry. The line of cars at the food depots stretched for miles. In many places, it was the essential food delivery workers who were among the highest groups facing a lack of food. In Canada, it is Black and Indigenous people who have some of the highest rates of food insecurity. With schools closed, a major source of calories for poor students was suddenly not available. All around the world, from Kathmandu to New York, emergency distribution programs were set up to pack and serve meals to seniors, immuno-compromised people, daily wage workers who had lost employment and anyone else that needed food.
The pandemic also highlighted the many flaws in our global, industrialized, corporate-dominated food system. Although considered essential, the majority of farm labourers are poorly paid and work under some of the most unsafe and vulnerable conditions, leading to higher outbreak risk. Massive amounts of food went to waste. When meatpacking plants were shuttered, it was cheaper to kill the animals than to keep feeding them. Hundreds of thousands of pigs were slaughtered and destroyed. Milk was dumped down the drain. Vegetables rotted in the fields.
At the same time, many small farmers and producers thrived. Heirloom bean farmers found their once-niche product flying off the shelves. Independent flour mills experienced a steep drop in wholesale demand, only to be overwhelmed with an even larger demand from individuals as it became harder to find flour in the stores. Support for community-supported agriculture shares saw an uptick. Because small farmers already tend to plant a diversity of crops, they were more resilient and nimble to changing demands. Many were on the front lines of donating food to those in need.
This nod toward food security and resilience happened on the individual level, too. Kitchen victory gardens and backyard chickens became so popular that the supply of baby chicks ran low. We traded food with our neighbours. People began foraging for backyard weeds: purslane, dandelions, lamb’s quarters. Country foods were gathered, fished and hunted with gratitude, becoming more central to our diets than ever before. We made sorbet from invasive species like Japanese knotweed. We learned to ferment sauerkraut and make yogurt. To grow mushrooms on the kitchen counter and sprout new plants from veggie scraps. Who knew green onions would have a second life just by placing the old ends in water?
We made do with what we had, and shared when we had more than enough. We discovered our love for slow food and began to appreciate the labour involved in cooking. And now, as the world begins to open up again, we don masks and stand in line to eat outside at our favourite local joints. We are starved for connection and thankful for this nod toward prequarantine life. But on some small level, we feel a bit nostalgic, missing the simple pleasure of a home-cooked meal.
And all it took was a global pandemic to remind us that nourishment should never be taken for granted.
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