Nostalgic Taste

Last night’s dinner was pasta. I eat pasta at least once a week. It’s easy, nutritious, tasty meal. Veggies and herbs straight from the garden were thrown in the sauce as well as store-bought leftover veggies in the fridge that I needed to use up.

Thanks to square foot gardening method, I now have at least one vegetable ready to eat in the garden everyday. Every morning I go out in the garden with a cup of tea in my hand to walk around, find out what’s ready to harvest for the day. It’s a wonderful way of staring a day.

Yesterday, I harvested green peppers, zucchinis, carrots, chili peppers, parsley and dill for pasta sauce. Veggies are very small in size compare to store-bought ones because the soil in my garden isn’t great. But still, they had the shape, colors and taste that they were supposed to have. I know it takes time to improve soil so I’m not worry about the size for now.

The pasta was delicious. My very own grown food added to the satisfaction. Carrots tasted like carrots, peppers tasted like peppers… Freshly harvested food has such a nice flavor. Maybe because they were small in size the flavor was stronger too. I enjoyed the real taste of fresh veggies. The nice fresh flavor made me realize that how tasteless, flavorless supermarket food is. I’ve eaten them for a long time without noticing. It also reminded me the memories from my childhood.

When I was a kid my grandma grew veggies for family. She was a keen gardener. She had a big veggie field and she was always surrounded by fresh greens. Lush plants were as tall as my height at that time, I had to call her loud to find her. Her head usually popped up in the field after my call, her hands were always covered with soil. Gosh I miss her.

Thinking back now, my grandma’s veggies had real flavor. Fresh carrots tasted so sweet and I even ate them raw. Green peppers were slightly bitter, perfect in meaty dish for adult taste. I remember I had trouble eating them because they were a bit bitter for my childish preference at that time.

Over the years, I’ve forgotten that real taste. I didn’t even realize what I lost. Supermarket veggies might look pretty and blemish free, but they don’t taste quite right.

This is our reality, sadly.

Real taste of fresh veggies… that’s something I’d like to pass to the offspring, to our next generation. I remember that the first lady Michelle Obama made vegetable garden on the White House lawn because she wanted young children to know what fresh veggies taste like. I cannot agree her more. It is very basic, fundamental knowledge of human being that we are about to lose.

What my grandma passed down to me, it’s now my turn to do the same to my children and grandchildren.