036 - Dr. Leni Sorensen, Culinary Historian

Food Views. The way people view "good food" differs depending on whether they're a privileged mother of two selecting asparagus at a farmer's market, or a lower middle class mother who needs to live on the busline and is wondering how she will feed her children until her next paycheck, or a mother in India or Africa whose dearest wish is to live near a grocery store. To have choices.

Meet Dr. Leni Sorensen, culinary historian, food advocate, and home provisioning expert. She's lived quite a life - from growing up on the West Coast in a mixed-race family pre-civil rights, to singing in The Womenfolk, to acting as food historian for Monticello, to earning her Ph.D., to answering a personal ad from a farmer in South Dakota then moving there and learning home provisioning from the ground up, including gutting and skinning an antelope.

She and Kip are still married and provisioning to this day on their family farm. The Sorensen household is self-reliance personified, sometimes processing up to 50 chickens in a day when it's time. Which results in 150 pounds of chicken. Then comes canning the meat and stock. All twenty-eight cans worth. Yes, you CAN put up broth and meat. She explains how. It's just one reason when the zombie apocalypse happens, I'm walking to Leni's!

The question of how folks view "good food" is an important one. How do we expand the demographic here in Charlottesville so our ENTIRE community is able to participate in our many festivals, markets, and other food events? Not just the white and affluent? How do these many events affect the people who work here and need to drive roads closed for races? They have to make a living. Our cultural focus is gradually moving away from our residents to fulfilling the needs of students, tourists, and visitors. Sometimes the level of arrogance and entitlement here staggers the both of us and we discuss it at length.

We love our Charlottesville views. But whose view is it? Who does it belong to? It's a topic which makes a lot of people uncomfortable but one that must be addressed if things are to change.

And what about the Charlottesville City Market? How many meetings do we need to have? It's been 30 years! When and why did we navigate away from including food producers and start letting in crafts and restaurants? Is the answer decentralization? Having many small markets all over town? Are there other options that can be implemented before another 30 years pass?

Food Provisioning. In the second half of this long conversation we discuss self reliance. Leni teaches courses like canning, growing, and butchering out at the farm because she feels it's important to make this educational investment so you're not reliant on big corporations to feed you. But where do you begin if you're inexperienced? One way is to buy a basil plant. Another is to make most of the bread you eat. She can show you how.

While you're baking that bread, Leni points out it's important not to get nostalgic about the old ways. Canning and quilting are methods folks used to eat and stay warm. They are not precious artifacts to put on a shelf and fawn over. A housewife may have created one pretty can of tomatoes for the State Fair, but the rest fed her family. When Leni cooks recipes from The Virginia Housewife by Mary Randolph (e.g., Turtle Soup with real acquired turtle from her land) it is performance and appreciation. Not precious nostalgia.

Leni's views on organic versus "organic" (note the quotation marks) and GMO seeds are thought-provoking. She is unapologetically pro-GMO and pro-technology, which by turns surprised me and expanded my brain. Why do the privileged arbiters of "good food" treat it like a religion but often have little science to back up their zealotry? Do we research GMOs and possibly feed the world? Or make everything organic and let the poor fend for themselves? Is there an overlap? How can we make "good food" (no matter your definition) available to everyone regardless of class? Fascinating stuff. As she says,

Leni is working on her memoir and continues to cook her way through Mary Randolph's historical volume. Visit her site for more information on this project, as well as how you can take your own home provisioning course. Gather a group of 6-8 folks and design a class yourself! Leni will also be conducting two classes at The Spice Diva in April and May. Details below.

We covered a LOT of ground. Didn't solve anything but boy was it fun trying! This conversation has stayed with me and changed the entire focus of Edacious. That's how good it is. Hope you enjoy it and would love to hear your thoughts. Cheers!

DR. LENI SORENSEN AT THE SPICE DIVA COOKING SCHOOL
Two classes on the history of food in Virginia. Leni will be looking at the cooking habits of Virginians from slaves to the gentry. Take one class or both. Tickets and information at the link.