I volunteer at the soup kitchen pretty regularly, joining the clean-up crew from noon to one on Tuesdays and picking up and dropping of compost buckets at the beginning and end of the week. Cooking and serving, however, gave me very different insights into the soup kitchen, its clients, and its director.
For the past year, I have been hesitant about eating the food at the soup kitchen when I volunteer. For one thing, I am a vegetarian, and the main course almost always has meat in it. But I also fear the quality, the added chemicals, the added salts and sugars looming within. Cooking there, seeing the packages, gave an interesting perspective, confirming some of my fears while dispelling others. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the nutritional value of the "broccoli slaw" we prepared (lots of fiber) which I might have assumed to be nutritionless iceberg lettuce had I not known what it was. At the same time, though, the sauce we put on the slaw was disgustingly fattening, though made it more edible looking. The peaches were soaked in sugar, but the milk had no growth hormones. The biscuits were surprisingly tasty. The beef stew came out of the can.
I have also wondered endlessly about where the food at the soup kitchen comes from. Yesterday, I learned that Bev sources that food from Valesky's because she wants to buy from a local store, asserting that she won't give money to big CEOs at places like Tops, Giant Eagle, or Walmart. Bev, whom I haven't gotten to speak to much in the rush of soup kitchen craziness, became a different person in my eyes this week. While I have often unfairly attributed the problems I see at the soup kitchen to Bv and others not thinking to change routines that have been in place for ages. But what makes me think that Bev hasn't changed things? I haven't been around to see the changes take place. And Bev, with her comment about Valesky's, is certainly thinking about justice beyond simply getting food into people's mouths. Additionally, I overheard Bev complaining about the cabinets in the kitchen, wanting a nicer space, but that she has a difficult time getting grants because she operates out of a church. Maybe if she got more grants, she would be able to improve the quality of the food that she serves.
Or maybe not. Cooking well for that many people takes some time, some knowledge, some planning, and a good work space. With different volunteers coming in and out every day, sometimes in unpredictable numbers, could Bev properly prep people to come in to cook a meal that wasn't from a can? How would she even store the food? Is there even a way for her to be serving fresh vegetables?
I think that the answer might be "yes," but only with a lot of work, persistence, and difficulty. I think that there might be ways, but not easy ways. Right now, Bev has a tight system. It gets food out on the table and into hungry mouths. But are there small things that could be done differently? Like real juice instead of punch? Could Bev afford a change like that?
The uneasinesses I have had about the soup kitchen are more complicated than I have been willing to admit. I have liked to think of Bev as stuck in her ways, that that is why the soup kitchen cannot serve in the most ideal way. It is a bit of comfort that gave me hope for easy change. But the change is not going to be easy, and I have not been giving Bev the credit she deserves.
The other interesting part of the soup kitchen was getting to be in the serving line, something I've done very little of. This gave me the chance to see and interact with some of the clients who frequent the soup kitchen. As noted in the Fitchen article, many of the hungry clients were also overweight, including many of the children I saw. One disheartening thing to recognize was that the soup kitchen could very well be playing into that, what with the broccoli slaw soaked in fattening sauce, the peaches with extra sugar, dessert at lunch (is that really a thing?), heavy beef stew, and biscuits that looked so bleached white that there was probably no fiber in them. The people who come to the soup kitchen regularly are essentially eating out for at least one meal, five days a week. Almost any restaurant you go to that frequently would make you gain weight, so it's not just a problem with the soup kitchen, but it does not make it better to know that the great service being provided might also contribute to the poor health of the patrons. Additionally, as described in the Heflin article, people may be more likely to engage in binging behavior when they have been deprived of food, and the soup kitchen, with plenty to eat and no limit on coming back for seconds, could certainly enable that behavior, though this is certainly not the fault of the soup kitchen.
The food offered also made me think of the Kingsolver book, in a section written by her daughter. Camille describes in this section how she hated asparagus as a child but came to love it. She attributes that development to the fact that she had the opportunity to eat fresh asparagus. Had she been eating vegetables from the grocery store, flavorless from traveling thousands of miles or sitting in a can becoming mush, she may never have learned to like them. Personally, the green beens at the soup kitchen disgust me. Under the right circumstances, I will eat green beans, but not under the "canned" circumstance. What will these less-than-appetizing vegetables mean for the future eating habits of children who frequent the soup kitchen?
There were also many women at the soup kitchen, several with children. Most of these women probably work low-paying jobs. Maybe they cannot afford food because they have to pay enormous daycare expenses, begging the question, "Why isn't childcare free?" Some may be underpaid because of their gender. Inequitable distribution of resources may leave women, particularly those with children, at greater risk for experiencing hunger. And then those children end up at the soup kitchen, ready to have their experience of food determined for them with little choice over what they consume and becoming accustomed to cake and cookies at lunchtime.
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