water land death food

Three things happened recently that are having some lasting effects on my mind and leaving my heart a little heavy.

But lets start with food first! Thai coconut curry in pictures:

first you start with a coconut

drain the coconut to capture the water then crack it with a hammer until you get pieces to the size that is easy to peal and scrap out. extra points when you hit the targets from across the room with flying pieces of coconut!

all that milk from one coconut

why not make it double as the tofu press

veggies all a saute

add coconut milk and the curry paste (that turned out amazing! but i didn't photograph it because well it looked like a crazy green paste of experiment. but it was spicy and sweet with the great combination of fresh lemongrass and basil.

crispy tofu... not much to say... tasty.... crispy

top with fresh cilantro and basil, add a little cucumber basil salad, and captured by porches ipa

and its one happy plate of food

Hammering aside, this meal was so easy to make that it really surprised me just how delicious it was. However, really having my hands in the coconut so much; feeling the oil drip down my hands when I pressed it to separate the creamy milk from the shredded coconut out (to be used for granola later), really made think and think about this food and its crazy popularity right now. This happen a great deal with me during most meals as I reflect on where the food came from, who grew it and how, how it got to the store/market, how the workers where treated, etc. And the coconut craze is driving me crazy.

Don't get me wrong, there was a time when I would slam a can of coconut water when I was deeply dehydrated... mostly when i was hungover. But I gave it up a couple years ago when I was learning about the connection between damns and aluminum plants. Now so many things at the co-op have coconut oil in them. Then there are the cans of coconut milk, cartons of coconut milk (like soy milk), coconut yogurt, amino acids (like bragg's), flour, sugar.... its a long list. And we were recently informed that the amazing price increase in coconut product is a direct result of the high demand and limited resources.

What is it about Americans, that we want what does not come from around us? We stress another eco-system. We make people grow what we can not....

About the time all these thoughts were running though my head and bouncing off my skull, I learned about 2 land activists that were murdered in Brazil last week. They were out on the land that they were trying to save from large corporations.

The piece of rain forest those 2 activists were trying to save reminded me of something I read about the landless workers movement that started over 20 years ago. Back in like 1985, I think, some daring folks started a huge landless movement in Brazil. At the time only 2% of the population owned half the land. With really the only options being to become little more than a slave on large farming operations, or move to the city and live in deep deep poverty. So a group gathered and took over several hundred hectares of unused land. They worked together and held it for over a year, building schools, homes, and health clinics. Eventually the government gave in, the Brazilian dictatorship was over thrown, and agrarian reform began.

20 plus years later that group of people that started the MST (Landless Workers Movement) has expropriated 35 million acres of land that is occupied by 400,000 families. Most all of the settlements are cooperatively worked with farms, homes, schools, and health care clinics all started by those that start the settlements. The original families are seeing their children live lives that would not have been possible before.

But Brazil still works with the IMF, WTO, and northern governments. Most of the land continues to be held by major corporations. The land that these particular activists had been trying to save (amazonian rain forest) is being threatened by loggers and ranchers (or to grow soy crops for livestock). They were also killed the very day that the government announced that they were going to change the forestry code so that it would be even easier for loggers and ranchers to clear more forest. And as a reminder, the cattle ranchers in this area of the world are mostly for cheap fast-food of the global north. It is not to feed the global south... just saying...

These murders are not unusual or rare. In fact the past 20 years, while the MST has been so successful, 1500 rural activists have been murdered. Less than 100 have even gone to court, while only 15 of the people that hired the gunmen have been found guilty.

These thoughts were getting a little tiring, so I went to watch a movie. For some reason I thought "Even the Rain" would be calming and relaxing. And it is a really good movie, but its about the making of a movie about Columbus and his desecration of everything he touched. In the movie you can't help but make the connection of his demand for gold, for the new demand for other resources, like land and water! The movie presents the effects of privitized water situations, and that people are having to risk their lives for the something most of us take for granted.

So these 3 experiences have led to my next "well so much for that" moment. And that moment is that coconut is out of my life, or at least for a spell. I am sure that there are much worse crops out there, but most of those I have already given up. Does this mean no more Thai Curry dinners? Heck no! I'll just use hazelnut milk or hemp milk or almond milk... There are always so many options, and most of those can be found in creative mind and local farmers market.

Bet you can't wait for my rant on cherries coming into the co-op in plastic bags!