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Feasting, with a conscience: Sisters and affiliates make Franciscan food choices

Sister Mary Becker peels locally-grown potatoes in the St. Rose kitchen.

Sister Marcella Marie (Marcie) Dreikosen, director of food service at St. Rose, walks through the kitchen, pausing for a moment to inspect the work of staff, who are stuffing locally-grown green peppers for the sisters’ dinner. She passes the large, walk-in freezer and glances toward Sister Mary Becker, as she peels tiny, locally-grown potatoes.

Sister Marcie descends the staircase to a warm, large space with a low ceiling, known as the sub-basement, where boxes of freshly-dug, dirty potatoes and antique laundry carts greet her at the bottom. This is where it all begins: a series of steps that leads to a bounty of locally-grown foods FSPA enjoy at mealtime, which turns out to be good for the sisters as well as the planet. Fresh vegetables, in particular, are preliminarily stored, sorted, washed and air dried in the laundry carts down in the sub-basement before going up to the kitchen.

In a kitchen across town, FSPA affiliate Lindsay McClead chops locally-grown, organic vegetables for dinner. Throughout the summer and fall months she receives weekly boxes of produce from her CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), a local farm which provides her with fresh veggies for a yearly fee.

In a garden on St. Joseph’s Ridge, behind Villa St. Joseph, bees merrily tuck into cucumber blossoms and emerge seemingly drunk with joy. They are feasting on organic goodness, grown not only for the benefit of the sisters, but for the benefit of the environment, as well.

All three instances illustrate the importance and the value of eating locally-grown foods and preserving the planet. For the FSPA it’s as much a spiritual decision as it is a practical one; it’s just one way the sisters and affiliates embrace a call to ecospirituality, and having a right relationship with the Earth.

“It’s about more than good food,” says Lindsay. “There are a lot of social benefits from supporting the local people and restoring the Earth from years of overuse and pesticide use and working toward a healthier environment. I think that has a lot to do with being Franciscan.”
The variety and amount of local food donated to St. Rose Convent is staggering. Meats, like turkey, ham and even chicken bones are sometimes donated. But locally-grown produce makes up the bulk of it, including tons of squash and potatoes, cranberries, green beans, rhubarb, corn, apples and more. From cranberries from Junction City to honey from St. Germain and chicken from Arcadia, Wis., to potatoes and squash from Houston, Minn., donations pour in from all around the tri-state area. The donations come in unsolicited, but they are much needed and well used.

Sister Marcie Dreikosen holds a pan of grapes.

“Now if I would buy all this stuff, it wouldn’t make sense. In the first place, it would be very expensive,” explains Sister Marcie, who says without the donations she would likely resort to buying prepackaged foods, which require less work and are less expensive than fresh food. “For our sisters there is a value in having the real food, so we continue that. It’s healthy, like the organic garden (at Villa St. Joseph) it’s healthy and we can’t deny it.” Sister Marcie coordinates efforts to clean and prep the fruits and veggies. “And then I’ll call the Villa and ask them if they want some and they’re happy to have it so we just get it all baked off and send it out ready to go on the plate,” Other times, fruits and veggies are frozen, turned into jams, or boiled down into a sauce, offering wholesome nutrition to the sisters year-round.

For Lindsay, who also shops at farmers’ markets, the added benefits of eating local are many. “I like that my food doesn’t have to be genetically modified so that it can travel,” she explains. “And the freshness is a big part of it, because it’s picked when it’s ready to be eaten, and I think that makes a big difference in how it tastes.” Lindsay also says she feels good supporting local farmers and the local economy.

The kitchen at St. Rose also benefits from the success of the garden at Villa St. Joseph. In 2007 alone, the garden produced more than 3,000 lbs. of organic produce. The numbers are astounding: more than 600 lbs. of tomatoes, more than 200 lbs. of potatoes, onions, broccoli and beans, and nearly 300 lbs. of cucumbers. All of that wholesome food is grown with earth-friendly practices in the spirit of St. Francis.

“We chose to start an organic garden at the Villa to honor the Earth and our tradition of raising good food for our congregational and local use,” explains Sister Lucy Slinger, FSPA ecological advocate, who has been closely involved in the project. “I can’t think of a better or more powerful way to model environmental Christian stewardship to the public than to do local, high quality food production.

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