Foods of the Fourth

When I think of July fourth food, there’s only one word that comes to mind- barbeque. After all, what is a celebration of our independence without the smell of the grill and the sight of the smokey haze that turns the trees and sky into mere ripples in the background? Like so many holidays, food is not something that happens to be there on the fourth as we celebrate. Instead, the barbeque has become as crucial as the fireworks, as reflective of the fourth of July as Hershey’s on Halloween or the turkey on Thanksgiving.

Somehow though, it seems that the foods we’ve come to associate with the fourth of July are not so fitting with the season, at least in our area. At the farm, the corn and watermelon are waiting for more time in the warmer weather, and so are the potatoes for the potato salad. I love all of these foods, and I’m not saying we won’t have them at our barbeque this year. We’ll pick them up from the supermarket like most other American families, under banners of red, white, and blue that indicate they are the most patriotic choices. And maybe, in some ways, they are. If they can make us feel connected to each other and our country, then more power to them.

But for me, other foods at our barbeque this year somehow feel more American- the grilled zucchini and summer squash, the fresh cucumbers and sugar snap peas, the roasted green peppers and eggplant. True, cooking these foods may not have the same fourth of July quality as shucking ears of corn or spitting our black seeds covered in slimy pink juice, but they are the ones that were grown closest to home, making the best use of the very soil we are celebrating- and really, what could be more American than that?