Community Efforts to Deal with Hunger
Food writer M.F.K. Fisher lived through a period of food deprivation due to global warfare in the 1940s. In her classic book, “The Art of Eating,” she reveals her thoughts on what it is about eating that brings people together. “With good friends…and good food on the board…we may well ask, when shall we live if not now?” In other words, a shared meal binds people together, wherever they are in the world, and no matter how bountiful or sparse the provender.
In the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, New Yorker editor David Remnick shared past articles from the magazine’s Sunday Archive about cooking at home (May 3, 2020). “Everyone has an idea of home cooking, and everyone’s idea is different. Like Proust’s madeleine, the radical simplicity of home cooking has a way of evoking powerful feelings and recollections. Some of us conjure images of days spent in the kitchen with our families, whereas others contemplate the improvisation of new meals or recipes from a favorite cookbook. The common thread is that certain tastes can make us feel, at least for the moment, that all is right with the world.”
A year and four months later, we know that all is not right with the world. Hunger abroad and here in America is real. The August 2021 issue of National Geographic focuses on hunger in America that includes positive examples of what communities around the country are doing to help fight food insecurity. There are others underway as well. In March 2020, a small group of friends in Columbia, Missouri who love to cook saw in cooking a way to raise donations from the community to help people struggling to feed their families. Through cooking, we offered something different and interactive for the donor in stressing the power of food to feed the spirit. With the help of a gifted MU student and Zoom technology, we worked from home to create an online food blog called “The Common Ingredient.”
Recipes and comfort food stories were then collected from passionate cooks across our community eager to contribute to the effort. Their collective family food stories are available online at thecommoningredient.com. Visitors to the website are encouraged to use a recipe, then donate to one of three local Missouri non-profits—The Food Bank for Central and Northeast Missouri, the Boys and Girls Club of Columbia, and LOVE Columbia.
From the beginning of time, a common ingredient that has connected us is love. Food is fundamental, and never more so than now as we find ourselves seeking vaccine boosters and entering a prolonged period of social distancing with masks required in public spaces. The 20th anniversary of 9/11 was a reminder of how Americans from diverse backgrounds come together when faced with an attack on the nation, and that is what we are facing with this pandemic.
There has never in our lifetime been a better time to come together and remember that there is joy to be found in sharing food with others, wherever you break bread around the planet. When Kit and I moved west five months ago, there was an opportunity to spread the mission of The Common Ingredient to another state and community. Happily, we have found a local organization that is doing something about hunger.
In Nevada City, California, Hospitality House believes that food security matters. Over the past year, the non-profit, with the assistance from the community and Nevada County, has provided nearly 71,000 meals (almost double the number since Covid-19), serving over 600 homeless individuals, as well as finding long-term housing for approximately 240 people. Recent fires in Northern California are an example of how one can go from stable to homeless in an instant. The organization believes that we make a community stronger when we show compassion for those experiencing homelessness and food insecurity.
All of September, Hospitality House and seven local Nevada City and Grass Valley eateries are hosting the non-profit’s 15th annual Empty Bowl benefit to help fund services the organization provides. Here’s how Empty Bowl works:
Those who would like to participate in the Empty Bowl simply purchase a ticket ($40) to one of the seven local participating restaurants.
2. Each participating restaurant has a predetermined meal to go with handcrafted bowls that have been made and donated by local artists.
3. Restaurants donate table space, staff and their chef who makes the meal and all of that is donated to Hospitality House. The restaurant industry has been hit hard this past year, so folks who purchase tickets to the Empty Bowl benefit are encouraged to also support the participating restaurants by ordering an appetizer, entrée or dessert as well.
To support the Empty Bowl benefit, Kit and I bought two tickets for a table at Lola in the National Exchange Hotel on historic Broad Street—one of the oldest operating hotels west of the Rockies. It was built in 1856 in what was to become the most sophisticated of the gold rush mining camps. For our Empty Bowl donation, the restaurant’s executive chef Tom Bevitori prepared a fabulous bowl of French Onion Soup for each of us, and we added two additional dishes and a libation to help support the restaurant. The chef’s walnut pâté appetizer was served with sourdough toasts and endive leaves the shape of little boats. For our entrée, we split an order of Buttermilk Fried Chicken, Heirloom grits, curly leaf Kale, plum and garlic honey. We drove home that night with two lovely, glazed bowls handmade by local artisans and a list of the subtle, earthy spices in Chef Bevitori’s heavenly walnut pâté.
The Hospitality House Empty Bowl benefit is not just about the bowl or the meal, it’s about giving someone dealing with food insecurity sustenance to move forward. Just up Broad Street at Java John’s, the popular coffee shop is doing their part to help. Customers can pay forward by adding $3.75 to their bill, a small donation that ensures that anyone who is hungry gets a free cup of coffee and a bagel w/ cream cheese with love from the community.
Visit The Common Ingredient. Share what your community is doing to fight against food insecurity. In uncertain times, it is essential that we all do something.