AOC Shares Story of How Hard It Was for Her to Buy Fresh Basil, ‘Very Illustrative’ of Racism

EXCERPT:

OCASIO-CORTEZ: "Sure, sure. What an incredible and thorough question. This area, of course, touches very close to home and it's — and I'm glad that it's being asked because, you know, as a Bronx resident, there have been many times, I mean, it's almost a way of life where it can be very difficult to get access to fresh and healthy foods. I remember one of the early — earliest times, like, one of the worst stories I have about this is that I was very excited to make — I think I was making gazpacho or something like that. I looked at this recipe and I needed basil, and I was going home and I get off the subway station and I go into the grocery store and there's no basil, no fresh basil in the grocery store. So then I walked to another grocery store two blocks down, no fresh basil. I was very stubborn about making this recipe that evening, and I must've been — I must've walked around for an hour in our neighborhoods, visiting four or five grocery stores, and there was no basil, no fresh basil in any of them. And it just goes to show, it's very — it's very illustrative of the difficulties that we have in our communities in accessing fresh produce.”