You are so right. I grew up in Jamaica, WI. I remember holidays in the country, I would just walk out to my back yard - had 15 acres of it, and pick any type of citrus fruit I wanted, not to mention a host of other fruits.
We would go to a neighbours house about a mile up the road and pick vegetables from the garden for dinner that day or one of the local farmers would deliver a supply, especially if the family was down.
We grew our own coffe. There was a small coffee grove about 100 feet from the back door and two very old, spearmint bushes, over 6 feet tall, back there too.
Every Friday the butcher would deliver beef for Saturday's soup and Sunday's dinner We ate fish at least 4 days a week, chicken one day a week and curried goat for the party.
We had our own milk cow and supplied milk to three or four families everyday. (I used to put sugar in my milk)
My step-mom, who was a nurse and my Dad who was a university professor, planted a city garden in our back yard in Kingston. So we had a ready supply of salad greens, okra, corn, green beans, leek, kale, tomatoes, if you can buy the seed or the seedling, they planted it. We also had a lime tree, a cashew tree, and three varities of mangoes. Our fridge was for perishables, sent from the country, and delivered every Friday or Saturday morning, and for my favourite dessert - Jello w/vanilla ice-cream.
You know something, in think back to my childhood in Ja, I realize I never had a preserved anything, except for my favourite fruit "The American Apple", which my step-mon used to buy from the Safeway Supemarket - 4 for $4.00. I would get 1/2 an apple a day. I didn't get an apple a day, I had to rely on the sugar cane to keep the dentist away. 'Caribean Quirk'!
One day I might tell you how I got chased by an anole lizard or why it does not pay to be lazy when selecting oranges to make breakfast juice.
Thanks for letting me remember the times of days past.