Reid was eating a raisin recently and she turned to me and said, “This is like a Craisin only made from a grape.” “In fact,” said I, “raisins came first and Craisins are just dried cranberries.” Reid didn’t look convinced. It goes to show how different the foods she has access to are from what I ate as a kid, I guess.
It also makes me think a bit of David, a guy in my MA class, who asked me once what pickles started out as. I’ve been conscious since Reid’s birth to take her berry and apple picking and to point out the crops growing in fields so that no one is still smirking about a question she asked 14 years after she asked it. Of course, David asked his question during the weekend I first met Ken and that special occasion might keep it in my mind.
Sometimes I regret telling Reid exactly where her food comes from, though. For instance, on the way to school yesterday, Reid was asking in the baby chick comes from ‘”this part” – the yolk if the hard-boiled that she was in the process of eating. Since I was planning to eat one myself later, I was blocking the thought as much as I could and gave a brief “Sort of” as an answer and talked about how chicks couldn’t hatch from the eggs in our fridge because they’d gotten cold and eggs needed to be kept warm by the hens sitting on them. And then, I asked Reid about school or something in a clever bid to distract her. Reid is not easily distracted, though, and while I hoped fervently for my car pool folks to be ready so that I could leave, Reid wondered if maybe we could hatch chicks by warming the eggs that were in the fridge. Ken explained that it was too late for that and, in an undertone, agreed that it was pretty nasty what we do to chicken babies. I have to agree that it would be if you thought about it. But if I thought about it or most other food choices, we’d have to be vegetarians. I don’t think Ken would like that much (okay, at all) and Reid would much rather be a carnivore than an herbivore, if she had to choose. Omnivore suits her best, really.
Or maybe I’ll check into Ottawa’s bylaws on backyard poultry. Raising chickens would be a fun summer project don’t you think? Amy at Crunchy Domestic Goddess has been down this road. I’d have to check to see if our current pet sitters would tend them, I suppose.
[Disclaimer: the views in this message have not been approved of or even reviewed by Ken. I come up with them all be myself.]
Update: The City of Ottawa prohibits the keeping of livestock within the city limits unless in specifically zoned areas. We have some obvious farm land still but not in my neighbourhood.