NaPoWriMo Day 7: Canned Corned Beef and Onion

Serving Up Dog Food

The neighbor boy comes over
as I'm cooking my half an hour
start to finish
weeknight special of canned goods and rice.
Tonight it is canned corned beef
and onions
little oyster sauce kicker
and hot hot rice,
an end of the month special
when we're trying to live out of the pantry
until the next paycheck.

"What's that SMELL? Smells like dog food,"
the neighbor boy exclaims.
My son sniffs the air,
"That's not dog food,
that's corned beef and onion! My favorite."

I pop open another can of "dog food"
for my favorite boy.
-CKI
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Slow Foods is a grass roots movement that encourages people to eat foods that are local, seasonal and sustainable. This is a way to be kind to the planet by cutting down on the petroleum needed to transport our food, but also to support local farmers and encourage sustainable living.

However, since we live in the middle of the Pacific, seasonal is relative. We have mango season, which is also lychee season, and not mango season, which is the rest of the year. Canned foods like corned beef and spam were luxury items in the plantation camps and we hold on to those ways of living and surviving on this island. Unless we are able to catch fish for our families, grow our own vegetables, hunt for our meat, our carbon footprint will always be a little larger because of our isolation. That's why when there's an imminent danger like a tsunami or a hurricane, island people rush the stores for the one item that will help them survive: ricetoiletpaperspamwater.

It is our own kind of sustainability.