Illustration by Tom Bachtell
I have been enjoying short essays and posts by Charles Bethea in the last year or so in a way that I can explain with a simple metric. I always find myself wanting to learn more about something I was intrigued by in what he wrote. That is a sign of one kind of excellent writing, interesting enough to make me hungry to learn more, but concise enough that I feel satisfied if I do not have time to explore further.
Case in point below, and fortunately I had time to find out about one of the gleaners he mentioned. I chose the one in Atlanta, since I have spent much of the last year there. I have pasted a couple screen shots from their website into the excerpt of Mr. Bethea’s essay below, in case you want to click out and see a live example. It is about time that I share my appreciation for his writing, and no better a way to do it than with this:
A society of gleaners (not to be confused with dumpster divers) learn the rules of harvesting food in unusual places.
Two dozen gleaners—not to be confused with foragers or dumpster divers—showed up for the second annual International Gleaners Symposium, held recently at the Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta. They were there to discuss the finer points of gathering neglected foodstuffs from roadsides, back yards, and other nonpublic places, and then donating them to the hungry.
The gleaners sat in a classroom, drinking coffee and eating store-bought grapes. They were awaiting remarks from Ashley Pruitt, a local lawyer specializing in civil litigation, who had volunteered to explain the surprising number of ways that one can run afoul of the law while picking unharvested fruits and nuts for homeless shelters and food banks, as more than four hundred volunteer groups in the United States now do.
“A few weeks ago, I didn’t even know protection for food donation was a thing,” Pruitt, who wore a silk scarf around her neck, said before she began. “But I’ve been studying the case law. ”
One attendee, Jennifer Jans, described herself as an “outreach raccoon” for Hidden Harvest, a gleaning outfit in Ottawa. “We rescue fruit and nuts, largely from yards,” she said. “People will sign up their trees. Maybe they don’t want to harvest them, or they have too much fruit.” She listed some commonly gleaned Ottawan comestibles: “cherries, pears, black walnuts, and the rare apricot tree.” Also, “lots and lots of crab apples, which I whine about, even though they’re nutritious and delicious.” Continue reading →
Organikos 