Our Common Table Defined

baltimore eats - May, 2006
by John Shields

This is my second column here and it seems fitting that I take a moment to define my concept of a "Common Table." The Common Table is a symbolic term for the practices of ancient monastic communities. The eating table was the nucleus and soul of the community. Here was where all gathered to be nourished and warmed - both by the food and the conviviality of the community.

Depending on the particular spiritual denomination there would be readings and talks to inspire and provoke one's thoughts. Often matters of critical importance to the community would be discussed, and decisions made during and after the meal.

In such a community the food prepared and consumed was grown and harvested on the community land and by the members of the community - thus the Common Table became the final manifestation of that cyclical process of interdependence, the closely linked relationships between the people and the soil - the place that was their home and the days that made up their lives. Attendance at the Common Table was not an option left to personal whim. It was a requirement of community membership, and without the entire community present the circle was broken.

If I look back some thirty or forty years, I reckon that my family dinner table was of a similar ilk. Whatever we were doing, whatever we were up to, around the late afternoon we stopped and made our way home. We each had a job to do in helping with the evening meal - peeling and mashing potatoes, setting the table, making the iced tea, husking corn, and the unenviable task of washing the dishes (I hated those pots and pans!)

But this was the time of day we would come together as a family, a micro-community within the larger community. We would catch up on our separate lives, laugh, tell stories of the day's events, argue, sometimes spontaneously burst into song - and most importantly, share the food on the table and honor the efforts that brought it to the table. Being home for dinner was not an option. It was a requirement - and if any of us were MIA we were in big trouble.

Thinking about this I realize that less than fifty years ago most of the food we consumed in the Chesapeake region we grew, raised, produced or caught right here. From the 1940's and into the 50's - in the Baltimore city neighborhood of Hamilton, where my mother's family came from, there was still a series of truck-farms (farmettes). These farmers trucked their small harvests to Baltimore's once vibrant network of municipal markets: Lexington Market, Broadway Market, Cross Street Market, Hollins Market and Belair Market.

When I was a kid, just about all my friends knew people or had relatives who worked on a farm and most of our families had our own back-yard vegetable gardens to supplement the household groceries.

Even as late as the 1960's we were, as a community, still connected to the land. Our food economy was still primarily locally based. Well, barely a generation later, look around - What has happened?!?!

With the advent of industrial/agribusiness methods of growing monocultured crops and transporting the harvested products thousands of miles by truck, the lion's share of local farms were economically overwhelmed.

Those hardy souls who hung in either had to adapt to this unsustainable, bigger-is-better philosophy of the so called "Green Revolution"- a pretty name for farming using chemical fertilizers and increasing amounts of toxic pesticides and government subsides - or eventually sell off their increasingly unprofitable operations to real estate developers. - And there went our local food economy!

As this went on we collectively said, "That's progress. What can you do?" But lately, even in the mainstream media we are beginning to see some disturbing statistics making news: Most items on our plates have traveled well over 1,500 miles before we purchase them. Thousands of acres of farmland are lost every year in our region to development. Sterile Genetically Modified Organisms - casually and cynically known as "Frankenfoods" - are replacing heirloom and traditional seed varieties.

Increased usage of herbicides and pesticides on our farmland, fears of diseases like Mad Cow and Phisteria. The list goes on and on... Our sense of connection to the land and its bounties has turned to fear and mistrust.

There are problems of far too few local farmers, diminishing farmlands, depleting and poisoned topsoil. Now the era of no-more-cheap energy is upon us. If you've been fortunate to have the money to fill your automobile's gas tank lately you know what I'm talking about. If you have an oil burner or heat with natural gas you know what I'm talking about. When you start to get the bills for this summer's air conditioning you'll know what I'm talking about!

Now what-the-hotel-bill does all this have to do with our dinner table, our farms and food? Plenty! As we enter the final days of cheap fossil fuels - that is stuff like natural gas, oil, coal - prices for these commodities will go up as the supply diminishes. Fossil fuels are finite, which means there is only so much of the stuff on the planet. The production of oil, and some believe natural gas as well, has peaked.

What exactly does that mean? It means that it's going to get more, more, more and morae expensive - until it's gone! From now on, it's pretty much down hill...

Now let's go back down on the farm and you do the math. How is the soil plowed? Oil. How are the crops planted, fertilized and harvested? Oil and natural gas. How is the food transported thousands of miles by truck and airplane? Oil. The age of cheap industrial-agribusiness-multinational-corporate-global food is quickly coming to an end and it may not be pretty.

Meanwhile, let's smell the locally grown tomatoes... and asparagus... and cantaloupes. Our Farmers' Markets, like Waverley and Fallsway, get bigger and more exciting every year. People are making connections with a new generation of farmers who are really struggling to remain committed to our region. Granted it is only a tiny fraction of the food sold and consumed in our metropolitan area - but it is a beginning and a sign of hope.

Recently I've begun to think about just how important it is for us in the larger community to come together again around a Common Table in these changing, uncertain and fragile times. I believe Our Common Table is our place of hope. This is where we must come together to nurture ourselves and strengthen each other in the challenges life brings to each of us - the challenges and the opportunities that lie ahead for our families and communities.

We need to get going, roll up our sleeves and begin the critically essential and tremendously exciting task of rebuilding our local food economy - and along the way we may just find ourselves inadvertently in the process of re-establishing and revitalizing our local communities. Communities of people... that is friends, neighbors, families... connected to each other and connected to our home, joined around Our Common Table.

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