Solarpunk Food
Let's do a little thought exercise about food. Diet culture makes us isolated while the commodification of food pushes global food trends instead of regional variation. But we're solarpunks, right? So we're all about imagining a better future. Let's imagine a world where we've healed our cultural relationship with food and are sourcing things more locally.
Think about where you live right now. Think about the kinds of things that can be raised or grown in your area. Then start to think about what recipes could be made for the following social events. We're going to start small to make this more manageable, ok? Do as many or as few of these as you feel up to doing.
In this bright sustainable future full of local ingredients:
What snack are you bringing to game/movie night?
What soup do you make for a sick loved one?
What's your go-to potluck recipe?
What treat do you welcome a new neighbor with?
What hot beverage do you share in fall/winter?
What cold beverage do you share in spring/summer?
How did that feel? What did you come up with?
Maybe these recipes can be worked into solarpunk stories. Maybe they can be made into a little cookbook. Maybe locally sourced ingredients are inaccessible to you right now, but are there any recipes you could start practicing anyway?
I'll go first:
Popcorn or tortilla chips with bean dip
Creamy potato soup with carmelized onion and rosemary
A cold millet salad with chopped garden veggies or white bean chili
This one is tough because I don't do a lot of baking actually. My area used to grow a lot of sugar beets so my options are pretty wide. Shortbread is an option. Maybe some kind of pie or turnover?
Apple cider
Iced mint and nettle tea
Oh this is fun!
1. Popcorn, hands down, favorite snack. I grew some last year, it was delicious!
2. Either a simple veggie or Irish Potato Soup.
3. This is a hard one...maybe mini quiches or savory pies? I made onion, goat cheese and mushroom mini pies a while ago, they were good. If it’s late summer, fresh salsa. I made so much salsa last year, it’s so good.
4. Depends on the season, if things are growing it’d probably be fresh produce. Otherwise perhaps some fresh baked bread, with rosemary and garlic.
5. Spiced apple cider. No cinnamon, but there’s a native spicebush that supposedly has a similar flavor to allspice? I’ve yet to get a chance to experiment.
6. Water with strawberries and mint!
- Mod S
how about hickory nut brew: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTMiq117o20&ab_channel=EdibleAcres
Had this sitting in my likes for a while, because I wasn't sure whether sugar is made where I live - but turns out, it is! That makes it a bit easier.
What snack are you bringing to game/movie night?
Cheese and grapes / braided sweet white bread (similar to challah)
What soup do you make for a sick loved one?
Potato soup
What's your go-to potluck recipe?
Salad with lambs lettuce, button mushrooms, walnuts and honey-mustard-sauce
What treat do you welcome a new neighbor with?
Butterkuchen (a traditional German cake literally butter cake) or a glass of blackberry jam
What hot beverage do you share in fall/winter?
apple punch (altough the spices i would put in aren't locally produced, so it would be just apple juice and maybe some honey i guess) or camomille tea with honey and milk
What cold beverage do you share in spring/summer?
Tricky one! Would probably also be some fruit juice preserved from the autum.
















