What Grows In Supermarket

When my grandson was about 3 years old, the Day Care Center had a field trip to the farm. He came back full of joy from seeing and touching the animals. Of course, he saw a cow there as well.

Next day at day care, the teacher, talking about their trip to the farm, asked him where the milk came from, and without hesitation he said “Nancy”. Cow was just a cow, but Nancy from Day Care center was giving him milk.

I sometimes think that young generation in America believes that fruits and vegetables grow in the supermarket.

When I lived in the Bronx, coming from train #5 to Co Op City, I passed a few wild apple trees, and I would get a handful of those tiny apples, which back in Russia were called "Paradise Apples" or “Heavenly apples”, (don't know what the right translation would be), and would eat as I walked, and it scared people who saw it. One guy looked at me in disbelief, and asked how I could eat them.

He said that if it was not in the supermarket, it was not safe.

But I ate them, and other wild fruits and berries, and even picked mushrooms, which were growing under the trees…

My daughter, when she lived in Pennsylvania, brought wild mushrooms she found right by the house, and her American husband threw then away. Now he has trust in her abilities, and mushrooms make it to the table.

I laughed hard when he was telling how he watched his pregnant wife sitting in the grass on the front lawn and picking something and sticking it into her mouth. Well, it was wild strawberries… Yep, there is such thing as wild strawberries, and though they look like dwarfs compared to the cultured variety sold in stores, they are very tasty.

I am trying not to forget how fruits and vegetables grow, so that I can tell it to my granchildren.

But they think that I am old and crazy... :)

Photo by unton via Flickr.com