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September 21, 2009
Iowa: We're the Food Folk
I drove my mother-in-law to O’Hare Airport yesterday. It’s harvest season. The coincidence caused me to realize: Where else on Earth, within just an hour’s drive from home, can one see soybeans, corn, hogs, cattle (dairy and beef), and goats—all these important food commodities in one place? Yes, soy beans. Look through the labels in the grocery store, and try to find a processed food without them. (As for the goats, they are a niche market in the USA, but significant globally.)
There are a few chickens here and there, as well. You even can spot horses. We don’t eat them, but they still are used here and there in the production of the list above.
Occasionally you can spy, running between the fields, turkey, pheasant, and deer. Invisible from the car, the trees along the rivers nonetheless shade mushrooms. Berries and rhubarb grow wild, too.
Is that an apple orchard in the distance? Or is it a pumpkin patch?
And what was I eating as I pondered this plenitude around me? A banana. You see, Iowa also grows Wal-Marts.
Posted by hockey at September 21, 2009 11:03 AM