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Zoan Afanador's avatar

If my grandma was alive she would point to her sustainable small garden in her urban home in the town of Arecibo a mile away from the Atlantic Ocean. It was in that small plot were she raised aguacates, limones, eggplant, tomatoes, okra, plantains, cilantro, culantro, passion fruit, green bananas, sunflower for the seeds and I can keep going. She taught me that abundance is what the earth provides in any given day. This women believed in the power of "one." For her growing food was a job that every one should take part and should not be delegated to only a few. I've always struggled to understand how was she was passed down that vision of abundance and acceptance since I don't resemble her much but value her extraordinary live.

Food abundance was not limited to our household since at least every other neighbor in "la urbanizacion" had some sort of fruit tree or vegetable growing in the backyard. It was a ritual to find a food item in front of the house gifted by a neighbor. But this phenomenon was not unique to our neighborhood either, it was also seen when we went to visit our family members in the country side. Everyone of our family members had a special fruit tree in the backyard that we visited as part of the trip. The adults stayed inside chatting and having cafe con leche. The kids were told to go out and play around these massive pomarosa, mango and pana trees. Once the adults were done talking then they would head out to the backyard to enjoy the second part of the visit which included visiting the trees and talking about their harvest. Before going home me and Abuela would leave with a big bag full of fruits and vegetables. On our drive back we would discuss what food items were going to be eaten first. The weeks menu was already in the making. Our little food network was full of worldly flavors that were now rooted in our land and were embraced as part of our culinary traditions. The foods were eaten in the most natural state and their unique flavors created a memory DNA that is impossible to recreate.

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Rebekah Moran's avatar

I mean...11:49pm on a Friday night tipsy writing, I'm ready to go on this journey with you :) Your article raises a lot of complex questions we need to ask ourselves. Technology is not stopping for any of us and (among many industries, food being a very important one)...just because we can, does it mean we should?

One of the things technology is bridging for people who want produce, cuisine, etc is to create or recreate experiences. A sense of nostalgia or longing. However, to your point, it is SO good to eat something where it's good. Paying a premium to continually enable some kind of distanced experience, like evoking the idea of vacation, seems like such a waste.

I think what Goldbelly has set out to do plays an interesting role in this - does everybody win in that marketplace ecosystem? I hope so! But I'm sure it has its consequences. There are also restaurants that try to invoke feelings of a home-cooked meal and home meal services that try to invoke the feeling of a restaurant...so I guess we're always searching for food to temporarily transport us somewhere else.

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