mocavores

preparing the grill for fresh-caught utah trout

tonight we went to our annual church fish fry.  this was a tradition started by someone years back that brings everyone out on a friday night at the end of august to eat fish, share pot-luck dishes, visit with neighbors, and slide on the slip n' slide.  it's the biggest church social event of the year, probably.

we eat delicious utah trout, expertly grilled, garden tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, and melons, peaches and apricots from neighborhood fruit trees and an assortment of salads, salsas, pastas and desserts.

in an era where all kinds of mormons are eager to dispel myths and finally, finally show that we're just like everyone else, i want to dispel one of the myths that will hopefully show that, no

it's true,

we're not like everyone else.

here's a good article and video from nbc's rock center that lays out the mormon church welfare and food system.  i think it's a pretty amazing system, and i'm really proud to be part of it.

mormons are known for their love of jello, but really we've always been locavores and self-sufficient when it comes to food.

(we learned too late, though, that we should have eaten those crickets, not killed them.)

fishing and hunting have never gone out of style here in utah, nor has gardening, canning, or communal farms and food production.

i love that we have central farms and canneries and enough local food to sustain our community.

i really, really love utah trout (though we haven't yet been able to convince the brethren of the church, who run the fish fry, to replace the parkay margarine squeeze and lowry's seasoning salt with real butter, salt, and lemon).

i hope other communities can learn from us that no one should go hungry, and that every community should be producing their own food.  it's a really good feeling, a now peculiar practice that i hope will once again become common practice in the united states.