Home is Where The Food Is

Home is Where The Food Is is an animated short film made by Jody Kramer for the 100 Mile Diet Society in Vancouver, BC.  It follows every ingredient of a delicious and simple meal to its source.  It’s a story wonderfully told, and a story of collaboration.

This film was shown as part of Food Matters forum that I attended a couple of days ago; an annual local food and farm networking event sponsored by CR-Fair (Capital Region Food and Agriculture Initiatives Roundtable).  This year’s themes included social media and the web, cooking together: the re-invention of community kitchens, and emerging local research on food and agricultural issues.  The event also celebrated local food security champions.

Home is where the food is

This story is about a busy working gal who makes time for her food.  It is personal, warm, insightful, and engaging.  And like a good story, it connects the discrete events in life into some sort of whole, communicates vision, authenticates our experiences, and makes it easy for us to commit; e.g., to a lifestyle based on community and sustainability.

Here’s the (6 minute long) film… (If you can’t see it, click here )

Here’s a few more things I liked about this film/story:

• How each food has a life story; the environment that it grew in, the people who produce it, where its travelled from
• The value of knowing your supply chain; how it relates to food taste, your health… (and echoed in today’s Times-Colonist story Chefs see ancient grains in our future)
• Making connections between local people; consumer to fishers, cheese makers, wheat growers and millers
• A different sort of relationship with your neighbour; e.g., on a first name basis, an honour system road-side stand, where you take eggs out, you put the money in
• Creative storytelling approach; the combination of animation and down-home feel (thinking of the film’s characters and music score)
• Accessibility; an inter-generational story, both in the story’s characters, and appeal
• Systems thinking; making connections in a broader, community context (which aligns with my post about Sharon Rempel and communities that connect people, plant, and place)

All-in-all, this story speaks of collaboration, and builds on the 100 Mile Diet book and vision, as I read and detailed it here.

And you?

Did this film/story draw you in?  If yes, how come what was it about it that resonated with you?

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