Service

I love serving people food.  Food, defined as a consumable made with integrity, from ingredients that are pure, is wonderful.  My reaction to it is on an emotional level.  I am fascinated by it; I pursue it; I want to be around it; I enjoy giving it to other people.  I am proud that this is how I spend the majority of my days.

In trying to understand the general (though certainly not universal) attitude that service is a second rate job and one that you do on your way to becoming something else, I keep returning to the way we produce food and how we view consuming it.  Even at the finest of restaurants, and certainly at the delis, Subways, and diners of our daily lives, most of what is served travels a substantial distance before being broken down and made in its final product.  There is little to no relationship between the production of the raw ingredient (the fabrication from nature) and the production of that which is sold as a final product.  So already there is a disconnect for most people between what is needed to survive (and thereby what is, historically and psychologically, been held in 'awe') and what is being eaten.

At the same time, and not unrelated, is the attitude we have developed in relation to food:  Food is the enemy, something to be parceled out in certain settings or combinations or not at all; Food as a substitute for any one of many emotional difficulties (most of which I believe ultimately lead back to a distinct feeling of alienation, but that for another time); Skinny is beautiful; The other extreme, fat/obese is beautiful; And the list goes on.  The people who serve us food, rather than being harbingers of care and survival, become enablers of damaging social and internal narratives.  It is not unreasonable to have little respect for such enablers, or to desire not to be one.

Food, produced in a more traditional manner, from ingredients grown locally and fabricated in smaller quantities, tends to attract people to serve it who share my attitude toward service.  This creates, on a local and sometimes national scale, a loosely knit community of like-minded folks.  It is a lovely world to belong to, and the first one in a long time to which I feel I truly belong.

Eating My Feelings

On Monday I was angry.  No, let me rephrase that: I was VERY angry -- furious -- livid -- fire-spewing mad.  Why I was angry is not nearly as interesting as what I did with that anger.  I ate it.  I literally stuffed my face because I did not know what to do with the incredible anger I felt.  I had no outlet, no means through which I could expel this demon, anger.  And I found this so troubling I tried to drown it, suffocate it, with food.  Now I am sure you can imagine the result of such an effort:  A stomach ache so tremendous I could not sleep, but rather was up all night seething with anger and a stomach ache.  Perfect.

Food is a very powerful tool.  When I am full I feel everything.  Hunger distracts.  So when I do not want to think about a hurt or to address it, I do not eat.  So why then do I eat to excess?  Anger...but at what?  Feeling invisible, unimportant, dismissed, lied to.  I eat to substantiate my existence.  Put another way, when I feel liking nothing, I want to eat nothing.  When I feel like something big and powerful, I also eat accordingly.

I was watching my pup today.  When it is grey and cold out and he does not get as much exercise as he would like, he limits his intake of food.  When he isn't burning it, he doesn't need it, so he doesn't eat it.  What separates my pup and me is that food is not for me ever just food.  It is a long and complicated narrative beginning and ending with a sometimes clear, sometimes opaque, sometimes troubled vision of myself, perhaps not as I am but certainly as I feel myself to be.  There are so many books out now about how to 'eat like a skinny person': 'eat when you are hungry, stop when you are full'; 'eat anything you like, but in small doses'; 'the trouble with Americans is that we eat too many chemicals'; etc...Now, I am not dismissing these platitudes, as in each one there is truth.  But food is so much more complicated than that, and the solutions, both personal and communal, for our food woes must be more complex.

So where do we go from here?  Hell if I know!  But I do hope we can develop a platitude-free, nuanced, honest articulation of the complex problem of food production and consumption in this country.  We will have to address some skeletons in our collective closet, skeletons named race, greed, profit, poverty, sex, sexism and their troubling cousins.  Where should we begin?

Table Wine

Edwin and I are, like many of you, big on wine but low on cash.  We have recently been exploring the $10 and under bins and have found several surprisingly tasty gems.  Nothing fancy, nothing special...but well balanced, easy to pair with foods and thoroughly enjoyable.  My favorite of the moment is Le Vieille Ferme, Cotes du Ventoux.  It is a pleasant, not cloyingly berried, medium/full-bodied red, with nice tannin, which retails at our local liquor store for $8.99 plus tax.  We had it the other night with an aged Vermont cheddar which was fine, though a nice, stinky camembert would have been better.  It does not take much to make me feel content...a warm apartment, an affectionate pup, good company and decent wine.  This bottle fits the bill and the budget.  Let me know what you have found in the $10 and under....Happy drinking!

Aggrevation Breeds Inspiration

Last night I found myself witness to yet another series of platitudes about food production, food service, the environment and this ephemeral concept: "corporate responsibility."  Let me describe what set me off:  I am a student of culinary management.  A description of just what that is is the subject of further discussion.  Being this student I found myself witness to a lecture on emerging trends and how small operators can define and participate in those trends, without the funds to engage in the requisite market research.  The example before us was McDonald's.  Before we go any further let me be clear: I am not a McDonald's hater, nor do I ascribe to the philosophy that all corporations of a given size are evil.  Rather I am of the mind that corporations, their power and size, are socially created, supported and justified.  Again, the subject of further discussion.  Returning to the lecture, McDonald's has 'uncovered' through its extensive and expensive market research that there are several trends which are of interest to their potential consumer base, including the environment and consumer health.  In response McDonald's has made available a summary of their corporate referendum aimed at addressing these concerns (http://www.mcdonalds.com/usa/good/report.html).  In this referendum McDonald's lists a number of achievements in its changing relationship to environment.  Several of us voiced concern that these achievements were for the most part based on goals set internally, without the direct input or oversight of organizations devoted to the monitoring of environmentally-helpful modes of production.  To give an analogy, this is much like a doctor saying that she has determined for herself what defines ethical practices in the domain of medicine and based upon that determination and her own observations of herself has found herself to be an ethically sound practitioner.  See the problem?  Our concerns were met with defensiveness and an element of disdain (and the accusation that we were just McDonald's haters).  And yet this lecture was literally being given under the title "Corporate Responsibility".  So what I wanted to know was whether we, as potential food service operators, were being encouraged to produce the semblance of care and responsibility in relation to production practices or if we were being encouraged actually to produce food and food service with an attitude of care and responsibility?  In the dismissal of that question, I got my answer:  The consumer (aka the person who pays the bills) wants to think that we care, but it doesn't really matter if we do.  It should be obvious by now that I have some serious problems with that answer.

As food service operators and as consumers we wield incredible power: the power of the dollar.  With incredible power should come incredible responsibility, (remembering of course that the domain of ethics deals not with what is but what should be (and perhaps how to get from 'should' to another, better 'is')).  There is no stronger force in American politics, or American social practices, today than the persuasive power of the dollar, and as consumers and operators we can choose to use that power to develop a future or to eradicate the possibility of a future at all.  The choice is there and no matter where your sympathies lie, it is anything but an easy question and anything but a platitude to be swept under the rug.

As a final thought, I find it particularly insidious that this kind of responsibility can be so easily dismissed when dealing with food, the original and most primal sign of care.  Food production and food service, that is, feeding each other, is the first, the last, and sometimes the only tangible care we can show for each other.  If that fact alone does not encourage a legitimate discussion of responsibility, corporate or otherwise, I am at a loss for what can.