This past weekend I returned to my home in Palm Beach, Florida for the break. I always enjoy my breaks from Kent because it allows me to seemingly reenter society through food. The warm climate at home on the island allows for much produce to flourish. As far back as I can remember, my backyard has always been teeming with fruit trees and vegetables. Lined up along the water, lemon, lime, grapefruit, orange, mango and avocado trees pave the way to the dock. Rows of potted thyme, basil and rosemary outline my pool. The weather has allowed for prosperity in my own backyard and so clearly shaped my childhood. At one point my brother and I even grew our own potatoes and tomatoes. I look back on the past and memories of growing my own food flood my mind. My mother and I used to spend days making fresh pesto with our basil. I would wake up to a fresh grapefruit plucked graciously from our tree most mornings before school. Our next door neighbors would come over on Saturdays and make fresh squeezed lemonade. I remember spending hours outside our house selling lemonade to passing cars. Our avocado tree had a plentiful harvest every year that turned into an annual homemade guacamole. Fresh rosemary and thyme added a tang to my mom’s cooking. The mango tree, holds an even more special place in my heart. My nanny GG has always been like a second mother to me. Raised in Jamaica, her tender accent and lighthearted spirit has always been a beacon of happiness in my life. When the mangoes on our tree flourished every year, GG and i would spend hours collecting and eating mangoes. She would pack them in my lunchbox and give them to me at snack time. Life is centered around food. As a physiological need, it plays a vital and irreplaceable part in our lifestyles. Home cooked meals are a past time that are so rarely appreciated anymore. The value of cooking a meal with friends or family or even sitting down to dinner with them is trivialized. The fast pace of our days has infiltrated into our food. Packaged foods and minute meals diminish the need for any semblance of home cooking. As a result, I feel as though we have lost the essence of culture. Sure the implications of mass production may harm the environment, or have further reaching effects into society that scientists can ramble on for hours about, but as bad as that is, is it not even more sad that we have lost our culture? The heritage of the American farmer is gone and it has been replaced with plastic wrapped twinkies.