Third worldification

Another sighting in the heart of suburbia.

I was sort of astounded this afternoon while parking at Trader Joe's (picture wide open expanses of asphalt) to see a man methodically working his way from tree to tree in the lot. I wondered, what the heck was he doing? Upon observation, I realized he was picking olives.

Those small decorative trees that the architect had specified between the rows were actually olive trees. My mind flashed back a couple hundred years to when the Spanish settlers had planted olives, some of those old trees were still producing. Yeah, but now it's the 21st century, and who knows what to do with olives picked raw like that anyway. There's a whole brine process involved to make them become what we think of as fit for eating.

When I lived in West Africa it was no surprise to see women gathering food (giant snails) in vacant grassy lots downtown. But this is not Africa, it's Walnut Creek for goodness sake! But we have people living in the interstices that have brought with them the knowledge to gather and process wild food and will do it no matter what the context. I guess the 21st century context doesn't really matter if your attitude is to see food and go get it. Doesn't he care about the Greek debt crisis?