A Clamoring for Culinary Modernism

I also think this an interesting article and a reasonable corrective in making us aware of how economically privileged and ahistorical our modern notions of fresh food, not to say traditionally made wine, are. That's not to say they are bad--neither does the author. But incorrect justifications can lead to drawing problematic conclusions about things, to say the least.
 
He's conflating a number topics here:

food safety
food nutrition
food flavor
labor required to prepare food
food genetics
food processing
global availability of food from different regions

Certainly very few people recommend going back to a time without preservatives or requiring 99% of the population to prepare all their own food.

One can applaud the machines that grind our flour while drawing a distinction between the quality of different breads made from said flour. One can applaud the availability of foods that don't grow in our areas while still valuing local fresh from the farm food.

His central point seems valid - Food industrialization is not, in and of itself, bad. It certainly has been put to some less than optimal uses over the years though.
 
The author is a woman. I'm in the middle of reading her book Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History and find it very interesting.

I think the points are valid and useful for perspective. Just like I don't need fashion-obsessed people critiquing my clothes, I don't expect everyone else to eat/drink like me.
 
These discussions always come around to how arbitrary and ideological the boundaries of tradition and modernity turn out to be. For a classic account not related to wine:

The Invention of Tradition

None of this means taking a stand on the aesthetics of wine styles one prefers, just that claiming superiority based on a static view of tradition does not work.
 
originally posted by Cliff:
These discussions always come around to how arbitrary and ideological the boundaries of tradition and modernity turn out to be. For a classic account not related to wine:

The Invention of Tradition

None of this means taking a stand on the aesthetics of wine styles one prefers, just that claiming superiority based on a static view of tradition does not work.
Click to expand...

Well I for one am not about to argue with Eric Hobsbawm (unless, of course, I thought he was wrong).
 
Jay has said it right: The issue is not the historical research -- that is pretty much dead on. The problem is the representation of the modern viewpoint. I don't know anybody who wishes to use 'food purity' as a way to re-enslave women to the butter churn, et alia.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Jay has said it right: The issue is not the historical research -- that is pretty much dead on. The problem is the representation of the modern viewpoint. I don't know anybody who wishes to use 'food purity' as a way to re-enslave women to the butter churn, et alia.
Click to expand...

Where in the article did the author say that foodies want to enslave women to churn the butter? I must have missed that argument. She does elide the issue of "food purity" with mode of production because, well, foodies do make that connection. And of course the real target of the article is the notion of tradition. Are you really saying that no one argues about food or wine making values in terms of that concept?
 
"If we urge the Mexican to stay at her metate, the farmer to stay at his olive press, the housewife to stay at her stove instead of going to McDonald’s, all so that we may eat handmade tortillas, traditionally pressed olive oil, and home-cooked meals, we are assuming the mantle of the aristocrats of old. We are reducing the options of others as we attempt to impose our elite culinary preferences on the rest of the population."

She previously referred to this work as "servitude".

In any case, what was regal food for 5th C BC Celtic princes is of no consequence when discussing the virtues, or lack thereof, of adding Lake Yellow 5 or disodium EDTA to an already-palatable product.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
"If we urge the Mexican to stay at her metate, the farmer to stay at his olive press, the housewife to stay at her stove instead of going to McDonald’s, all so that we may eat handmade tortillas, traditionally pressed olive oil, and home-cooked meals, we are assuming the mantle of the aristocrats of old. We are reducing the options of others as we attempt to impose our elite culinary preferences on the rest of the population."

She previously referred to this work as "servitude".

In any case, what was regal food for 5th C BC Celtic princes is of no consequence when discussing the virtues, or lack thereof, of adding Lake Yellow 5 or disodium EDTA to an already-palatable product.
Click to expand...

In the light of the full quotation, I still think the point stands. If we insist on traditionally made foods, just who will do the traditional making? And although I'm no fan of McDonald's, if we say to people without the necessary income that they should make their own meals as much from scratch as possible, since they cannot afford to buy handmade food, we will therefore be saying that they should spend hours cooking them. And that's not just a matter of butter and olive oil. Refusing to work with convenience food is a convenience that the leisured middle class has, but not everybody else.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
"If we urge the Mexican to stay at her metate, the farmer to stay at his olive press, the housewife to stay at her stove instead of going to McDonald’s, all so that we may eat handmade tortillas, traditionally pressed olive oil, and home-cooked meals, we are assuming the mantle of the aristocrats of old. We are reducing the options of others as we attempt to impose our elite culinary preferences on the rest of the population."

She previously referred to this work as "servitude".

In any case, what was regal food for 5th C BC Celtic princes is of no consequence when discussing the virtues, or lack thereof, of adding Lake Yellow 5 or disodium EDTA to an already-palatable product.
Click to expand...

And how does the author imagine that foodies are urging Abuelita to stay at her metate or olive farmers to press oil? Last I checked, that was done with market forces (including gov't subsidies at times). That hardly strikes me as a recipe for servitude or enslavement. It's the same story with organic produce and CSAs: mechanisms have been put in place to make it financially viable for people to do something that they love doing. Our CSA guy quit his job as an engineer to pursue a life of farming. Not quite enforced servitude, I'd say.

I do however have a problem with the "let them eat ratatouille" attitude of certain foodies regarding the working poor. Yes, it would be ideal if more Americans cooked for themselves, but for the single mother raising three kids while working two jobs, that ain't gonna happen very often.

Mark Lipton
 
Having looked a little more closely at the article, I agree that the politics are ham fisted. It struck me as a valuable reminder that the concept of tradition has a history, that the distinction between tradition and modernity is always fraught, and that for most people most of the time, food has been miserable.

It does raise questions about where one draws the line today -- does, for example, our butter really need to come from grass raised cows? Is kale an authentic form of Brassica oleracea, fit for a paleo caveman, or has selective breeding denatured it? -- but does not engage with them in any kind of depth.
 
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