Butterwhat?

I bought this squash at my local "normal" grocery store, a Stop & Shop. I don't normally shop at chain groceries, but I also don't not shop at them.

Of course my favorite places to acquire food are farmers markets, CSA's, natural foods shops, my garden, and the woods. But I sometimes shop at supermarkets if for no other reason than to experience food like most Americans do. I like lemon cucumbers as much as the next foodie, but I'm never going to be too high on my food horse to avoid grocery stores. Sure they're doing horrible things to the world, but you have to recognize that just having the option of shopping at one makes you an incredibly, incredibly privileged global citizen.

Also, supermarkets yield quirky food items like the squash pictured above. I'd bought it to make butternut crepes, a truly divine dish that depends heavily on first browning the squash and then adding whole, fresh leaves of sage towards the end (quick eco-thical analyses: good that it's not meat, bad that it's not sustainable, local, seasonal, etc.). But I had to pause when I noticed the sticker.

The variety is Waltham, also the name of a town just a few miles from where I'm currently typing. But the place of origin is La Paz, Honduras, which is about 4,000 miles off. A brief internet search tells me that the squash is native to Mexico but by 5,000 years ago was being cultivated by the Incas in what is now South America.

At last, after a long, rich relationship with humanity that spans continents and thousands of years, the butternut has come to its final resting place: a nauseatingly lit supermarket shelf in the 'burbs.

So thank you, Stop & Shop. I never would have had that moment of malaise while picking a strawberry from my garden.