"Times Are Hard — Eat Your Yard!"

I saw this advert. in a recent copy of The Stranger. Liked it, thought I'd blog about it.

I'm a sucker for rhyming in advertising, I should been born 80 years ago so I could come up with the Burma-Shave campaign: http://www.burma-shave.org/jingles/.

Besides that I like this ad because of the graphic design; very reminiscent of the fin-de-siecle styles. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ldandersen/1800544122/

And I immediately had two trains of thought leave my station when I saw it; the first concerning Victory Gardens, the second concerning my childhood on a small farm.

During World War II there were 'Home Front' campaigns to help with the war effort, one of which was the Victory Garden, or the idea of getting Americans to grow some of their own food. Even people living in cities were encouraged to grow tomatoes, herbs, radishes, etc. Whatever they could grow in their front yards, window-boxes, plantpots on the fire-escape, small rooftop garden boxes.

I find it amusing to think the current economic crisis may lead to the resurgence of home gardening for food; amusing because of the ignorance most Americans seem to have about where their food actually comes from.

Which leads to my second train; I've had a couple of conversations with friends recently about the distance we have from our food supplies.

I grew up on a small (very small) farm. We had sheep, ducks, pigs, rabbits, chickens, goats, the occasional donkey, the occasional turkey. Plus we had a decent vegetable garden, and a small fruit orchard.

We weren't completely self-sufficient, but I'd say half of our meat & half of our vegetables, all of our eggs, and some of our fruit were all our own making. I know I could kill, clean, prepare, and cook any number of small creatures. And I'm fairly certain I could grow a decent potato, carrot, tomato, and even rhubarb if needed.

So American disassociation with its food sources is a bit of a pet peeve. For example, it's always bugged me to hear of somebody sending a salad back (with complaints, and the assumption of deserving an apology) because of a bit of dirt, or a small dead fly on a leaf. Food, all of our food, comes from the ground, and the ground has dirt, bugs, and shit in it. If more people actually produced their own food, even small amounts, there'd be a lot more awareness of this.

So yeah, I like this ad. It makes me think of many things.