Common Sense

I've started reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (review to come later) and wanted to share a passage that struck a particular chord with me:

A handful of creative chefs have been working for years to establish this incipient notion of a positive American food culture - a cuisine based on our own ingredients... However, to the extent that it's even understood, this cuisine is widely assumed to be the property of the elite. Granted, in restaurants it can sometimes be pricey, but the do-it-yourself version is not. I am not sure how so many Americans came to believe only our wealthy are capable of honoring a food aesthetic. Anyone who thinks so should have a gander at the kitchens of working-class immigrants from India, Mexico, anywhere really. Cooking at home is cheaper than buying packaged foods or restaurant meals of comparable quality. Cooking good food is mostly a matter of having the palate and the skill.

The main barrier standing between ourselves and a local-food culture is not the price, but the attitude. The most difficult requirements are patience and a pinch of restraint - virtues that are hardly the property of the wealthy.

It's not common, but I certainly have been accused on multiple occasions of being a food snob, which is an offense that I take very personally. My frequent visits to the farmer's market (the one that sells local goods instead of the one with bananas and oranges and parmigiano-reggiano), my pursuit of organic food that is hormone/pesticide/fungicide-free and raised sustainably, my aversion to factory-made apple pies that can sit out for 2 months and not get moldy (true story)... I'm not doing this because I'm trying to keep up with the cool kids. I'm just trying to keep myself and my environment healthy.

It started in college when I was broke and trying to eat healthy. My boyfriend, Pete, and I watched a lot of Food Network between classes and it occurred to me that good food didn't have to be out of reach just because I had stooped to picking pennies out of the gutter (also a true story)... a few cheap ingredients (beans, pasta, tomatoes, etc.) thrown together with some spices (a bit more expensive, but worth it because of their shelf-life) can produce a really good meal.

As it happened, an appreciation for tasty food led to an appreciation for good ingredients, which naturally led to fresh ones... seasonal ones... ones that didn't have scary chemicals in them... and when I finally got out of college and got a job and could really afford to buy the food that fit my philosophy, I was disturbed that my new ingredients were oftentimes inaccessible to folks with less money - people like my former self - who neither have a garden nor the $5 for a gallon of organic milk. Before I knew it, I woke up one day with a strong bent toward food justice. Kingsolver seems to be down-playing the cost of food a bit too much for me... but that's precisely the problem... now that we know what good food is, we need to figure out a way of sharing the wealth.

Really, this is all to say: don't knock the sustainable, organic movement. Maybe it's a fad for some people, but for many it's just common sense. And, anyway, isn't a fad that promotes a healthier planet a good thing at its roots?