It is being reported in the Guardian U.K. this week that Afghans, who continue to be tapped in to the world market supply/demand chain, are now growing wheat instead of poppies to profit from the world shortage of wheat.
“The cost of a tonne of wheat in Afghanistan has almost trebled this year, causing serious shortages, while the global price of heroin has fallen. The changeover to wheat has begun in key regions, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation reports.”
Of course this wheat is being grown for profit pruposes and to balance out the food economy again, not becuase growing wheat can be better for a society than growing the plant that produces heroin.
There has been some talk recently about a new brand of vitamin-like water to come out, much like all the others at your local grocery store, except this one would have meat in it. Yes, meat. The item is called Meatwater by no stretch of the marketing imagination and it even has a Web site set up which boasts of its release on May 1. The only problem is it hasn’t been released and the whole thing stinks of consumerist mockery meant to seduce those who will pay attention. Many bloggers have already pointed out that the whole thing is a hoax and is the work of an artists named Till Krautkramer. Needless to say the list of flavors is hilarious: Beef Jerky, Hungarian Goulash, Peking Duck, and many more. It is all too reminiscent however of the idea my friends and I had years ago, meat flavored cereals. That’s right, it’s only a matter of time before Count Porkula is lining shelves.
Dan Barber, chef and co-owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns (Tarrytown, NY), had a piece in the Op-ed section of the New York Times last weekend. The article sings with optimism, and in it he says that the rising price in oil and the world-wide food shortages will have a positive effect for small farms. Small farms use less oil and less fertilizer, ideally they use none. Oil is a key ingredient in fertilizers for farms, which is why big farming operations now are suffering due to a spike in price which has mirrored the oil spike. Barber says that small farms often do not ship their crops great distances cutting down on the moral complications consumers now face.
This is to say that the current instability in world markets, and a rising awareness of the pollution emitted by your grocery store’s shipment of bananas or kiwis, can cause a shift. A shift toward more stable eating patterns, toward healthier stomachs, toward happier stomachs. Chefs can also help with this. As Barber says, chefs that demand better ingredients will assist in the growth of small localized markets, and therefore shift away the need for massive industrial farms.
George Carey’s world record swordfish (842-lbs.) caught in 1936 off Tocopilla, Chile.
The moral quandaries involved in enjoying the bounty of our earth and sea are mounting with every fish reeled in, every cow slaughtered, every chicken cooped. On the Vanity Fair web site is a web exclusive by Charles Clover about the danger our oceans are in and the tricky relationship restaurant owners and eaters are embroiled in. It describes what we already know, that we have over-fished the oceans, and polluted them at the same time. The article delves into the moral complications wrapped up in ordering certain types of fish in restaurants today. It highlights certain species of fish which when seen on menus are red flag fish. Swordfish, blue fin tuna, and Chilean sea bass are a few of the most egregious menu items, and many consumers who are now wise to the state of the ocean do not order them. Or they inquire about the source of the fish. At the same time, many chefs are now removing species that have been identified as over-fished or endangered and are moving toward a sustainable fish movement.
“Among the originals he credits in the sustainable-seafood march are (perhaps surprisingly) Eric Ripert, at Le Bernardin; Michelle Bernstein, who omitted Chilean sea bass from her menu when she was at Azul, in the Mandarin Oriental in Miami, and who now owns Michy’s, in Florida; Rick Bayless, in Chicago; Rick Moonen, in Las Vegas; the “Too Hot Tamales” (Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken), in Los Angeles; and Susan Spicer, in New Orleans. Among the young generation he cites are chefs Barton Seaver, at Hook, in Washington, D.C., and Tom Aikens, in London, who has just opened a sustainable-fish-and-chip shop.”
The article makes clear the state of crisis the oceans face, and how humans are inexorably tied to this state. It’s a call for more sustainable means of farming fish, which wold allow fish stocks in the open ocean to rebound. The problem is the lack of unification in this effort. Some countries are up to the task, and as the articles states, Russia has even promulgated a five year ban on beluga caviar farming. Whether or not this ban can be enforced from the top down to the fisherman is the bigger issue. How do governments that want to conserve the ocean’s resources now stop its people from continuing to practice a profession that has been a mainstay of survival for centuries? Perhaps more bans should be placed on larger fishing operations. Limits should be placed on fishing depending on fish populations. It’s all part of a growing consciousness which people have to observe now that we have gotten ourselves into a jam with our own food supplies.
In the race to make our food better and to understand our food better, humans have experimented on animals over and over again. And cows, the unwitting, docile champions of the farm have unfortunately born the brunt of many of these experiments. Many seem cruel and clearly tied into a system designed to maximize profit and improve the animal’s utility as a food source–not necessarily taking to account the animal as animal. This morning, looking around online, I came across an experiment performed on cows in which a hole called a fistula is made in the cow’s side. A hole like the small windows in the hull of a boat. Through this hole one can remove half-digested food from the cow’s stomach in order to study it and determine how the cow is breaking down certain types of food. The web sites that discuss the fistulated cows claim the cows feel no pain when the operation is performed and that the cows live a long and happy life. Even if this is true, the oddity of this experiment, the fact that someone decided we should put a hole in an animal where there was no hole before, is almost too Orwellian to handle. Can;t we just let these animals live without holes in their sides? Can’t we let them digest their own food instead of tinkering with them like pieces of machinery? Guess not.
A fellow food appreciator and writer, Arlo Crawford, had a piece in The New York Times Magazine this past weekend. Arlo grew up on an organic farm, and, after leaving to pursue other adventures, he went back a few years ago to live again on the land he grew up on. This is not your typical farming story, though. Man grows vegetables and realizes the meaning of existence. Instead, Arlo has a take on the land, on farming, and on our human relationship to the land that is a bit odd and more colorful.
The New York Times printed an interesting grid this morning which depicts the rate of inflation of several consumer products over the last ten years. There is no surprise that food has jumped. The article quotes that bananas have jumped 20 percent in a year, and eggs have risen 35 percent. Among other high achievers in the race for expensive food are frozen orange juice and bread. Who knows where we go from here?
The French have a long history of disliking the British. The British have a long history of not liking the French. From the days of early colonialism as competing sea powers to modern day resentment founded on cultural differences, the two have harbored something resembling the way Americans feel about Canadians. A general dismissal based on exaggerated stereotypes. But now the French will have another reason to begrudge the Brits. As reported in the Guardian U.K.this morning, Fosters of Barnsley, a British bakery will now be making all the baguettes for the French railway system. How the French were undermined in their own subway system at supplying their own traditional bread comes down to the contents of the bread. French law prohibits the use of fat in baguettes. This means the baguettes go stale quickly. In steps the British bakery, which has side-stepped the French law and put fat in the baguettes, letting them retain their soft, fluffy nature while being peddled to French commuters.
I began this blog to discuss the good and bad in food culture in our society. But, as is the case with so many things, the good seems to be select and subtle, while the bad, are ever-present and overpowering. So it is with a wince of regret for the future that I read an article in Ad Age today about Kraft Foods new line of products designed to make their existing line of highly manipulated, barely recognizable food products easier to use. Even equating food with an easier to use ethos is spine shivering. To Kraft, food is a product, product is profit, and profit comes with user friendliness. The change for the company comes at the behest of surveys in which Kraft’s customers claimed their foods were too difficult to use. In its new line-up are a revamped Cool Whip topping. No longer will one have to shuffle to the freezer, crank the freezer door all the way open and spoon the cloud-like mix of corn syrup and hydrogenated oils onto their favored dish. Now Cool Whip will come in an aerosol can. What else is in the planning for Kraft Foods? Why, Jell-O pudding single-use packets (an unrefrigerated powder which when mixed with milk congeals into the loved treat), and microwaveable bagels with cream cheese already applied.
If this were the 1950s these would be considered innovations, but we live in a different age now. Added packaging is a shame. Food which is chock full of hydrogenated oils and corn syrup being designed for ease of use is misleading and damaging to uninformed people everywhere. The idea that companies are constantly attempting to make food the easiest it can be is offensive. Stop dawdling, Kraft Foods, and come out with a one-shot meal pill already, why don’t you.
This morning cnn.com is reporting food riots in Somalia that go above and beyond the typical riots that have been bubbling to the surface amid anxiety over food and oil prices. In Somalia, vendors stopped accepting Somali currency, the shilling, in favor of the American dollar. Riots broke out and five people were killed by Somali police who were defending a business. The riots have come in the wake of fighting between Somali government forces and Islamist militants, and have afflicted a country that has not had a stable or recognized goverment since 1991.
