Food growing and connection to land

To grow your own food is to discover, gradually and inevitably, that you are not separate from the earth — that you are dependent on it in ways the supermarket has been very successfully concealing. The tomato you grew yourself tastes different not because it is technically superior but because you know its story, and knowing the story of what sustains you is a different kind of nourishment entirely. Nasreddin would say: the food that surprises you is the food you did not grow; the food that grounds you is the food you did.