Nature with a Capital N and the Five Dollar Tomatoes

I keep swearing off Thoreau and keep coming back to him, like a really bad boyfriend. His spiritual qualities are so deeply hidden from me that my long-suffering professor has assigned me to re-read two chapters of "Walden." Perhaps I can read these chapters in isolation from the rest of the book, in a way, and finally get the Transcendental message.

As it is, I've come to blame Thoreau for another 21st century problem. With all his snobbery about just who should be able to enjoy Nature, Thoreau has also become a hero of the locavore movement. The same educated, upper-middle-class that he thought were the only people capable of appreciating Nature's message are spending their weekends buying regionally grown food at farmers' markets. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, except for the prices. Thoreau's message about locally grown produce has been warped over the years, though. While he supported eating locally, he belittled the act of farming. He would have demanded that the regional farmers filling the markets with over-priced berries and potatoes allow him to glean their fields after the harvest -- for free.

Since that won't happen, people are faced with either paying $5 a pound for organic, regionally grown cherries and even more than that for two organic tomatoes, or heading back to the mega-market to buy the usual stuff. Since economics must win out when tuition tops my current annual income, I'll see you over at Big Food, Inc., supporting the international trade in lettuce and strawberries.