Pondering tomatoes in the sky

I had to smile as the steward brought me my meal.

“You pre-ordered the vegetarian meal, is that right sir?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, pleased that I hadn’t even had to ask about it.

“Here you are,” he said.

According to the Flight Tracker on the screen in front of me, I’m flying at 34,006 feet at a speed of 528 miles an hour. I’m somewhere over northern Manitoba on a route that will take me over the Arctic Circle before dropping down to Seoul, Korea, and then on to my final destination, Vietnam, where I will spend the next 10 months as a Fulbright scholar.

Lamar, the Delta flight steward, sets down a platter containing a collection small plates. It’s visually appealing and smells good. It’s on china with real sliverware. I have a plastic cup of red wine next to my plate.

The meal includes something that looks like ratatouille: a fragrant tomato sauce with simmered summer vegetables, brown rice and a side of kale. There is a salad that includes cherry tomatoes. There is a plate of grilled summer squash and asparagus. There are melons, pineapple and strawberries.

I can’t help but chuckle. I think to myself: Is there anywhere on the planet where all of these vegetables and fruits are available and ready for harvest at the same time? I doubt it. And if that’s the case, then what did it take to get all of these items delivered to me, fresh and ripe and visually perfect on my flight that will take me literally to the other side of the world.

­I look at the cherry tomato and the kale, and I think of the farm back home where these items are growing plentifully in the field, ready for harvest. I pick up the cherry tomato and inspect it. It’s red and ripe and perfect in shape and appearance. I pop it in my mouth and sink my teeth into it, letting the skin burst and the tomato explode in my mouth.

It tastes. Well, it tastes like nothing. It tastes like the color red.

I think about being in the field with Heather-Marie two days ago as we scurried about, harvesting vegetables in preparation for the Friday farm stand of Labor Day weekend – a day we hoped would be one of our busiest of the year.

Our tomato plants were bursting with fruit. Heather-Marie had planted two varieties of cherry tomatoes. One was pear shaped and bright red when ripe. The other was a classic round shape but the color like that of a tangerine. As we picked, we ate. I’m not a good enough writer to describe the taste. Maybe it tastes like the sun. Maybe it’s the flavor of the soil and the rain and the months of growing, from their birth in the germination chamber when there was still snow on the ground. Whatever the taste, it resonated down to my toes. It was summer.

I wish I could land this plane by our field, make everyone get out and walk into the field. Come on, now. All of you – even you fancy people in first class.

Now, my friends, pick one of those tomatoes. And take a bite. Do you see? That’s what a tomato is supposed to taste like. (And, while you are out here, would you mind pulling a few weeds?)

And maybe with that taste, they will start to wonder how it is that they can eat an asparagus in August. Or a tomato in January. And why they’d want to.

It was almost a year ago that I began helping my partner grow vegetables for other people at Rising Phoenix Community Farm. The time has been transformative. It’s challenged me to think about all aspects of my life, from where my food comes from, to what waste I produce and what energy I use. It’s also challenged me to work as hard as I’ve ever worked and to see the result of that effort produce something: food. Food that was grown with passion and care. Food that is then offered to family, friends and neighbors.

I’ve been a backyard gardener for years, but being a farmer is something else. I’m not sure how to compare it. Maybe it’s the difference between making a meal for your family and being a short order cook at a busy diner.

Of course, farming is only my summer job. For most of the year, I’m a college professor, teaching journalism at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

The two may seem far apart, but farming has refueled my interests as a journalist, a writer and a teacher. I’ve become fascinated not only with how a new generation of farmers is using storytelling to connect with their customers, but also how they are using these tools to learn from their fellow farmers and with the world at large. I believe they share their stories in hopes of inspiring others, but I want dive in and explore this question more.

I’m going to Vietnam, eager to see if this same phenomenon is happening there. Heather-Marie and I hope to meet other farmers and learn from them and get a sense of the connections that people in other cultures may have with their food and where it comes from.

It’s easy, if you’d like, to see hypocrisy in my actions.

Here, I am, on an airplane, using fossil fuels that degrade the environment and contribute to climate change, even as I try to minimize my impact on the world.

I decline the bottled water because I brought my own container of filtered water in my favorite Hydroflask containers (which has awesome stickers on it, but that’s another story).

Yet, on my platter are cute little salt and pepper shakers and my own, miniature, personal bottle of salad dressing made with imported, extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. They are all made of plastic.

If I really cared about eating locally and minimizing the impact that my actions have on the world, how can I justify the waste my actions create?

I don’t really have a good answer to that question.

It’s easier, I suppose, to just give up. I think about how many of those little salt and pepper shakers are made each day and how they are used once if at all before being tossed into the waste basket and sent to a landfill where they will hold their shape and last so long that my ancestors, if I have any at that point, will not know of my name.

My trip is, in many ways, a selfish act.

All I can hope, I suppose, is that I can find a way to make it matter. I can do work on this trip that makes a difference. I can try to learn how others are navigating these big questions and looking for ways to help all of us rediscover our own connections with food that comes from the places where we live, grown and produced by people that we know.

Still, I really wonder where that damn tomato came from.

Maybe I’ll try to find out.