Migraineur, awesome comment! Perhaps “hate” is the wrong word. The point I was aiming for is how we agonize over nutrients and seem to have a love/hate relationship with food. Some of us push for higher quality, but all in all, most of our fellow countrymen and women just want to spend as little as possible on their food, eat it as quickly as they can, and go back to watching American Idol or Top Model. I see it more as a loathing of anything other than the fact that we must eat and an attempted repression of the inate love of food, perhaps a harkening to our Puritan roots and the need to suppress any enjoyment of, well, anything. You are right though…it is nice that so many options for getting out of the industrialized food system are starting to pop up and those of us that take advantage of them are able to truly relish our food.

Cheers
Scott

John Kim, in most senses I do consider myself a liberal. You know what that means to me? It means I want to see my country do better; I’m not satisfied with complacently sitting on our collective butts, because there is always room to improve. America may still be the greatest country in the world, but we can’t rest on those laurels because other countries are nipping at our heels. Grieving when my country isn’t the best she can be doesn’t mean I hate my country, any more than grieving when my sister or my child goes down a stupid path doesn’t mean I hate my sister or my child. And I think that the industrialized food path is really stupid. I grieve, because I think we could do better.

You say preparing food is a pain the ass. I say it’s one of the greatest pleasures in life, integrating all the senses. Maybe the difference between us is that I have a sharp knife and you do not? (The right tools make all the difference.) You say cooking and eating interferes with getting somewhere in life. I say that biology, chemistry, and physics won’t be denied, and the sooner we understand that, the further we truly get in life. Furthermore, I suspect we have different definitions of getting ahead.

You say liberals think Europe is good, America is bad. If there are liberals who think that, are they any more guilty of stupid oversimplification than the people (conservatives?) who ate “freedom” fries and dumped out fine French wines just because the government and people of France disagreed with the government and people of the United States? Isn’t democracy about disagreement, about letting the people, all of them, have a voice? Isn’t the Bill of Rights about protecting minorities from the excesses of majority rule? (And as for the wine dumping, talk about shooting yourself in the foot - if you already bought the wine, you’re not harming the French economy by dumping it. Duh.) Are people who boycott the industrial food system any more idiotic than the people who boycotted “French” Grey Poupon mustard and “German” Heineken beer, not even realizing that Grey Poupon is owned by Kraft and Heineken comes from the Netherlands? I am not saying you are one of those people. I am just suggesting that “Europe bad, America good” is just as stupid as “America bad, Europe good.”

There idiots and thoughtful people everywhere on the political spectrum. But one definition, for me, of “non-idiot” is someone who can engage with those he disagrees with without resorting to epithets and stereotypes.

One other thing - while there are ways in which the American food system has gone horribly awry, I feel more optimistic than ever because there are also many, many ways in which it is getting better. There are more farmers’ markets than ever. There are more organic food choices than ever. There are more journalists writing about real food than ever. The Slow Food movement is taking hold here. The middle class is starting to get interested in CSAs, food coops, buying clubs, and direct from farm sales, all of which help farmers by putting more money directly into their pockets and less into the pockets of middlemen. The industrial farm system does the opposite - how long can we keep shooting the producers in our food chain in the foot before the market fails? (I keep telling my CSA farmer he’s not charging enough.) We can do better - and slowly, we are! So if you think that being happy to see my country improve means I hate America, you have a strange definition of hatred.

Talks about the importance of family meals etc for successful motivated kids! etc…

I do have a question for John Kim: if you perceive Scott’s post to be anti-American, presumably you believe that the implication that European food culture is superior is mistaken.

Can you then give us a few concrete examples of something about US food culture that is “better” than that of a European country like France? Range of available food? Quality of produce? Freshness? Traceability? Level of knowledge on the part of both consumer and producer?

I’d be interested to hear your response but I will be amazed if you can find more than one aspect of US food culture that is convincingly better than that of France. Remember that certain countries simply do certain things better than other countries - I very much doubt that you’d have complained if Scott had stated that (for example) the US has a better software industry than France. But going by your comments I’d guess that you’re so insecure that you can’t accept that any other country might be superior in any way to the US.

Every culture seems to claim for itself the obsession with food and nurturing. I’m Jewish, and we definitely go around thinking we came up with the cultural obsession with food.  All my friends from other cultures feel the same way about their cultures.

Debs/Huckleberry

Food Is Love

I like what you said about connecting with cultures through food. It’s a great way to share your own culture and connect with someone else’s.

Food Is Love