Wine Enthusiast Magazine
SubscribeDoing the Swiss Family Robinson . . . Sort Of
by Susan Kostrzewa
People who know me know that I love to talk about how we, as a species, have managed to remove ourselves completely from the natural order of things in the wild. Traveling through remote parts of India, Africa and Central America, guides have told me time and again of witless vacationers who have jumped out of jeeps to snap a pride of lions, stuffed a poison dart frog in their pockets, or taken a stick to a deadly pit viper. Where is their natural alarm? It makes you wonder if that thing called Darwinism is really such a bad idea after all.
The same is true when it comes to our understanding of the earth and where the things that we put in our mouths come from. Though trends in organic eating and drinking have inspired us to take a look at the wrapper or label before chowing down, most of us are pretty far removed from where and how the products are made. Especially in America, we’ve been programmed to consume without thought. Grabbing a can of Pringles or guzzling a can of Coke isn’t that far off from sticking your hand in a tarantula lair, when you think about it.
The wine world is a fortunate exception; it’s a culture generally steeped in earthiness, in knowing the soil, knowing the land and certainly, for connoisseurs, in caring about the who, what and where of the process. Good winemakers are farmers who respect nature and know their place in the pecking order, learning to make the best of good and bad situations and planning ahead to weather most of what comes along. As a group, winemakers are made all too aware of where they fit in the natural order of things, and that’s okay: being close to that world is usually a big part of what attracted them to it in the first place.
On a recent trip to Costa Rica, I hiked the rainforest and was thrilled to eat bananas, coconuts and sour guava plucked straight from the source. I learned to make cacao seeds into chocolate, how to pick and grind pepper, and crunch sugar cane into liquid refreshment. I also learned which innocuous-looking plants were good for curing heartburn, headaches and even treating cancer. None of it was rocket science. And I’m not rushing to throw it all away and live in the jungle in a tree hut or go 100% Tarzan. But it put me back into the rhythm of the natural world, and reminded me of how reassuring it is to be grounded like that again, and to know, from stem to mouth, what I was consuming.
Have you had any eye-opening experiences, either on your travels or at home, that reconnect you with nature? And what’s the dumbest thing you’ve seen fellow travelers pull in the wild?
Susan Kostrzewa is the Senior Editor and Web Editor of Wine Enthusiast Magazine. In addition to co-authoring two books on literary travel, she has written and edited wine, food and travel stories for the past 10 years. Kostrzewa currently tastes and rates wines from South Africa, Greece, Hungary and New York, among others, for WE.
Filed under: Health & Diet, Opinions and Commentary, Travel, Uncategorized
7 Comments
7 Responses to “Doing the Swiss Family Robinson . . . Sort Of”
Please Wait
July 18th, 2008 at 5:02:16 PM
Well Sue, I have to admit I probably did the dumbest thing on an african safari in the Kruger National Park in South Africa. Sybil and I were staying at a camp called Sabi Sabi Sands and had already witnessed the Big Five on trail runs in the open-air Rovers that take you out on safari in this very wild place. Well, the cuisine that we were eating these few days was prepared by a British chef whose hand was not very light when it came to cream sauces. Furthermore it was beef and more meat pies etc and obviously there was no fresh seafood and a notable lack of fresh vegtables or salad of any sort. To compound our problems there really was no place one could get a bit of exercise to burn off all these enourmous caloric meals.
I inquired as to whether we could go for a “supervised jog” in the wild to work off some of the rich food we were indulging in. The owner of the camp said absolutely not and that it was way too dangerous, but in the morning he changed his mind and suggested that we could run together in front of the hovie and that he would carry a rifle with him. Off we went on a lovely run for about 4k, passing giraffes and wild hogs along the way. We were in a remote area and getting up a head of steam and distancing ourselves from the hovie a bit when suddenly in front of us miraculously we heard screams and another truck approached us from the opposite direction. The drivers were yelling in Afrikaans some words I did not understand but my collegue knew exactly what they were saying and the fear on his face was quite disconcerting until he uttered the words “lion ahead.” We ran furiously back to the hovie and leapt aboard only to see not more than 50 feet from where we intersected the oncoming vehicle a large male lion waiting behind a rock for our approach. He looked up at the hovie and very dissapointedly walked away. I was sweating profusely from the run but I think the sweat I had that was streaming down my face now was from the thought of what might have happened if the other truck had not by sheer incredible luck happened upon us at that very moment. Every day I think about how foolish we were to take this chance since for a lion running is a sign of prey and I’m certain we looked very delicious to him since he did not have the same aversion to meat that I had back at the camp.
I wonder how I would have tasted with a glass of Pinotage?
July 19th, 2008 at 10:13:01 AM
The dumbest thing I saw someone do was also in Costa Rica. We were in a rain forest high up on a mountain near the west coast (sorry, can’t recall the place name) and this German guy was trying to use his cell phone. While the rest of us were looking for critters and plants, he was moving all over the place trying to get reception. Just made me shake my head. Why would you carry your cell phone into the rain forest and then try to make a call?
July 21st, 2008 at 11:38:55 AM
Its not the dumbest thing but at times I think the arrogance of being American can overwhelm our common sense. My friend and I were traveling through Spain for a wedding and decided to take a pit stop in Morocco. When our ferry arrived in Tangiers the first thing out of her mouth was…we should eat something. I piped up and said, “Hold up Speed Racer, I’m hungry too but this here is a different kind of country and while I am totally down to try the local cuisine we have a wedding of our best friend in 3 days. We’ll look like total idiots if we get a case of the runs or other random food borne illness.” (authors note: I’ve actually gotten ill from water in the united states due to the varying practices from state to state of water purification). So I told her we needed to proceed with major caution as to where we ate and at best we should (GULP) eat at a McDonalds. As it might be the safest bet. (another authors note: I haven’t eaten McD’s in 15 years) Needless to say our guide was a gem and he took us to a place that was local and as far as I know clean. (no case of illness). My point is..and why I was so cautious is that I have heard countless stories of travelers rushing into places like India and eating all the delectables they could in the first 48 hours and getting violently ill for not allowing their bodies to slowly adjust to the new bacteria that is being introduced to their system and spending a good amount of time in the loo.
July 21st, 2008 at 3:47:10 PM
Being from the country-and I mean country-I am pretty naturally in tune with nature and the order of things. I know where our food comes from. On a recent trip home I took my friend who is from L.A. to my family home in Boyd Texas. Around 10:30 in the morning my daddy announced he was going to get our lunch and would be back after a while. I knew what was planned, but of course my unsuspecting friend did not. Imagine his shock when my daddy reappeared carrying 4 dead rabbits he had just shot in the woods on the back part of our farm. My grandmother then proceed to gut and skin the rabbits which she then fried up in her faithful cast-iron skillet. I was delighted, naturally, as wild rabbit is most likely my favorite meal but my friend was absolutely green (literally). He politely pushed a small piece around his plate and ate the vegetables (also collected just before lunch from the garden). It really brought home to me how lucky I was to be brought up in such a natural environment and how most people just aren’t like that. I wouldn’t take for the look on his face when my daddy came up the walk with those rabbits. I will never forget that moment!
July 21st, 2008 at 5:30:11 PM
Growing up in upstate NY in a farming community, I was used to eating organic foods before they became popular and readily available in stores. As a child I remember picking and eating raspberries, peas, tomatoes, asparagus and other fresh veggies and fruit from my parents’ garden and not knowing that everyone didn’t have a garden. My sisters and I were those rare kids that ate and liked their vegetables. I didn’t know what spaghettiOs were until my friend’s mother served them to me. Now that I’m a parent myself I really appreciate the childhood that my parents gave me. It’s good to see that organic goods are becoming easier and less expensive to buy now. It seems that everyone is jumping on the green bandwagon now. Part of this is because it’s the cool thing to do these days, but I have to believe that people realize that there is something missing in our culture of consumption. I think this is also why people feel the need to go to these remote places and commune with nature. But I have seen people who have no respect for these places. I have often seen people feeding wild animals junk food. The worst was when I saw a family feeding some Gibraltar apes candy and then one of the apes climbed in their rental car. I hear now that the apes are such a menace that the govt is thinking of killing off some of them to control them.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:20:07 PM
David’s story brought back memories, but my grand daddy shot squirrel as often as rabbit. Or we went gigging for frogs. I went around the block, living in cities, but now I’m back in the country and don’t usually mind the “innards” that are served with local reverence, especially as I often don’t ask for a translation when I am eating in another language—at least until I know if I like it.
Luckily, my daughter caught the “grow it” bug and currently has enough melons, cucumbers and squash to feed the neighborhood. And terroir plays its card whether the crop is tomatoes or grapes. Now, if I could only get my really bad clay soil to cooperate with the delicious (and impossible to buy here) sweet, white Ky corn….
The real benefit, though, is learning how to cook, freeze, and preserve new things and making “new” something you thought you were tired of.
That’s what I like about travel…and staying home.
July 29th, 2008 at 10:51:25 AM
Nursing my children brought me back to being centered in a very natural way. All of a sudden plastic bottles and chemical formula looked pretty nefarious to me.
I knew that all of the things mother’s milk was (during that time), formula wasn’t. (I still don’t believe a chemical company can manufacture outside of the body what the body can do on its own.)
That was a very enriching and grounding experience.
Nursing children will connect anyone back to where she belongs… Mother Earth, Mother Nature, et al.