Maria Pacheco, Nation Agent
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Monday and Thursday, those are the most exciting days to be an NO (Nation Agent). No lunchbox weighing you down on the way to work, there are leftovers in the pub for lunch! If we are lucky enough, there is a whole pot of lentil stew that we will be eating for the rest of the week. If we are unlucky, the food was tasty the day before and is all gone, a brisk walk to falafel time awaits.
Another staple of NO life is Wednesdays. Usually, the week is filled with miscellaneous quests. But Wednesdays are religious. That’s when we get deliveries. The pallets come full of beer and spirits, but also of food. It’s surreal to unpack all the cardboard boxes with kilos and kilos of falafel, fries, cheese and taco sauce. One tenth of our budget goes to food.
Why do we spend so much money on food? This question has divided the nation.
The law says we have to sell food to sell alcohol, often making food a second priority, simply a condition for selling beer. It should be quick to make, last a long time and be relatively cheap. Some iconic staples of this are lentil stews, tomato sauce, and pasta. The state demands that we have food, but not varied, time-consuming and often expensive food. But if free food is the biggest perk of being an active member, don’t they deserve a delicious meal after long meetings and working for free at pubs or clubs?
The Lentil stew philosophy has been the status quo for a while, but there is a shift in the air. The kitchen committee is bigger and more dedicated to making food they are proud to serve, rather than food that lets us keep pouring beer. This, of course, takes a toll on the food budget, but is that necessarily bad?
For example, the Portuguese pub. The focus of the evening was food. Half of the kitchen committee worked for two days, and there was a food line that insisted on growing for two hours. It has been a long time since the Smålands kitchen had to operate at such capacity.
And we cannot talk about food in Smålands without the People’s Kitchen. Every week they serve over 100 portions; every week you recognise faces, but you always see new ones. The operation takes many people and many hours. But the end goal is a meal that not only ensures everyone is fed but also saves kilos and kilos of food from ending up in the dumpster. A project that Smålands cannot take any credit for, but one that can teach us a huge lesson.
I don’t mean to say that the time of lentil stews is over; long live the Smålands lentil stew. My point is that food builds bridges and brings our community closer together. Food should not be just another box we tick to sell gränges. Every penny we spend or hour we put down comes back to us in the shape of community. Food is political, and we are in the business of politics, not beer selling.