In my youth, or what I like to think of as my youth, what circulated as a result of people's gardens was a single, unduly prolific vegetable: the zucchini. One would come home -- wherever that was -- to bags of them in the foyer or on the porch or beside (if home and work were entangled) one's office doors. A spate of muffins and breads might follow -- either shared with you unwillingly by unnamed stealth bakers leaving things, again, on porch or beside door. Occasionally, the same might happen with tomatoes, but for sure, zucchini plants produced way way way too much zucchini. Or so we all pretended.
The great American zucchini swap was so culturally relevant that various ways to deal with the glut of zucchinis are the fodder of websites and zucchini jokes of various sorts.
I happen to like zucchini, especially in a sort of Indian version called sabzi. In fact, I have been known to buy zucchini for that very reason. But that is a mere digression from the topic at hand. What is circulating in your neighborhood? What circulated this summer and fall?
What used to circulate, with equal vigor, of course, was Tupper Ware. It was used to carry leftovers from endless pot lucks or to send things home with people after . . . well, cooking too much. It seems to me that tupper ware was a first step away from utter waste such as plastic wrap for many of us, and then was replaced with glass containers of various sorts for. . . ecological reasons? A return to the more ecological practices of the past. Or, maybe we wised up and realized that plastic made things taste . . . weird? In any case, the eternal tupperware circulation like the circulation of zucchini seems gone except for the occasional bit of Tupper Ware that is stuck in a drawer and used occasionally to house leftovers in the fridge. (Left over zucchini?)
Today, in Fall 2017, neither zucchinis nor tupperware are the favored share. Their circulation no longer marks us as hip or ecologically minded or foodies.
One's foyer is more likely to house Ball jars of various sorts with various preserves, pickles and jams in them, awaiting pick up or just dropped off. I have the most amazing array of jams in the pantry, none of which I either made or bought. Occasionally, these days there is a bag from, say, Wegmans or Trader Joe's with various things being moved back and forth between households and friends. Some bags never return, just like the Tupper Ware of a past era, and just as was true then, it is not a bad thing that these circulate like an underground friendship circle. I might not see my friends but I know they are there IRL (in real life) because I am enjoying the fruits of their kitchen labors.
I love zucchini, I admit it. But this new circulation is wildly more interesting. Who knows what will come next? Here's what has been in my foyer -- coming or going -- this year (so far):
*sauerkraut
*kimchi
*green tomato chutney
*sweet tomato chutney
*peach chutney (of various sorts)
*tomato jam
*empty bottles of various sorts acquired from various places
*turnips
*garlic
*tomatoes
*potatoes
Absolutely no zucchini at all. No Tupper Ware. (Is that, by the way, one word or two?)
What does all this mean? A few ruminations.
First: Most of what arrives comes from women, though a remarkable amount originates with Fellenz Family Farms in my case. I am not sure what the gendering of all this means, though I think it may not be differently gendered than the circulation of zucchini or tupper ware.
Second: there is a particular materiality to this which challenges the disappearance of all social interaction into social media. (Yes, I too notice that everyone around me has her or his face shoved into her or his or their phone.) On the other hand, since I never see the people (I assume) that deliver or pick up what is in my foyer, perhaps this is just another form of our disappearance fro one another' lives?
Third: is this revivifying of preserving and canning a nostalgia for something we never had or is it something else entirely?
