Letters to the Editor
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Food from scratch - so totally retro
Eating is a simple pleasure. Eating fresh food is a sensual, nourishing, soul satisfying experience. It can leave you smiling all day as you savor the taste of the roasted yams or the lemon/garlic dressing.
I think there's some misunderstanding about the point of this article. Somewhere along the line the idea of eating a simple meal composed of fresh, local ingredients became construed as a time consuming, elitest, expensive, gourmet activity for the lucky, wealthy few.
Eating fresh, local food is something I value tremendously. And I will admit that I do spend more time preparing my food than someone picking up take-out or popping something frozen into the microwave. But I probably spend less money than those buying processed, prepared foods. I'd rather spend a little more time shopping and cooking because it nourishes not just my body but makes me feel good about life in the way that anything we profoundly enjoy does.
This is not about being wealthy enough to have the time and money to eat gourmet food. It's really about values. I cook a lot of things in the oven that slowly roast while I'm cleaning the house, or watching TV in the evening. I find it actually can take very little time if you plan things properly. I frequently cook things at night to eat the following day or later in the week.
I go to farmers markets when I can and when I miss them I shop at independent groceries that often tend to have some local food.
What it comes down to is habit and values. We have become so used to our meals being quick and pre-packaged that we've lost sight of real nourishment. Slowing down a little is good. We work too hard to make money to buy so many things we really don't need and then complain about eating quality food when eating is so basic. This is not hard to do if we really value it. We find the time. We work out a system. We get a crock pot. We cook at night or on Sundays for the coming week.
I think it's about getting back in touch with the basics of life. Personally, I think the slow food movement rocks.
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RedhairedGrrrl!
You still 'round?
O, I love you like,
the lush lettuce of,
beautiful Spring leaves.
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Oh. That's all better then, isn't it?
"To the smart husband, 85 dollars is for 4 courses plus an apperitif. Sorry, it's not per plate."
Where I live--in Appalachia--that's a family's grocery bill for a week. Plate or meal--the point is the price.
Many of my neighbors can't afford to eat the excellent foods we grow locally. If you grow good tomoatoes (or good marijuana), you ship it off and sell it to people with lots of cash. Then you eat soup beans and take whatever pills you can get from doctor-shopping.
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No meal less than $10?!
Taking this to the obvious conclusion is that you would spend at least $910 per month on food. The federal minimum wage is $5.85 per hour (higher in San Francisco I expect) which is $1,014 per month in income. Can you see where the problem is?
This diet is promoted by rich people. It is clearly elitist in its scope. And, it is completely unrealistic for the average person. Shouldn't we be promoting diets that help the poorest person rather than the richest? Organic foods have no more nutrition that non-organic foods. And, with the world's population at 6+ billion people, it is impossible to use organic means to produce enough food for all those people. Promoting organic foods does a disservice to the world and to the liberal movement.
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Economics? Politics?
I have mixed feelings about Alice Waters. It's all well and good to advocate life-style change, but this just makes her the Oprah Winfrey of organic produce. She seems to want to see real systemic change--at least, that's the talk she talks, and has increasingly over the past decade.
So why doesn't she go to Washington, meet with agriculture lobbyists and education officials and educate herself politically and economically about the big picture, so that she could actually create change in the political realm? I'd actually feel pretty good if President Obama (or whoever) appointed Alice Waters as Special Consultant for National Diet and Agriculture, or whatever, and I think that that is not completely outside the realm of possibility (wouldn't that be awesome??)--but she'd have to take on more than a book tour, and it's not clear that she wants that for herself. Which I respect, though I wish in that case that she'd be a little more humble and stop condemning American culture--hell, take a lesson from Oprah, who's way too smart to ever strike that pose.
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Good, better, best . . .
In my mind I've wanted to write a cookbook like this: Here's the best, here's what's still very good and here's what's acceptable, or "How you can eat fish sticks and still maintain a reasonably healthy diet." People listen to Ms. Waters, think about how far away they are from her ideals, and simply give up. It needn't be that way, but it won't improve unless Ms. Waters (or someone) makes a real effort to help us to buy and cook within the confines of a local supermarket, possibly supplemented by visits to local farms and farmers' markets.
P.S. For those who have difficulty finding farmers' markets, don't give up on going to the farms themselves -- look for a county or cooperatively run website about local farms. Frequently, they are in close proximity and you can hit three or four varied places in a leisurely Saturday drive.
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Speaking of "west coast elitist foodies"
The lady who popularized the fruit-based "Beverly Hills Diet" died recently. Compare/contrast to Alice.
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What about delivered produce shares?
(I'm picturing Farhad Manjoo eying Alice Waters' iPhone the whole interview, waiting for a chance to ask her about it. Hilarious! Only these two, and for totally opposite reasons, would agree that an iPhone is an "appliance," and equate it with a toaster. But I digress...)
One of the more elegant developments of our era has been the advent of co-op farm shares that allow people to buy farm produce directly from farmers for for easy pickup or delivery to their homes.
It's more generic than Alice Waters' vision of deeply personal relationships with the farmers who supply your food, but it's substantially the same stuff and a lot of busy people would never have access to farm produce at all without their co-op shares. Even in the frozen Northeast, when the farmer's market season shuts down completely for the winter, one can still get one's paper bags of produce.
Now I'm curious as to where that kind of practice fits in with Waters' aesthetic. Surely it's "not as good," but does one at least get half-credit? I would have liked to hear more about intermediary arrangements like that.