82 ~ Mediterranean diet, Part 2 (and wolves and eggs)
After writing my last post on the Mediterranean diet, I saw that Wisconsin’s own foraging guru, Sam Thayer (www.foragersharvest.com) will give a related talk next weekend at the PBS Wisconsin Garden & Landscape Expo in Madison, titled “The Wild Truth About the Mediterranean Diet”. So I wrote to him, shared my post to swap ideas, and he responded as follows:
“Bill,
There is definitely some overlap in our arguments. I point out that the origins of the Mediterranean longevity phenomenon were rooted in the observation that poor people outlived rich, and men outlived women, and anthropologists and sociologists set out to discover why. One half of this phenomenon was categorically ignored: hard outdoor physical labor. This is why the men were living longer than their wives. The west has warped the diet in basic ways. Animal fats were not shunned [in the Mediterranean]. Food was fresh. But perhaps the most distinctive part about the diet of the poor was a heavier reliance on the cheapest food: wild leafy greens. These have always seen as poverty food, and also the healthiest food, even by Mediterranean people. The low social status associated with eating these foods has been the thing preventing this core of the Mediterranean diet from being accepted in wealthy western societies, and it is also causing the Mediterranean diet to decline in the regions where it was originally named and identified.
That's sort of the gist of it.
-Sam”
Interesting, interesting. So every time we harvest and eat something like a handful of watercress (photo above), in fact we are immersed in the ‘real’ Mediterranean diet.
Sam will take a deeper dive into the topic with his Garden Expo talk on Saturday (Feb. 11) at 2:30 pm and again on Sunday at 1:00 pm (at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison). I’m definitely going to be there for one of them (and maybe even for my own talks - “Reflections on a Three-year Hiatus from Grocery Shopping”, and “Gardening with Spirit”, both on Friday and Sunday; for more information, see here).
I’m just back home from a sublime few days in far nothern Wisconsin (Oneida County), where I spent some time trailing a small pack of wolves with a couple of expert trackers I know, Matt Nelson and Nicholas WazeeGale. Matt works out of the Teaching Drum Outdoor School up there (www.teachingdrum.org) and led the way (and also check out Nicholas’s work and teaching at www.wildrootshandcrafts.com). It was incredible, to follow the wolves’ story written in the snow (and the stories of the supporting cast: foxes, coyotes, deer, bobcat, fisher, raven, long-tailed weasel).
Reading the wolf story with Nicholas (left) and Matt (center). -photo by Heide
A reminder that Matt will lead a one-day wildlife tracking skills evaluation (for any skill level, including complete newbies to tracking) here at the farm on March 25. For more information and to register, see here (note: registration deadline is March 4).
I can attest and guarantee that in working with Matt you’ll learn much more than identification of animal tracks - also about being in relation with the wild world.
Finally - the first sign of spring!
Yep, this morning I opened the snow-covered coop and discovered that the girls (not Smokey the cat) had laid the first egg of 2023 (stimulated by the lengthening days). We’ve turned the corner - welcome, everyone, to the first tiptoe (or at least first eggshell) of spring.