While I feel an affiliation with certain types of food, I've never felt that it deeply connects me to my identity. I've never felt the sense of belonging that was experienced by the black Muslim community toward Soul Food in the Rouse and Hoskins article. The identification expressed by this community transcends cookie-cutter definitions of "race", "gender", "ethnicity", or "class". Soul Food is like a blanket lifestyle choice within which all of these dimensions express themselves. For example, women play their own role within the preparation and distribution of soul food, so their relationship with Soul Food is different than it is for men. Meanwhile, soul food is an association shared by the family unit, the community, and the greater black Muslim ethnic and religious unit.
There are plenty of foods that I feel an affiliation to, insofar as they correspond with my identity. Usually this affiliation ties a food item to my family, my childhood, my friends and even my generation and class. Some foods I feel slightly drawn towards because they are marketed to appeal to my identity, like female-targeted Luna bars. Kraft Macaroni and cheese and spaghetti are foods I identify with more strongly, perhaps because I identify with them on several levels: they are foods of my generation, they are foods stereotypically consumed by people in my socioeconomic circumstance and they are foods of my childhood. These layers of identification overlap, with 'class' and 'generation' often mixing together and 'childhood' often leading toward one or the other.
It's easier for me to feel distant from those foods that do not fit who I am than it is to feel a strong association with foods that fit me like a glove. I enjoy Kraft Mac and Cheese, but "gourmet" Mac and Cheese feels pretentious and silly. I feel uncomfortable at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, but at ease eating cheese fries at a brewery.
My distaste for classy foods leads me back to the age-old idiom, "you are what you eat". Do we culturally define the meanings of our food, and then eat accordingly? In what ways do we define our food, and in what ways does our food define us? The commodification of taste, as discussed by Haden, adds yet another dimension to our ability to identify with food.
The idea of finding comfort in commodities traces back to ideas of identity from Rouse and Hoskins. Commodified food can wear a mask of generational and class identification, obscuring the underlying reasons for taste preferences. Beer manages to overlap layers of identification, much the way Soul Food does. But it does so under the influence of heavy advertising. Thus, beer is the epitome of a meeting point between trivialized taste and American identity.
Many of my (mostly male) friends drink Natural Ice when they can't afford better beer, even though they can taste the deficiency - it's imagery they're seeking, not flavor. Natural Corona, another cheap beer, contains "the unparalleled flavor of relaxation". You may not have known this, but "nothing else lets the conversation flow so easily between friends." Check out the Natural Light website for "nattyism" commercials, each of which manage to cram sex, manliness, the "chill" factor, the party scene and typecast college students into 1 minute.
For many of my (male) friends, holding a beer at a party is a form of self-representation, the darker and stronger the better. They almost unanimously declare a taste preference, but I beg to differ. Perhaps they've slowly developed a palate for bitter beer, but only as a matter of choice, because they believe in everything it symbolizes. Sophisticated and distinguished, those who can appreciate a fine balance of hops and malt clearly have discovered "how beer is meant to taste", according to the Pilsner Urquell website. Thus, the image of beer manifests itself on their tongue, bringing together the rich history of beer and its recent commercialization.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
On Eating Animals - revised
I respect the vegetarian mentality, although I am a meat eater. After reading Pollan's chapter on ethics I feel more confident about my ability to verbalize this respect, but he didn't tell me anything new. Ive heard it before (primarily from my friend Reese, a fellow member of the UW ethics team. Reese is a vegetarian, philosophy major and part-time genius who puts all of his faith in human empathy. He believes we have a moral duty to act in accordance with our empathetic capacity). The arguments for not eating meat are highly persuasive - in fact, I don't think I could handle reading Peter Singer. But it will take more than persuasion and flawless philosophy to deter me from meat. I am one of the many who understand why eating meat is wrong, but choose to turn the other cheek. My defiance is weakly supported, but my urbanized lifestyle allows me to grieve and then quickly heal, to excuse myself from accountability.
When I was in 8th grade, my family visited Uwajimaya. I saw the pigs feet and freaked. Then I saw a duck, blackened but whole, hanging by its feet from a hook - and I burst into tears. And became vegetarian. It made me very sad, when I was younger, that animals are afterthoughts in an industrialized, human-dominated world. "It's the natural order of things," cruel friends would say. "We're at the top of the food chain."
"Exactly," Reese and Singer would argue. As sentient beings wielding such power over other life forms, we have special responsibilities to keep ourselves in check. As a 14-year-old I couldn't express anything that coherently, but I understood empathy.
I maintained my sensitivity for 2 years, but then as a sophomore I finally felt like an imitation vegetarian and gave it up. I stopped feeling the genuine empathy I once felt; I was jaded and self-absorbed; I no longer felt compelled to have funerals for roadkill birds. It felt like a mockery to pretend the passion I once felt, so I gave up the cause. The first step toward vegetarianism takes willpower and a strong conscience. But vegetarianism isn't as difficult as it sounds - eventually many vegetarians can operate on auto-pilot, like I did in my veggie days. The hard part is having the conscience to stick with it when you realize 2 years down the line that you're not actually active in the campaign for ethical food.
It takes far less effort to stare at the ground while you walk, so that's what we do.
As an adult, I should be able to define my priorities in irrefutable terms and exercise the self-restraint to abide by them even when tempted. But when it comes to meat, I don't. I've separated myself from the pain associated with empathy. Our system of food production is too far removed for me to come face-to-face with it regularly. With only rare exposure, I'm still able to deny my own empathy.
I am, however, going to make an honest effort to eat meat that was produced more responsibly. The daydream of healthy, unknowing cows is a thin veneer over the reality of the Meatrix. I long for local meat and eggs rich with beta-carotene, for an idyllic family farm unhindered by industrialism's prohibitive hurdles. Lately, the tube of gristly beef at Safeway has looked nauseating. I want to be aware of what I'm eating; the meat that once lived and breathed deserves respect. Perhaps, in the spirit of Tampopo's noodle connoisseur, I will start whispering to my pork: "I will see you soon..."
When I was in 8th grade, my family visited Uwajimaya. I saw the pigs feet and freaked. Then I saw a duck, blackened but whole, hanging by its feet from a hook - and I burst into tears. And became vegetarian. It made me very sad, when I was younger, that animals are afterthoughts in an industrialized, human-dominated world. "It's the natural order of things," cruel friends would say. "We're at the top of the food chain."
"Exactly," Reese and Singer would argue. As sentient beings wielding such power over other life forms, we have special responsibilities to keep ourselves in check. As a 14-year-old I couldn't express anything that coherently, but I understood empathy.
I maintained my sensitivity for 2 years, but then as a sophomore I finally felt like an imitation vegetarian and gave it up. I stopped feeling the genuine empathy I once felt; I was jaded and self-absorbed; I no longer felt compelled to have funerals for roadkill birds. It felt like a mockery to pretend the passion I once felt, so I gave up the cause. The first step toward vegetarianism takes willpower and a strong conscience. But vegetarianism isn't as difficult as it sounds - eventually many vegetarians can operate on auto-pilot, like I did in my veggie days. The hard part is having the conscience to stick with it when you realize 2 years down the line that you're not actually active in the campaign for ethical food.
It takes far less effort to stare at the ground while you walk, so that's what we do.
As an adult, I should be able to define my priorities in irrefutable terms and exercise the self-restraint to abide by them even when tempted. But when it comes to meat, I don't. I've separated myself from the pain associated with empathy. Our system of food production is too far removed for me to come face-to-face with it regularly. With only rare exposure, I'm still able to deny my own empathy.
I am, however, going to make an honest effort to eat meat that was produced more responsibly. The daydream of healthy, unknowing cows is a thin veneer over the reality of the Meatrix. I long for local meat and eggs rich with beta-carotene, for an idyllic family farm unhindered by industrialism's prohibitive hurdles. Lately, the tube of gristly beef at Safeway has looked nauseating. I want to be aware of what I'm eating; the meat that once lived and breathed deserves respect. Perhaps, in the spirit of Tampopo's noodle connoisseur, I will start whispering to my pork: "I will see you soon..."
Moderate food - revised
'Moderate' food, laid out so simply by Mintz, seems like a perfectly achievable goal, a sunny middle road for our generation to lead the way along. Or will we actually be bushwhacking down a bramble-tangled footpath?
The ethics seem flawless: it's within closer reach than Slow Food but will help ease the ills of monocropping, etc etc etc. But the ultimate goals are the same for both: good, healthy, local foods for all. Mintz advocates for rejection of nostalgia, recognition of the appeal of fast food, and a focus on sustainable resource use. Otherwise, there is little evidence in the article that Moderate Food is within reach, or even that it is a dramatically different from slow food.
According to the slow food website, food-eaters should hold dual roles as co-producers, actively involved in food production through consumer choice. Gustation, impaired by the commodification of taste as laid out by Haden, will regain its integrity. Biodiveristy is encouraged through the blending of TEK and Western Pseudo-Science. The movement is a return to sustainable small-scale production through traditional techniques and the educated youth, who are shaped for the movement at the University of Gastronomic Science. It has a strong foundation of support among green yuppies in the West, and continues to pick up followers globally through a multi-lingual web network. Already one can hook up to an IV drip of easy-access slow food culture, courtesy of any desktop computer. Before long, I can envision slow food replacing fast food as the culturally manufactured Desire. Its promise of healthy, good, local food tempts, evoking the complex, fresh, raw tastes we think we remember.
Will good, healthy, local foods have any meaning without the cultural goals of Slow Food? If a grandmother's bread recipe never makes it into the hands of even one of her 18 descendants, there are clearly issues at hand that the availability of local agriculture won't fix. To Mintz, this is evidence that culture is too complex to change - but I don't think his Moderate proposal will make it more than halfway without containing cultural components.
Mintz says that the mechanization of food production is too complex to reject; with every negative result comes a positive one, and the negatives themselves are overlooked by much of society in light of a new way of life. Ultimately, we aren't necessarily equipped with the wisdom to assign ethical dichotomies to food production. For example, without processing tools, women may never have made it into the work force. Out with the old, in with the new.
Fast-forward 50 years and you have a so-called fast food nation looking up recipes for Betty Crocker turkey recipes on the internet two days before Thanksgiving. Mintz points out that the cultural structures in place are beyond our scope to "fix", so we should instead focus on problems that are undeniably harmful. The food crisis, the elimination of peasant farming and subsequent removal of self-determination by the World Bank, overproduction by global superpowers, reliance on fossil fuels, environmentally harmful monoculture.
People deserve healthy, good food, he says - and who would disagree? But the cultural institutions he does not seek to fight against are intimately tied to the current food industry, to affordable processed foods and chemically derived flavors. To achieve a goal of healthy, good, local foods within the institution of mono-industry does not seem practical in the least. How would such a goal be reached without a shift in the undercurrents of culture? Slow Food and Terra Madre are trying to change the way we see food, marketing a counter-culture to enforce new ways of production. Moderate food, on the other hand, endorses new ways of production without changing our relationships with food.
I think it's impossible to change one without changing the other: if we change production, culture will respond. Or we can create change that flows in the other direction, from culture to production, i.e., slow food. Mintz wants results, and I understand frustration with a slow food system that hasn't trickled down past the wealthy West. But change will come slowly if it wants to.
This food crisis could be just want the world needs: Maybe with rising gas and food prices, change will come crashing down on us, no cultural subversion required. Already my suburban dad has begun biking to the grocery store with canvas totes. It seems unlikely, but if the habit spreads, cultural dynamics will be bending inevitably away from fast food. Biking alone requires a subtle shift in the way we see food: not as instant gratification, but as a process worth our time. Activities like biking to QFC and shopping at farmers' markets take time, however, which Americans generally lack. As Raj Patel told us, we are made to crave fast food "through the pace and architecture of our lives" (Patel 2007; 290). I hope, somewhere down the line, that new paradigms of production will cause a domino-effect backlash on our culture, starting with shorter work hours.
The ethics seem flawless: it's within closer reach than Slow Food but will help ease the ills of monocropping, etc etc etc. But the ultimate goals are the same for both: good, healthy, local foods for all. Mintz advocates for rejection of nostalgia, recognition of the appeal of fast food, and a focus on sustainable resource use. Otherwise, there is little evidence in the article that Moderate Food is within reach, or even that it is a dramatically different from slow food.
According to the slow food website, food-eaters should hold dual roles as co-producers, actively involved in food production through consumer choice. Gustation, impaired by the commodification of taste as laid out by Haden, will regain its integrity. Biodiveristy is encouraged through the blending of TEK and Western Pseudo-Science. The movement is a return to sustainable small-scale production through traditional techniques and the educated youth, who are shaped for the movement at the University of Gastronomic Science. It has a strong foundation of support among green yuppies in the West, and continues to pick up followers globally through a multi-lingual web network. Already one can hook up to an IV drip of easy-access slow food culture, courtesy of any desktop computer. Before long, I can envision slow food replacing fast food as the culturally manufactured Desire. Its promise of healthy, good, local food tempts, evoking the complex, fresh, raw tastes we think we remember.
Will good, healthy, local foods have any meaning without the cultural goals of Slow Food? If a grandmother's bread recipe never makes it into the hands of even one of her 18 descendants, there are clearly issues at hand that the availability of local agriculture won't fix. To Mintz, this is evidence that culture is too complex to change - but I don't think his Moderate proposal will make it more than halfway without containing cultural components.
Mintz says that the mechanization of food production is too complex to reject; with every negative result comes a positive one, and the negatives themselves are overlooked by much of society in light of a new way of life. Ultimately, we aren't necessarily equipped with the wisdom to assign ethical dichotomies to food production. For example, without processing tools, women may never have made it into the work force. Out with the old, in with the new.
Fast-forward 50 years and you have a so-called fast food nation looking up recipes for Betty Crocker turkey recipes on the internet two days before Thanksgiving. Mintz points out that the cultural structures in place are beyond our scope to "fix", so we should instead focus on problems that are undeniably harmful. The food crisis, the elimination of peasant farming and subsequent removal of self-determination by the World Bank, overproduction by global superpowers, reliance on fossil fuels, environmentally harmful monoculture.
People deserve healthy, good food, he says - and who would disagree? But the cultural institutions he does not seek to fight against are intimately tied to the current food industry, to affordable processed foods and chemically derived flavors. To achieve a goal of healthy, good, local foods within the institution of mono-industry does not seem practical in the least. How would such a goal be reached without a shift in the undercurrents of culture? Slow Food and Terra Madre are trying to change the way we see food, marketing a counter-culture to enforce new ways of production. Moderate food, on the other hand, endorses new ways of production without changing our relationships with food.
I think it's impossible to change one without changing the other: if we change production, culture will respond. Or we can create change that flows in the other direction, from culture to production, i.e., slow food. Mintz wants results, and I understand frustration with a slow food system that hasn't trickled down past the wealthy West. But change will come slowly if it wants to.
This food crisis could be just want the world needs: Maybe with rising gas and food prices, change will come crashing down on us, no cultural subversion required. Already my suburban dad has begun biking to the grocery store with canvas totes. It seems unlikely, but if the habit spreads, cultural dynamics will be bending inevitably away from fast food. Biking alone requires a subtle shift in the way we see food: not as instant gratification, but as a process worth our time. Activities like biking to QFC and shopping at farmers' markets take time, however, which Americans generally lack. As Raj Patel told us, we are made to crave fast food "through the pace and architecture of our lives" (Patel 2007; 290). I hope, somewhere down the line, that new paradigms of production will cause a domino-effect backlash on our culture, starting with shorter work hours.
The Industrialization of Taste - revised
"A recent trend in advertising has been to give expression to the notion of 'no-frills' hedonism and guilt-free pleasure. By representing particular sensory affects which connote a kind of maximization of intense feelings, sensations and pleasures, [an advertisement]... celebrates such corporeal pleasures by configuring taste."
- Roger Haden, "Taste in an Age of Convenience", p. 348.
There is a host of foods that I choose to eat despite their unhealthiness: butter, cake, ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, bacon, frozen pizza, cream cheese, beer, strawberry shortcake - and the list goes on. In earlier years my list of vices extended further still, from hot pockets and microwave meals to fast food, but my cravings have shifted lately.
Most of my favorite unhealthy foods are not pre-processed and packaged, but are home cooked. Yet they are still commodified, in their own way. They are fatty and sweet and delicious. On one hand, Pollan points out that humans are biologically designed to crave sugars and fats even when full, to store them against future need. On the other hand, with sugar constantly at our fingertips, that craving is unnecessary and unhealthy. According to Haden, communication between our bodies and our brains has all but ceased; we succumb to cravings as culture proscribes, torn between the calorie-counting angel on our right shoulder and the sexy, fulfilling sugar devil on our left shoulder.
Weismantel says that "consumption is driven not only by material constraints, or what is possible, but also by the immaterial, culturally shaped definition of what is desirable" (89). In my own American suburbanite experience, anything is "possible". But the desire manufactured by culture has caused a disconnect between our taste buds and our bodies. We're products of a "national eating disorder"(Pollan 4), a food-centered anxiety attack of epic (perhaps even obese!) proportions.
But my fixation on fat - and my tendency to consume too much of it - is more than a generalized American cultural product. I'm no scientist, but I generally sense Western culture when I reflect on guilt. In my eating habits (both prior to guilt and as a guilty feedback system), I also see family, household traditions, my body, my friends, my personal identity, and my psychology. For example, my father is Jack Sprat's alter ego, the man who could eat no lean. My mother, however, is the personification of "Could-Eat-No-Fat". My mom's food strikes me as unsatisfying, but I've always told myself that when my body slows down, I'll learn to eat the way she does. Until then the support beams for my eating habits include not just the American Eating Disorder, but also include my dad, my metabolism, and my social identity as the slender girl who eats too much.
Yet Haden's words echo ominously. The "trivialization of taste" has made food "a substrate: a base product to which is added not only taste, texture, vitamins or 'functions', but also added values: the signs of convenience, health or 'sexiness' - everything our minds need" (354). Are my comfort foods only comfortable because of commodification? Can I trust my own tongue?
- Roger Haden, "Taste in an Age of Convenience", p. 348.
There is a host of foods that I choose to eat despite their unhealthiness: butter, cake, ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, bacon, frozen pizza, cream cheese, beer, strawberry shortcake - and the list goes on. In earlier years my list of vices extended further still, from hot pockets and microwave meals to fast food, but my cravings have shifted lately.
Most of my favorite unhealthy foods are not pre-processed and packaged, but are home cooked. Yet they are still commodified, in their own way. They are fatty and sweet and delicious. On one hand, Pollan points out that humans are biologically designed to crave sugars and fats even when full, to store them against future need. On the other hand, with sugar constantly at our fingertips, that craving is unnecessary and unhealthy. According to Haden, communication between our bodies and our brains has all but ceased; we succumb to cravings as culture proscribes, torn between the calorie-counting angel on our right shoulder and the sexy, fulfilling sugar devil on our left shoulder.
Weismantel says that "consumption is driven not only by material constraints, or what is possible, but also by the immaterial, culturally shaped definition of what is desirable" (89). In my own American suburbanite experience, anything is "possible". But the desire manufactured by culture has caused a disconnect between our taste buds and our bodies. We're products of a "national eating disorder"(Pollan 4), a food-centered anxiety attack of epic (perhaps even obese!) proportions.
But my fixation on fat - and my tendency to consume too much of it - is more than a generalized American cultural product. I'm no scientist, but I generally sense Western culture when I reflect on guilt. In my eating habits (both prior to guilt and as a guilty feedback system), I also see family, household traditions, my body, my friends, my personal identity, and my psychology. For example, my father is Jack Sprat's alter ego, the man who could eat no lean. My mother, however, is the personification of "Could-Eat-No-Fat". My mom's food strikes me as unsatisfying, but I've always told myself that when my body slows down, I'll learn to eat the way she does. Until then the support beams for my eating habits include not just the American Eating Disorder, but also include my dad, my metabolism, and my social identity as the slender girl who eats too much.
Yet Haden's words echo ominously. The "trivialization of taste" has made food "a substrate: a base product to which is added not only taste, texture, vitamins or 'functions', but also added values: the signs of convenience, health or 'sexiness' - everything our minds need" (354). Are my comfort foods only comfortable because of commodification? Can I trust my own tongue?
Obentos - revised
After attempting to make a bento in class today, I decided I wouldn't be cut out for life as a Japanese mom. My messy excuse for a bento was, in comparison to everything I've heard and seen about the real thing, a complete failure. My patterns were messy and indistinct. The colors blurred together in an incoherent mishmash. There was no contrast to speak of, nothing to strike the eye, nothing to tie it all together. Much easier to layer meat with cheese, to spread mayonnaise carefully across evenly textured wheat bread, to add a ruffle of green lettuce and then cut off the crusts. I can release my creativity on the foods I've grown up eating, and I can even see myself waking up early to pack a lunch with love and care, just like my own mom did for 15 years. I can't express my dedication effectively through a bento, but I can do it my own way, confidently even, as long as I stay within my comfort zone: good old American simplicity.
My parents both have creative sides, and would enjoy the challenge of bento-making. In the end, though, Dad doesn't have the time to make daily bentos, and my Mom doesn't have the patience to do it everyday. It's too hard, too demanding to begin every day with the pressure of pleasing someone else, to be tested each day on your ability to provide variety and creativity while anticipating needs and wants, to serve perfection on a plate to your own children. I guess that's something you get used to, as a Japanese mom.
The bento tradition may be difficult to identify with for an American, but it is a powerful force that cannot be boxed into limiting terms of good or bad. The obento can be an opportunity, rather than a cultural constraint. It's a fresh start each day, a way to prove yourself without showing up to PTA meetings; it may be relaxingly meditative, and it is a bonding ritual, never dull and consistently healthful. Mothers and their children can identify with this culinary tradition, whose roots run deep in the history and culture of Japan.
In America, there is mixed ideology surrounding whether or not to supply your child with a bagged lunch. From the child's perspective, it would be far more delicious to eat a hot lunch every day. But underneath the jealousy might lie appreciation for parents with time for health - although marketing is more powerful than nutrition in shaping childhood desires. A healthy sack lunch might indicate a lack of family funds, but as with the bento it demonstrates a loving family support system. An unhealthy sack lunch is not taboo, but only parents who are strapped of time and care little for nutrition supply their children with a daily dose of Lunchables.
Bagged lunches are reminiscent of children's toys: parts sold separately, little assembly required. The nutritional ideologies behind American bagged lunches are guided by "official" prescriptions of health, rather than by a deeply entrenched cultural traditions. The sandwich, yogurt, fruit, juicebox and snack (a few cookies, for example) found in many bagged lunches are efforts to replicate the food pyramid. Carbohydrate, dairy, fruit, vegetable, and protein: typically most of the food groups are represented. Assessment of "health" stops at the nutrition label; if a juicebox says it provides a serving of fruit, then it provides a serving of fruit. Then comes dessert, a concession to the aisles of snack foods beckoning from every grocery store.
In "Rice Ball Rivalries", Whitelaw described the Onigiri as a traditional food that retained its popularity by adapting to the era of fast food. In Japan, foods with ancient roots evolved alongside industry, preserving the essence of traditional foods and shaping modes of fast food production. But to say that Americans should be envious of other that historical depth, to say our lunchtime traditions are shallow and culturally empty, seems jaded and pointless. It doesn't make us, as people, less complex or even less capable of establishing our own identities. Does it strip us of our ability to feel national pride, because our food traditions have shallow and wide-spread roots? Is it problematic that we borrow other food traditions, that we mix-and-match - and is it wrong to say disparagingly that we do so because we lack our own culture? I've heard people say this - American and otherwise. But I think our "culture" has something very unique to say, and I think it's worth listening to. If we listen to it maybe we'll figure something out about why we put such stock in culture.
My parents both have creative sides, and would enjoy the challenge of bento-making. In the end, though, Dad doesn't have the time to make daily bentos, and my Mom doesn't have the patience to do it everyday. It's too hard, too demanding to begin every day with the pressure of pleasing someone else, to be tested each day on your ability to provide variety and creativity while anticipating needs and wants, to serve perfection on a plate to your own children. I guess that's something you get used to, as a Japanese mom.
The bento tradition may be difficult to identify with for an American, but it is a powerful force that cannot be boxed into limiting terms of good or bad. The obento can be an opportunity, rather than a cultural constraint. It's a fresh start each day, a way to prove yourself without showing up to PTA meetings; it may be relaxingly meditative, and it is a bonding ritual, never dull and consistently healthful. Mothers and their children can identify with this culinary tradition, whose roots run deep in the history and culture of Japan.
In America, there is mixed ideology surrounding whether or not to supply your child with a bagged lunch. From the child's perspective, it would be far more delicious to eat a hot lunch every day. But underneath the jealousy might lie appreciation for parents with time for health - although marketing is more powerful than nutrition in shaping childhood desires. A healthy sack lunch might indicate a lack of family funds, but as with the bento it demonstrates a loving family support system. An unhealthy sack lunch is not taboo, but only parents who are strapped of time and care little for nutrition supply their children with a daily dose of Lunchables.
Bagged lunches are reminiscent of children's toys: parts sold separately, little assembly required. The nutritional ideologies behind American bagged lunches are guided by "official" prescriptions of health, rather than by a deeply entrenched cultural traditions. The sandwich, yogurt, fruit, juicebox and snack (a few cookies, for example) found in many bagged lunches are efforts to replicate the food pyramid. Carbohydrate, dairy, fruit, vegetable, and protein: typically most of the food groups are represented. Assessment of "health" stops at the nutrition label; if a juicebox says it provides a serving of fruit, then it provides a serving of fruit. Then comes dessert, a concession to the aisles of snack foods beckoning from every grocery store.
In "Rice Ball Rivalries", Whitelaw described the Onigiri as a traditional food that retained its popularity by adapting to the era of fast food. In Japan, foods with ancient roots evolved alongside industry, preserving the essence of traditional foods and shaping modes of fast food production. But to say that Americans should be envious of other that historical depth, to say our lunchtime traditions are shallow and culturally empty, seems jaded and pointless. It doesn't make us, as people, less complex or even less capable of establishing our own identities. Does it strip us of our ability to feel national pride, because our food traditions have shallow and wide-spread roots? Is it problematic that we borrow other food traditions, that we mix-and-match - and is it wrong to say disparagingly that we do so because we lack our own culture? I've heard people say this - American and otherwise. But I think our "culture" has something very unique to say, and I think it's worth listening to. If we listen to it maybe we'll figure something out about why we put such stock in culture.
Food Profile: Standardizing Sourdough
Standardizing Sourdough
Food is the stuff of legend. History latches onto food in its voyage through time, making food an evolving Expression of society, complete with roots and ever-spreading branches. It’s no surprise that food comes layered with stories, myths, allegiance and pride. Sourdough bread, I’ve recently discovered, has a history that extends further through space and time than I ever would have guessed. Its meaning in the ancient world was forgotten in the dream of the California gold rush, and once upon a time it was a necessity for survival rather than a symbol of San Franciscan cultural heritage. Now it leads a life of edible dichotomy, representing both industrialization and localized production: flavors developed through local traditions are now accessible globally and on a massive scale; meanwhile locals proudly, and loudly, carry on a tradition brined in history; and families far removed from San Francisco enjoy sourdough unburdened by cultural or even industrial associations.
Once upon a time, a friend gave me a one-sided education in bread history, which colored my perceptions of sourdough for years. He informed me that sourdough bread is the trademark of San Francisco. Sourdough, he enthused, is not replicable, merely imitable, for the myriad flavors of the ancient San Franciscan sourdough cannot be isolated. “My God,” I thought, “I must try this San Fran sourdough!” And although it’s possible that my undiscerning taste buds won’t be stunned when I finally try a bite, my friend’s perception of California clearly was. He probably hailed from the bay area, for his was the kind of regional pride – and confidence – I would expect only from someone who has a reason to care about the region.
So it is that for the past few years I’ve half-heartedly believed that sourdough was invented in San Francisco, only to learn recently that his story of history was influenced by an exaggerated rumor or maybe just a firm belief that it should be true. Sourdough, in fact, was used in ancient Egypt and medieval Europe – probably as the original leavener – and in traditional rye bread. Its more recent fame began when the dominant Lactobacillus sanfraniscensis LAB met the California Gold Rush: it is said that French gold diggers imported their own strains, and one thing led to another until voila! The original starters that settlers depended on for reliable leavening were passed down to bakeries in San Francisco, who have maintained them ever since. Sourdough bread has long been favored for its pleasant acidic flavor, long shelf-life and simple ingredients. Only now is Western science trying to make use of the qualities that have made sourdough popular for thousands of years: its ability to “improve texture and palatability of whole grain, fibre-rich or gluten-free products, stabilise or increase levels of various bioactive compounds… and improve mineral bioavailability” (Katina).
Although its history is long, my friend’s eager salesman approach to sourdough is probably the reason my interest (and the interest of Ms. Generic American Consumer) is now mired in San Francisco. In other words, this particular part of sourdough’s story may be worth getting caught up in precisely because there are people in Washington State buzzing Californian legends into our ears as if selling cars. This is part of the process of industrialization: people traversing the globe, spreading food fascination like pollen, giving us reason to globalize the local – which feeds back into reason for San Francisco to hold tightly to tradition and the rest of us to visit enviously.
This is why today’s food industry is motivated to inject artificial and ‘natural’ chemical flavorings into our otherwise flavorless processed food, arguing dryly, as one article does, that “flavour compounds are key elements for consumer acceptance and product identification”. The same article advocates for improved isolation of sourdough flavors in order to satiate increased consumer demand for “specialty” goods. This is the consumerism of taste, breeding consumer preference out of flavor marketing; Haden discusses the modern tendency of consumers to endure disingenuous flavors by processing a food's image using the tastebuds. According to Wikipedia, sourdough’s popularity has begun a downward spiral since the spread of its industrial counterpart. Apparently science hasn’t quite unraveled the mystery of microflora yet, and the consistent, reproducible taste craved by industrial production hasn’t passed muster with Safeway shoppers! Hence the need to churn out more authentic sourdough “flavors” for America’s bread factories.
I grew up eating homebaked sourdough, which I attributed to My Brilliant Dad and never to some distant legacy. Having watched Dad feed his beloved starter dutifully throughout my childhood, to me the living, breathing sponge was like a fussy child, somehow attributing its unique qualities to its particular parent. It had a magical, mysterious quality about it.
Michael Pollan makes his own sourdough creation in “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, cutting no corners as he brews a yeasty mixture from flour and water and San Francisco’s famously delicious air. My father followed the same steps when he established his starter 20 years ago as a budding chef, although probably without the yuppie benefits of organic flour and filtered water. Their sourdoughs have distinct personalities, however, one crafted with the microbes of Massachusetts and the other with the microbes of the Bay area. More than 50 species of lactic acid bacteria, also known as LAB, and 20 strains of yeast account for the variation in sourdough flavors between regions; the particular LAB that Pollan harnessed from his windowsill to ferment his starter is a product of chance and ecology. So it’s difficult for scientists to control the “composition and activity of the microflora” (Vuyst) in order to reproduce a particular flavor balance. Part of the allure of sourdough bread is terroir, this ecological tie between production place and flavor. The slow food movement encourages appreciation of local flavors (Leitch), bringing the local production of sourdough into vogue in regions outside of Northern California.
The attempt to reproduce sourdough is the reason for factories whose sole purpose is making sourdough infusions to sell to bread manufacturers, dividing sourdough bread into two distinct and unrelated processes: the sourdough, and the bread. A google search, or a search of electronic scientific journals, turns up a host of results for ‘sourdough’, most of them full of scientific jargon on fermentation techniques and microbacterial species. Scientists have isolated flavor compounds and lactic acid formulas; they’ve dehydrated sourdough, they’ve made a liquid ‘additive’, they’ve made a time-intensive process more time-efficient. Initially lactic acid, acetic acid and citric acid were added to the fermentation process (Brandt), but the unsatisfactory flavor of this shortcut led to the development of today’s factory-made dried and liquid sourdoughs. Bakeries can “dose” their breads with the liquid form of San Francisco Sourdough, add a little yeast, and wind up three hours later with “a San Francisco bread…having most of the typical aspects of the traditional product” (Decock). The internet too has aided the spread of San Francisco sourdough, connecting people with the local starter across vast distances. And the region's bread can be purchased in grocery stores, failing to pass as fresh after being shipped across the nation.
All of these breads are mockingly unconvincing of the San Francisco strain, for “even if the dry starter packet reads 'San Francisco Sourdough', by the time you feed it water and flour from Ohio or Mississippi, its character is transformed” (Goldman 61). An identity crisis may be just the transformation sourdough needs, as the endless quest for reproducibility meets with doubt from ever-expanding pockets of local food support networks. Its historical globality, its adaptability to diverse environmental niches, and its localized personality lack conviction when they stand next to the looming idol of San Franciscan legend. Yet the strength derived from these qualities seems to best our scientific technology in every battle to ‘control’ and ‘isolate’ sourdough.
Works Cited
Brandt, Markus J. “Sourdough products for convenient use in baking”.
Food Microbiology, Volume 24, Issue 2, April 2007, Pages 161-164
Decock, Pieter and Stefan Cappelle. “Bread technology and sourdough technology”.
Trends in Food Science & Technology, Volume 16, Issues 1-3, January-March 2005, Pages 113-120
Goldman, Marcy and Yvan Huneault. The Best of Betterbaking.com: 175 Classic Recipes from the Beloved Baker's Website. CA: Ten Speed Press, 2002.
Katina, K. et al. “Potential of sourdough for healthier cereal products.” Trends in Food Science & Technology, Volume 16, Issues 1-3, January-March 2005, Pages 104-112
Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. The Penguin Press, NY: 2006.
"Sourdough." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 1 Jun 2008, 18:05 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 3 Jun 2008
Vuyst, Luc de and Patricia Neysens. “The sourdough microflora: biodiversity and metabolic interactions”. Trends in Food Science & Technology, Volume 16, Issues 1-3, January-March 2005, Pages 43-45
Here is my dad's recipe for sourdough bread:
Bread:
sourdough country loaf
Ingredients
1 C. Firm White Starter
1/4 C. Semolina Flour
1-3/4 C. Unbleached Bread Flour
1 tsp.
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
Method:
- Combine all ingredients in bowl of KitchenAid mixer. Attach dough hook and run mixer on #4 setting for 12:00. Dough should be smooth, pass the windowpane test, and feel tacky but not sticky.
- Transfer dough to bowl lightly sprayed with pan spray, cover with plastic wrap, and place in draft-free location (inside oven, with oven light turned on is perfect) until it has doubled in volume. (Approx. 3-4 hours, depending on freshness and activity of starter.)
- Place dough on clean, lightly-floured counter top. Knock down, then gently shape dough into rectangle.
- Starting with long end of rectangle, gently roll dough into a rough cylinder, tapered at the ends.
- Pinch the free flap of dough to the bulk of the loaf using thumb and fingers.
- Dust lightly with flour; transfer to cloach (linen baker’s cloth), seam side down, and place on sheet tray. Bring ends of cloach up around loaf to cover. Place sheet tray into draft-free location until loaf has risen by half. (Approx. 1-1/2 hrs., depending on freshness and activity of starter.)
- Preheat oven, outfitted with bread stone, to 500o F. at least 30 minutes before final baking.
- When oven is preheated, gently transfer loaf to quarter sheet of parchment paper. Slash top surface of loaf using sharp knife.
- Using bread peel, transfer bread to top of bread stone. Immediately pour ½ C. water into bottom of oven, and spray oven walls with water mister.
- Close oven, reduce oven temperature to 425o F., and bake loaf for 18-22 minutes, until loaf is a deep, rich golden color and tests at a minimum internal temperature of 190o F.
note from the chef: This is the basic peasant loaf I now make because the quantities are sufficient for two people. The semolina flour gives it an Italian bread feel; replacing the semolina with all bread flour, or mostly bread flour with only a tablespoon or two of whole wheat flour, gives the bread a French heritage.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Scrounging for Food
I've never dumpster dived, nor can I imagine trying it. I wonder if people who regularly dumpster dive get a thrill from it, if being marked as a member of an unconventional subculture excites them. I imagine people eating their dumpster-dived foods together, satisfied as if they know the secret password to a girls-only clubhouse or are hiding in enemy territory. I imagine it would be refreshingly emancipating - like joining a nudist colony. It's the kind of underground lifestyle one might only feel comfortable joining if in cohorts with someone else, or when introduced by a dumpster-club member. I envision an web-based network, like the Polyamorous community, pulled together from the corners of the city by Food Not Bombs events. My vision is personified by David G, the spitting image of the non-conformist activist in his carefully uncoordinated outfit.
How deeply embedded I must be in popular consumer culture, to have so thoroughly dramatized dumpster diving! There is no reason it should be marked as taboo, no reason to react in awe and disgust. It should not be exotic to find food in unconventional places.
My hesitance to join the movement is expounded by Katz's descriptions of insect preparation and roadkill carnivorism. To me it is exciting, unappealing, uncouth. Perceptions of cleanliness are standardized in America, and food that strays outside the lines is systematically rejected. So are the people who eat that food.
Trash does not define itself. "Trash is trash because it is exiled," David told the class. It is exiled by consumer desire.
I was reading an editorial in some Diabetes magazine at the doctor's office the other day. The author stated a firm belief that if healthy food was consistently delicious, people would choose to eat more healthily. She said we deserve apples that aren't bruised and mealy, salads that are green and crisp.
If that's what people think, we're clearly spoiled. Foods that never vary in texture and flavor are expected, so perfectly good food is designated to the trash heap. My roommates throw out spotted bananas all the time. We're afraid of contamination too, an understandable phobia given such incidences as the ridiculous e. coli breakouts in our spinach. When disease strikes in industrial agriculture, it's never isolated. Americans are afraid to trust food. After every party, a dozen "wounded soldiers" are poured regretfully down the drain. I mourn every time I throw out food that's gone bad in my fridge, but it keeps happening anyway. Sometimes I find myself throwing away food (today it was an orange) that has been sitting around for what seems like too long, because I can't tell if it's bad.
If we can't rely on our disgust reflex and sweet tooth for guidance anymore, as Pollan says, how can we possibly know what to treat as trash without guidelines? Our instincts have been rendered almost useless by the architecture of urban society.
How deeply embedded I must be in popular consumer culture, to have so thoroughly dramatized dumpster diving! There is no reason it should be marked as taboo, no reason to react in awe and disgust. It should not be exotic to find food in unconventional places.
My hesitance to join the movement is expounded by Katz's descriptions of insect preparation and roadkill carnivorism. To me it is exciting, unappealing, uncouth. Perceptions of cleanliness are standardized in America, and food that strays outside the lines is systematically rejected. So are the people who eat that food.
Trash does not define itself. "Trash is trash because it is exiled," David told the class. It is exiled by consumer desire.
I was reading an editorial in some Diabetes magazine at the doctor's office the other day. The author stated a firm belief that if healthy food was consistently delicious, people would choose to eat more healthily. She said we deserve apples that aren't bruised and mealy, salads that are green and crisp.
If that's what people think, we're clearly spoiled. Foods that never vary in texture and flavor are expected, so perfectly good food is designated to the trash heap. My roommates throw out spotted bananas all the time. We're afraid of contamination too, an understandable phobia given such incidences as the ridiculous e. coli breakouts in our spinach. When disease strikes in industrial agriculture, it's never isolated. Americans are afraid to trust food. After every party, a dozen "wounded soldiers" are poured regretfully down the drain. I mourn every time I throw out food that's gone bad in my fridge, but it keeps happening anyway. Sometimes I find myself throwing away food (today it was an orange) that has been sitting around for what seems like too long, because I can't tell if it's bad.
If we can't rely on our disgust reflex and sweet tooth for guidance anymore, as Pollan says, how can we possibly know what to treat as trash without guidelines? Our instincts have been rendered almost useless by the architecture of urban society.
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