Local Food

I am beginning to suspect that the growing interest in local food is a boon to feminists.  You might think, how can a focus on making your own soupstock and canning your tomotoes be a feminist concern?  Well, women's work, including kitchen work has long been undervalued, a fact which is reflected in the minimal wages (if any) earned by homemakers.  However now that we are starting to wake up to the importance of local food processed in home kitchens as a source of health and wellbeing, this work is becoming valued.  A value that extends from the farmer and the farmer's soil to the home kitchen and cold storage shed. 

I felt immense satisfaction making a homemade chicken soup stock from the roast chicken bones from yesterday's dinner.  When one of us comes down with a cold, I will be able to nourish us with this stock, knowing all the yummy fresh produce that went into it.  And now it is not only I that am satisfied, but a growing horde of other local food focused home cooks providing for themselves, and their families. What better aim for a feminist than to feel satisfaction for her accomplishments, and to have them valued by the community she lives in.