AS WE SIT DOWN TO enjoy Thanksgiving dinner, whether around a table or with loved ones online, most of us won’t pause to wonder where those favorite family dishes come from. Yet each stalk of celery in your stuffing, each roasted turnip in grandma’s dutch oven, and every apple in your uncle’s famous pie connects us to the time, place, and climate where they grew—and to the people who harvested them.
Your average grocery store customer may know that Brussels sprouts are good for them, but “They have no idea what a Brussels sprout looks like when it’s growing,” says Elizabeth Strater, Director of Alternative Organizing for United Farm Workers. To address this gap, Strater posed a question to UFW’s Twitter followers: “Tell us your favorite Thanksgiving dish, and we’ll share some of what we know about the work behind the ingredients.”
The thread blew up, garnering more than 50,000 likes in a couple of days. It’s full of mesmerizing videos of highly skilled agricultural workers tossing turnips, parceling parsley, and harvesting radishes, hands moving with impossible quickness, blades swinging fast enough to take off a less-skilled person’s finger.
Read more at Atlas Obscura. Featured image: Vindemia Winery, Unsplash.
Reina Gattuso 