Food Smuggling

A Spencer Tradition

Over the years, transporting food has been an important part of our family gatherings. This includes bringing prepared dishes to celebrations as well as traveling with beef, chicken pork, and lots and lots of vegetables. Large suitcases of asparagus from our patch have been flown to family from coast to coast.

There have been some complications. For a trip to Cozumel, we took a cooler of beef from a local source. Unfortunately, this coincided with the Mad Cow scare, so it was confiscated upon arrival. One year, when taking frozen corn to Seattle, we packed dry ice in the cooler. Unfortunately, TSA labeled dry ice as a “hazard” and told us to move it off the premises. We ran to the car, threw the dry ice in the trunk and transported the corn anyway.

The most distressing food transport was a duffel bag full of homegrown sweet potatoes, freshly dug and still covered in Iowa soil that we took to share with the Seattlites. It was a large, easy to identify athletic bag that we had no trouble finding on the carousel. We hauled it to Dave and Lindsay’s house, hoisted it onto the dining room table, unzipped it, and prepared for the ooohs and ahhhs. We gazed down at…a duffel bag full of dirty athletic clothing. Clearly, some poor, tired athlete had a similar shock as he prepared to unpack and found a bag full of dirty sweet potatoes. It was a happy ending however – the duffel bag was returned to the airport and we found its twin waiting patiently.

– Mom