01/02/2022
Even though I blame many of our society's problems on social media, sometimes I think much of it stems from the fact that not a lot of people are snapping peas and green beans with their grandmas anymore.
Hear me out.
Snapping peas with your grandma meant:
You were going to hear stories about her childhood and the way she and Grandpa met, lived, and struggled to make ends meet.
You were finally getting an insider's glimpse at all of the hard work that went into the fantastical meals she made - the same meals you always took for granted because they were a little different than what your mom fed you since you were picky as hell at your family dinner table. You were finally going to help prepare the same meals that just magically appeared on grandma's dinner table, even if you didn't necessarily want to!
You learned that instant gratification and luxury wasn't an option. These black eyed peas I tossed in this enameled, cast iron Dutch oven were procured from a frozen bag - $1.00 on sale, normally $1.39. Grandma didn't have an enameled Dutch oven either. She had a cast iron one that had about 30+ years of season on it, and she'd threaten to "tan your hide" if you dared to put dish soap on it.
You learned that it wasn't that her generation didn't care about not filling up landfills and not recycling. You learned that disposable baby diapers didn't exist even when she raised her own kids (spoiler alert: even my own baby butt didn't have disposable diapers on it!). You learned that paper towels and even toilet paper weren't really a thing they used. In fact, you learned why the old Sears and Roebuck catalogs are so hard to find! You learned that appliances and electronics were repaired instead of replaced. You started to notice that many of her bowls and other ceramics had been glued together, or had chips that she deemed to be not terrible enough to merit throwing them away. You learned about composting and how food scraps- especially egg shells and coffee grounds - were part of what brought those lovely peas to your dinner plate.
You learned about gardening. She showed you some old farming tricks to keep pests and vermin out. She showed you all that it took to grow those peas, decide if they were ripe enough, watch her harvest them (maybe she showed you too; mine didn't), and how to select and sort them. Now? Machines do many jobs like that with technology that didn't exist when she was growing up. Sure, now we live busy lives and pay for the convenience of such processes. Time and money became traded for each other more and more as the years went on.
You'd learn about inflation: "Peaches cost 25 cents a bushel when I was a girl!" You'd probably roll your eyes a little bit since these prices were astonishingly low compared to today's prices, and even at minimum wage, that would take you a few minutes to earn those rates. But it planted a seed for your own future concerns about rising prices and the fact that grandma had her own anxieties about it all.
You learned about discipline in finishing what you started. Just because you grew bored of the task didn't mean you could go back to playing or doing whatever else you wanted to do. Oh, you finished your bowl? Good job! Now turn around. There's 3 more bags for everyone to go through. Grab some more and get to work!
You learned about gratitude and preparing for the future. You heard stories about droughts causing truly tough times for farming families. You learned about why they canned jams and vegetables, pickled things, and how good harvest years and canning sustained them during the tough times.
You learned about the barter system. You learned about how people would trade soaps or other things they had made with supplies they purchased in bulk or raised/grew at their farm that was structured a little differently so that they had a unique product to offer.
You learned about how much they relied on their neighbors. My grandma's famous sourdough recipe? It came from an old German neighbor who taught her in the 1930s, and it did not require a lot of expensive ingredients. If something went wrong and a family member or maybe some livestock needed help, the first person they reached out to was a neighbor.
You learned that the big plots of land were an incredible feat to maintain, but as grandma grew older, she could still be pretty self sufficient with smaller more meager house, a weekly grocery trip and some gardening beds she built in the back yard.
You learned about looking back fondly at the simpler times. Grandma had it much harder than you ever could have imagined. Maybe you didn't understand that in the moment because she was reminiscing about the fun times and silly things she and her siblings and friends did when they were younger. But later on when you reflected on those stories and the darker touches of some of the stories that she kind of glossed over, you realized all of the death and debilitating illnesses she witnessed meant it was truly miraculous that she endured those things long enough to make it to adulthood and even through childbirth .. several times over.
You learned about the mistakes of your previous generations. You heard some of the stories of what some people said and did and kind of cringed and gasped at how brave some people had to be and how awful some of the stories seemed when viewed with a more modern lens. But then grandma explained a little more about how different society was, and how some of those darker things were considered the norm back then. It wasn't that she was trying to say it was right or that all things should go back to being that way. She was trying to get you to understand that you shouldn't judge people of the past with the values of today. She was trying to tell you to do better and learn from the mistakes of others throughout your journey in growing up.
So with the New Year and with my own batch of black eyed peas on this day, my wish for all of you is this:
Spend a little more time reflecting about where you've been, where you are, and where you want to go from here.
Maybe spend some more time with grandma, if you're lucky enough to still have her around. Snap some peas with her. She might know a little more about things than you think she does.
