Price supports rarely benefit small farmers.
Girls, You Can’t…
My idea of an ideal evening would find me in the kitchen, elbow-deep in fragrant food preparation, a glass of wine at hand, and various friends making sparkling conversation while I cook. The friends are welcome to join in, if they’re so inclined. If they’re not, I’m happy to fly solo. Glasses clink. Good music plays. Appetizers are passed around. Eventually, we sit down to a sumptuous meal. More wine flows, as does the food and conversation. Heaven.
You might notice I’ve said nothing about washing the dishes? That’s intentional; although I obviously clean up after cooking, dishes are not my favorite chore. They might be my least favorite chore. In fact, my idea of a stellar dinner guest is someone who enjoys the food, then offers to wash the dishes. This belief inadvertently led to the integration of the local Junior High Shop/Ag class.
I’m just old enough (and just rural enough) to remember a time when all middle school and high school students took either Home Economics (Home Ec) or Shop/ Agriculture, otherwise known as Ag. The classes were segregated by gender; girls took Home Ec and boys took Ag. There were even associated clubs, Future Farmers of America for the boys and Future Homemakers of America for the girls.
Even at ~12, it struck me as wrong that the school’s vision for girls’ education involved training us to be wives. And Home Ec class itself seemed redundant; almost all of us already knew how to sew, mend, cook, etc. We were farm kids; we’d been helping with these chores since we could walk. But our final project assignment-to cook an elaborate meal and serve it to the Ag class- was the last straw.
We sweated over that meal for a week, making platters of assorted cookies and homemade bread, plus chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, and vegetables. We set the table, served the food, and then served seconds. We barely had time to eat ourselves, and we didn’t have time to finish the dishes, so the teacher insisted we come back after school. I was supposed to work at my family’s cafe after school, and was less than thrilled to get in trouble for staying after school to do dishes when I should have been at the cafe doing dishes. When registration opened for the next year, I signed up for Ag, and convinced two friends to join me.
The Superintendent, unamused, called us into his office. ‘Girls, you cannot take Ag. Ag is for boys. You can take Home Ec.’ We said we’d rather take Ag. He huffed. He puffed. He turned bright red. He reiterated that we absolutely could not take Ag. Then we brought up Title IX, and the room got very quiet. As it turned out, we could take Ag. On our way out, he hissed something about, ‘I know this was YOUR idea!’ at me.
Ag was fun. We learned about types of grains and their susceptibility to disease, how to judge the health and value of a calf (pig, lamb), and a familiarity with power tools. Most of all, we learned that limits artificially imposed by others are BS.
Recently, while tasting a delicious Burgundy made by an aged vintner and his five daughters, I was reminded of the Home Ec vs Ag kerfuffle. Like the High Plains of America’s West, Burgundy is a deeply traditional place. A generation ago, a Domaine run by five women was almost unheard-of. Now it isn’t. When I got into the wine biz, female sales reps were a rarity. Now they aren’t. As for the farmers in my home state, that hasn’t changed much, only because most farm wives were already shouldering a fair share of the farm work, in addition to house chores. Some things change, some stay the same.
That Burgundy will be in next week. Don’t ask me to do the dishes alone.