Maggie Thulson at Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. Magdalen Thulson photo
The Real Time Farms (RTF) Summer 2012 Food Warrior class consists of people from all over the United States. Over the summer, my fellow Food Warriors are documenting the food systems in Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York, Rhode Island, Washington D.C., and myself in Kauai. All counted, there are 25 of us.
I have to say, I really like the title Food Warrior!
Magdalen (Maggie) Thulson is a Denver Summer 2012 Food Warrior. She is mastering in anthropology at Beloit College in Wisconsin. While she is on break, she’s back in her hometown in Colorado with her family. Her internship at RTF will provide an opportunity for her to get to know her local food systems, and she sees similarities between this internship, and anthropology.
Harvesting cacao in Peru. Magdalen Thulson photo
“Food is central to everything,” the 21-year-old tells me. We are video chatting in a Hangout on Google+. “The art of cooking and community puts you in touch with your food.”
Thulson graduates next May and is considering joining FoodCorps. “It’s similar to AmeriCorps,” she says. “You help get gardens in schools.”
The goal at FoodCorps is to give youth a lasting relationship with healthy food. Over a year, “Service Members” create healthy food environments for children and go on to become farmers, chefs, educators, and public health leaders. “These visionaries, armed with the skills to improve school food, will improve all food,” the website says.
Drying cacao in Peru. Magdalen Thulson photo
After reading the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, Thulson was inspired to learn about where her food comes from. At Beloit, she joined Slow Food, an international nonprofit created to protect honest food, farmers and heirloom fruits and vegetables.
Recently, Thulson spent time working at a farm in Peru through World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF). The network of organizations links volunteers with organic farmers, and helps people share more sustainable ways of living. “I took my fall semester off of school and went there for a few months to work and learn about food.”
Magdalen's host father in Peru planting bananas. Magdalene Thulson photo
As a student, she banded with 15 classmates to form a Dining Co-op, a national trend that combines home cooked meals, community, and significant cost savings. “We all pitched in and bought three CSA shares,” she says. “That way, we could have high-quality food, meet people, and cook and share meals together.”
Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, in when a person buys a share in a local farm. The share enables the farmer to plan his growing season based on how many shareholders he has. The farmer can use this information to anticipate how many seeds to buy, how much labor to budget for, and she can determine other factors such as water consumption, composting or fertilizing needs, and packing materials. In return, every week, for the duration of the growing season, members get a box of just harvested produce.
Peru Farmers Market. Magdalen Thulson photo
“The CSA was great—I wouldn’t have been able to eat the food all myself so it was good to have the dining co-op to share it with,” she says. “We were always happy with the produce we got. The farm was very close to our school, so we were able to make a couple of visits as well. It forced us to be creative in our cooking because we had no idea what would be in the box each week (I was introduced to cooking with kale and kohlrabi, and making squash ten different ways). We also learned about what was naturally growing at the time/place.”
For now, Thulson’s biggest worry about the internship is talking to strangers. “I’m a little nervous about talking to people I don’t know. But I just got back from my first farmers market for the internship, and I made some contacts.”
You can follow Magdalen’s Food Warrior internship, and her exploration of the farmers, food artisans and markets in Denver at her blog Denver Feasting.
“I am excited to expand my own and others’ knowledge about food availability in Denver. I am also hoping to get more comfortable connecting with strangers and learning how to ask the right questions to get the most interesting stories.”
Spreading the Seeds of Aloha,
Marta Lane
Summer 2012 Kauai Food Warrior
