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[KNat <knat AT sprintmail.com>]

Marie McHarry wrote:
> On 11/16/06, Kathyann<knat AT sprintmail.com> wrote:
>   
> > My point is, the skill level of what to do with a potato is way down.
> > If we don't allow immigrants who have agriculture in their upbringing to
> > be among our impoverished populace they will starve.
> >     
> When I wrote that I thought about the assumption that the people in
> question had some way to cook food, but since the report was talking
> about people who only intermittently are without food presumably this
> population do have stoves.
>
> You don't need an agricultural background to cook a potato though you
> do need either the gas or electricity turned on so the stove will
> work.
>   
That's why I mentioned it. I thought that before I got to trying to 
include whole foods into our food pantry. Countless adults have never 
seen someone cook a potato. Even those who know from working in fast 
food places that lettuce comes in heads only think of potatoes as coming 
in slices from a bag. Salads are often trucked in in plastic so they may 
have never seen a lettuce head either. It took me awhile to realize with 
the number of city people around here that going to the county fair was 
like going to the Natural History Museum to see a stuffed bear. No 
concept of relationship to our life. Plastic fruit models are necessary 
in the schools for students to pass the match-name-to-picture part of 
standardized testing. It's not just having the place to cook. They don't 
know that they don't know how. Free food distributed at the end of a 
cooking class is all that makes sense to me, so far. We're a long way 
from the garden.

Kathyann

Kathyann