For the Love of a Bushel and a Peck

摘要

I woke up last Saturday morning with the old song lines "I love you, a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck, I do," I am sure in anticipation of picking up our vegetable share. After nineteen seasons as a shareholder, I can see how I've been conditioned. One might say converted, as say a farm might be from conventional to biodynamic.This article originated when I started wondering what bushels and pecks are aside from the description of the share baskets that we so dearly love, circulate amongst clusters, and get to know each others' names therefrom. I have bought at least two baskets a year for the last ten years, and I still wonder where they all have gone except the occasional ones that await me on Saturdays. The origins of the word bushel are somewhat vague and can be traced back through French lineage (an important theme here). It is a volumetric measure, 2219.36 cubic inches dry measure in current usage, and primarily used for oats and other grains. While our baskets could hold a bushel, they serve our CSA more for environmental, aesthetic, maybe sentimental reasons. If I get my veggies in a paper bag, I feel something's out of order, or I've done something wrong to affect the system -making the distribution a sordid affair. Paper bags are so functional and mundane. The baskets are more emblems of a whole set of values andworld view. They are, of themselves, a currency of our particular CSA economy.