When I was growing up on our 53-acre dairy farm, we were obsessed with food; it was the center of our lives. We planted it, grew it, harvested it, peeled it, cooked it, served it, consumed it - endlessly, day after day, season after season.

Because we lived only a mile outside the town of Mayfield, I was acutely conscious of being country. I felt inferior to people in town because we had to grow our food and make our clothes.

Working with food was fraught with anxiety when I was a girl. Like all farmers, we were at the mercy of the weather, and we lived in fear of crop failure.

Bobbie Ann Mason Quotes