Food and the Pandemic: Bates College Faculty in the Community of Lewiston, Maine
Written by: Quinn Kieselowsky — Student at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine
When the pandemic rolled in over a year ago, many dimensions of our lives had significantly altered. We all were engulfed in the realities of the countless tragic events that were taking place around us, making it harder for us to remain positive and optimistic. However, during this past year many individuals took initiatives, became innovative, and sought out safe ways to engage and support the community. For this piece, we will be looking into an aspect that is a part of all of our lives and one that we all embrace in our own ways: FOOD!
The pandemic and its following restrictions made accessibility and interactions difficult for all, and for food, we need it everyday, so being creative and finding ways to access it were mandatory. During my time at home through the pandemic, I couldn’t tell you the amount of times that I traversed for a half an hour in my kitchen between the pantry and refrigerator hoping something would somehow appear. Well, it did not. And for many, this reality of being in a mandatory quarantine or curfew with limited food was a similar situation, leaving most having to grab those beans or soup cans from the back and trying out something you promised you would never eat.
As we continue, I’ll be bringing you into Maine where I currently go to college, and even deeper into the local community of the city of Lewiston where the pandemic has done anything but slow down farmers’ markets, CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) programs, and other locations where local food is grown and sold. Since the Coronavirus pandemic emerged within and in the surrounding areas of the city of Lewiston, Maine over a year ago, local members of CSA programs and farmers’ markets have increased their support and consumption of local farm produce, and even developed new projects — in cooking and gardening — in their homes and backyards.
Local Food in the Past
In preparations for this project and in the process of finding meaningful questions, I had a deep interest in learning about what food meant to each individual, when they started becoming aware of the variety of it, the role it played in their life as a youth or young adult, and several other initial influences. Though my research developed into what I wanted to aim at on a broader scale — the pandemic’s impact — I still wish to briefly hone in on the past of my co-researchers and their initial relationships or investments with food, especially those produced locally.
One community member began by drawing her initial connections to food all the way back to growing up in Japan during the 1970s and 1980s. Keiko Konoeda, current Bates language professor, spoke of what food meant not only to her family, but even the community growing up. Seasonality became a large focus of my discussion with Keiko, and she even clarifies how, “I grew up being taught that summer vegetables are good for summer bodies and winter vegetables are good for winter bodies.” Keiko has been involved in environments of food sharing and markets since her youth. She even pointed out that a large part of the relationship she had with her grandmother while in Japan was based off of the food a local farmer began offering during the development of a local CSA. As Keiko grew up and lived for periods of time in locations such as Hawaii and Massachusetts, even then she continued her engagement in local CSA programs. Nutrition was a priority and as Keiko traveled around, finding local seasonal food was always something she considered and sought out.
“It became a ritual for me to go up to the farmers’ markets on Saturdays. I was like a kid in a candy store. All these fresh vegetables and it was just fantastic.”
During a second interview, another current Bates professor, Leslie Hill, spoke about her time in college binging on snacks like white-powdered donuts and wheat thins. College is definitely a time where most students finally get out on their own and start exploring and indulging in certain foods, and for some, like Leslie, they may even begin to try and expand their food interests and qualities. “I began to read stuff. I began to think I need to eat better than this.” In Hill’s early twenties following graduation, she established herself within Atlanta, Georgia, and spent time getting to know the local food scene. She became a member of a food co-op where she spent several hours assisting in the daily operations of the business in exchange for a discount on the food. She discovered a farmers market that had grown substantially in the following years and was amazed by the varieties of food, especially the perfectly ripe peaches, which she informed me would place anyone in heaven. “It became a ritual for me to go up to the farmers’ markets on Saturdays. I was like a kid in a candy store. All these fresh vegetables and it was just fantastic.” Hill reinvented her food interests following her entrance into the independent environments of college and beyond, a task I would consider difficult for most people. The process of growing up through dependency and emerging into independent stages shifts throughout cultures, and as we see through Konoeda’s environment and its early focus around seasonality with local foods into Hill’s later reflexivity into her own nutritional habits, it is beyond complex just seeing and trying to understand the connections around the variety of food and its role in our lives.
Pandemic — The Response in Maine
In the past year, the infinite realities, encompassing the calamitous encounters between the environment against humans, and humans against humans, have shown — not for the first time — the continued patterns within our lives that we must improve on. We are incredible beings with abilities we have yet to fully comprehend, and I am confident that we can find common ground to positively impact each other’s lives and the ground which we live our lives upon. Since the pandemic, one of the many things that gave me such an optimistic approach was the state of Maine, and specifically the city of and even those surrounding Lewiston. Out of the multiple factors leveled up against them, like most states, was finding out how to safely and efficiently deliver food and offer locations accessible for all to purchase produce and other food products. Supermarkets, those stores that usually have parking lots beyond filled and checkout lines backing up into the cereal aisle at points, are not the safest bet on the weekends during the pandemic, but it often is not a choice. Families, especially those facing serious vulnerabilities in health conditions, need access to food. Supermarkets cannot be a single option, as it places each individual at a serious risk of contracting and infecting members in their residences.
Luckily, one of my co-researchers, Jean Potuchek, a former professor of Bates College who is now a Maine Master Gardener Volunteer and a local food enthusiast, informed me that the University of Maine Cooperative Extension developed an online program at the start of the pandemic for finding the most local farmers’ markets, stands, and other food options to one’s location in Maine. The program connected with farmers all over Maine they had relationships with and sought out ways in which many, who make the majority of their living off of selling directly to restaurants, could now sell directly to consumers. They asked their farm connections to seek out as many farms as they could within their own neighboring regions to try and have each gather their produce and other food products to sell at one local location. “Within a week [after the pandemic was introduced]…the University of Maine Cooperative Extension had put out a map showing all the farms that would now sell directly to consumers.” More information regarding this particular map and the extension of its resources can be found by clicking this link.
Talking to Jean, I could not tell you how positively shocked I was to hear this news. Additionally, when she heard about this program and began visiting nearby locations around Lewiston and Freeport, she asked one of the farmers selling what they thought of the adjustment so far and they said, “it’s working so well we think we’re going to keep doing this after restaurants open again.” The initiative taken place by the University of Maine, and additionally by local farmers around the state, through communicating with nearby farmers and working to figure out ways to provide food to the public, speaks to how well we can perform and come together during the periods of loss and suspension that we have seen throughout this pandemic.
“It’s working so well we think we’re going to keep doing this after restaurants open again.”
Creativity Through Precarity
In April of last year, as the pandemic transferred into the stage of a matter that would now persist for more than a few weeks, but rather for months and possibly longer, I became curious about how others would react to this shift at home and if they would, given the chance, adopt or discover ways to keep themselves engaged and productive.
During tragic nationwide or global events, there are those who try and lead on a positive note, searching for unique and creative ways to reinvent and reconfigure our relationships and experiences. These moments of precarity are stressful. Most of us were grown up and exist around strict elements of progress (Tsing 2015, 20), ways in which we felt that the best way forward was to discover the patterns throughout our daily working systems and understand the functionalities of them, but what do you do when these systems are temporarily non-existent or are underperforming? You have to be creative. In times where there are not activated models consistently surrounding us, we have to make do with what we have, with what we know, and with who we know. During the pandemic, I saw unconventional approaches in every corner of the world, people with nothing and people with everything, finding ways to come together, fight together, and plan together. Though I did not interview every innovative sector of every corner of the world, I can point out a few ways that my co-researchers did their best to take part in this direction of creativity in this time of precarity.
Dre Gager, a member of the Institutional Research, Analysis, and Planning Board at Bates College, expressed the ways in which she took initiative in her own backyard and neighborhood during the pandemic and periods of quarantine. “One thing that has really changed for us with the lockdown is that we’ve really got back into gardening.” Dre spent time gardening around 5 years ago, but with a family and the constant busy scheduling with kids, it was hard to stay involved and maintain it. For the past 8 years, Dre has been involved in Willow Pond Farm’s CSA, and is a major advocate for local agriculture and local business. However, with a garden and being involved in the CSA where, “lettuce was coming out of our ears,” she decided to split a half share with her parents, leaving her with a little more room in the pantry. And Dre’s garden was not some pots on the porch with a few basil and tomato plants. No, it was a large plot consisting of a three sisters garden — corn, squash, and beans — with a surrounding variety including: tomatoes, radishes, beets, broccoli, spinach, asparagus, kale, tomatillos, herbs, both perennial and annual, and flowers. Wow!
When the pandemic started, Dre began to plant several varieties of tomatoes, with other vegetables included, inside her house to try developing them early on. She wanted to make sure that she would have a lot of options, even if a few would not grow. Turns out, the majority did, and she was left with a lot more than she needed. However, since all would not fit in her garden, she decided to go out into the neighborhood from door to door asking if people wanted tomato, broccoli, squash, or pumpkin plants. Though she had few relationships with those in her neighborhood prior to the pandemic, neighbors started reaching out asking for these specific vegetables. “I left a bunch of them down by my mailbox and people would walk by and take them and I would run out and talk to them, so it really has provided an avenue for me meeting my neighbors in a way. I’ve been here for 10 years and don’t really know any of my neighbors, but now I do from gardening.” Dre’s creativity and initiative during this unpredictable time helped her not only build a sustainable garden for her family, but also led to the development of new relationships with neighbors and getting them involved in home gardening projects.
Final Thoughts
As it’s been over a year since the pandemic hit, our lifestyles have significantly altered, some temporarily, others indefinitely. What we routinely followed prior to the pandemic and what we understood are now in some areas, the past. Work has developed into hybrid models, balancing between virtual and in-person experiences, though most are leaning towards the former. Curbside pickup has now become the thing. And masks are not only seen as protective coverings, but as fashion accessories or facilitators in moving between store and home without anybody recognizing you. Behaviors, hobbies, and personal goals have almost all been reconfigured or reinvented, shifting cultures, values, and priorities.
Continuing forward through this unpredictable period, I would take a pause and look at what we have managed to do and create during this period. Look towards the past, who you were, who you knew, what your weekdays and weekends looked like, and why you engaged in the lifestyle you did. Look towards the initial pandemic period, at who you became, what you went through, what you realized about yourself and your relationships, and how you used your time. And finally to this current period of the pandemic, for who you are, what you have implemented, what you discovered, what new aspirations you may have, and what progress means to you. Each of us now are in positions we never considered we would be in a year ago, and still, each of us have no idea what position we will be in a year from now. What we do know is what we each have at the moment, and no matter what new reality becomes of us, we will continue to innovate through barriers of precarity and find ways to connect and build together.
Resources:
2021. “Summer Market.” Lewiston Farmers’ Market website. https://www.lewistonfarmersmarket.com/
Kim Severson. 2020. “The Farm-to-Table Connection Comes Undone.” The New York Times website. Date last modified April 9, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/dining/farm-to-table-coronavirus.html
The University of Maine. 2021. “Cooperative Extension: Agriculture.” The University of Maine website. https://extension.umaine.edu/agriculture/farm-product-and-pickup-directory/
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2015. “Arts of Noticing.” In The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, 17–26. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Melissa Kruse-Peeples. 2016. “How to Grow a Three Sisters Garden.” Native Seeds website. Date last modified May 27, 2016. https://www.nativeseeds.org/blogs/blog-news/how-to-grow-a-three-sisters-garden