“My college education may or may not land me a good job down the road, but                                           my farm education will serve me. The choices I make now about my food                                                                                        will influence the rest of my life.”                                                                                                                   —Camille Kingsolver, “Taking Local on the Road”

In her essay “Taking Local on the Road,” Camille Kingsolver describes her experience transitioning from her family’s farm to her first year of college. For Kingsolver, moving from her home, where fresh, local food was the norm to a campus dormitory, where such products were much rarer, was an eye-opening experience. “Not having fresh produce at my disposal made me realize how good it is,” (37) she comments early in the piece.

She discusses her realization of the importance of fresh, local food in her life, praising the “eggs with deep golden yolks” and “greens that still had their flavor and crunch” (38) that she enjoys in her family’s household. She also recalls her surprise at realizing that her college peers were relatively unaware of the origin of their meals, often relying “on foods that come out of shiny wrappers instead of peels or skins” (37). Continue reading →