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[QUOTE=KevinTheOmnivore;340070]This was a cute read. I'll admit it, I'm definitely one of the snobs who would rather spend a few extra bucks on fair trade coffee and free range chicken. What I liked about this article is the supposed culinary creativity it takes to eat poor quality. Like a burrito simply being last nights leftovers, etc.

Anyway, buy locally grown. ;)

[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/22/opinion/22powell_cm.html?pagewanted=print[/url]

July 22, 2005
Don't Get Fresh With Me!
By JULIE POWELL
SOME are depressed by the sun deprivation of winter; my anxiety peaks instead at the height of summer. This isn't some sort of seasonal affective disorder-in-reverse. My worsening temper can be calibrated precisely not to the longer days but rather to another unrelenting symbol of the season: the blossoming farmers' market I walk through in Manhattan's Union Square. I confess that half an hour browsing in that utopia of produce - or the new Whole Foods Market at the square's south end - often leaves me longing for the antiseptic but nonjudgmental aisles of low-end supermarkets like Key Food or Western Beef.

Don't get me wrong: I love a big, ugly tomato as much as the next girl. I buy my fair share of pencil-thin asparagus and micro-greens, and I'm sure if ever I were to stand in an orchard and taste a peach picked during one of its two days of succulent perfection, I would find it one of life's greatest joys. Perhaps one day I will - if I move to California, where life is apparently just one great organic cornucopia. But even in that exceedingly unlikely event, I'll remain a bit suspicious of this cult of garden-freshness.

Through the work of passionate chefs and food advocates like Alice Waters, our anxieties about Frankenfood and rampant obesity have been transformed into a positive movement of pleasurable eating, based on a menu of local, organic foods and a strong support of sustainable agriculture. This style of cuisine, which first cropped up in California and has spread like kudzu across the nation, has caused the proliferation of "seasonal menus" in restaurants from Washington State to Palm Beach, Fla.

The key principle of the movement is to "treat fine ingredients with respect." A worthy goal, surely, as is providing healthful food for children and resistance to genetic engineering, antibiotics and hormones. It seems churlish and wrong-headed to mock this dedication; it's like sneering at puppies or true love or democracy. And yet, as admirable as these efforts are, there remains buried in this philosophy two things that just get my hackles up.

The first and most dangerous aspect is the temptation of economic elitism. Of course, food has always been about class. In his classic meditation "The Physiology of Taste," first published in 1825, Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin suggested a series of three "gastronomical tests," menus designed to expose the culinary sensitivity - or lack thereof - of one's dining companions. These are organized according to economic status: you can expect your wealthy friends ("Presumed income: 30,000 francs and more") to salivate at the sight of "a seven-pound fowl, stuffed round as a ball with Périgord truffles"; while your stevedore buddies will be perfectly satisfied by good sauerkraut.

This sort of garden-variety condescension is eternal, and relatively harmless. What makes the snobbery of the organic movement more insidious is that it equates privilege not only with good taste, but also with good ethics. Eat wild Brazil nuts and save the rainforest. Buy more expensive organic fruit for your children and fight the national epidemic of childhood obesity. Support a local farmer and give economic power to responsible stewards of sustainable agriculture. There's nothing wrong with any of these choices, but they do require time and money.

When you wed money to decency, you come perilously close to equating penury with immorality. The milk at Whole Foods is hormone-free; the milk at Western Beef is presumably full of the stuff - and substantially less expensive. The chicken at Whole Foods is organic and cage-free; the chicken at Western Beef is not. Is the woman who buys her children's food at the place where they take her food stamps therefore a bad mother?

"That's not cooking, that's shopping." This epigram has been attributed to Julia Child and several other chefs of an older generation, in reference to the tenets of California Cuisine. It is sometimes used - often pronounced in a snooty French accent or Childean warble - by devotees of the organic movement (like Doug Hamilton, writer and director of the documentary "Alice Waters and Her Delicious Revolution") to mock these fusty old-school cooks. For the newer generation, a love for traditional fine cuisine is cast as fussy and snobbish, while spending lots of money is, curiously, considered egalitarian and wise.

I object to this equation. Shopping is the province of the privileged; fine cooking is not. Indeed, great cuisine arose from privation. The techniques of smoking, drying, salting and roasting were all developed to preserve foods past the "perfect peach" stage, past the day the vegetable was harvested or the animal butchered, to save for a time of less bounty. Preserved foodstuffs led directly the development of culinary traditions, as people who wanted nothing more than to feed themselves well and with pleasure taught themselves how best to combine ingredients artfully, to create something more than the sum of its parts. (Not to mention that salted fish and smoked meats made possible the ocean voyages that, for instance, introduced Europeans to California.) Classic French sauces were conceived to ennoble less-than-prime beef. A burrito is nothing more than a delicious disguise for inelegant leftovers.

Cooking is one of the few actions that verifiably separates us from other animals, and its universality brings us together. This is a sentiment that's been treasured since the dawn of cuisine by people who value the art of eating. And it's not only the ingredients - be they delicate heirloom tomatoes or the stalwart hothouse kind - that we share when we eat well together. There is also the love and creativity and work we combine them with - those human qualities that transform food into cuisine, and eating into a pleasure.

WITH his gastronomic tests, Brillat-Savarin sought to find others like himself, of whatever economic status, who truly enjoyed food. It's easy to do the same today, but the method isn't to assume that everyone at Whole Foods is wise and everyone at the Western Beef benighted.

Instead, look in their carts. Some shop at Western Beef for nothing more than diet cola and frozen bagels; some at Whole Foods for premade sushi and overdesigned bottles of green tea. These people have much in common. So, too, do the professorial types poring over the sweet corn and dewy blueberries at the greenmarket and the Honduran family at the discount grocery, piling their cart high with rice and dried beans and canned tomatoes and all the other stuff you need to make something out of nothing much.

[i]Julie Powell is the author of the forthcoming "Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen."[/i][/QUOTE]

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Jul 30th, 2005 02:06 AM

DeadKennedys

I study under a professional chef. I don't remember learning about the culinary importance of using shitty food.

Jul 29th, 2005 08:12 PM

Abcdxxxx

Yeah dude - wompwompwompwomp to you too.

I guess it's irrelevant that the Western Beef the writer visited is in the highest rent district of Manhattan? Or that gourmet markets and health food stores are opening in low income neighborhoods? Or that NOBODY had organic anything in Manhattan until recently, rich OR poor. Could you be any less in touch with real life?

Jul 29th, 2005 12:41 PM

KevinTheOmnivore

The context I brought up is right there in the article you didn't read. At least we're not still on the "misnomer" that is urban poverty due to super nice kicks. No diahrea there.

You're my favorite character, abc. Nobody else can turn being a weak contrarian into such a zen thing quite like you do.

Jul 29th, 2005 09:53 AM

Abcdxxxx

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinTheOmnivore

ABC can't really talk, he needs to go pull the stick out of his ass.

yeah because i thought i better lend it to you, to stop all that verbal diahrea. there's a whole world of hack consumer reports out there for you to take out of context...better get on it.

Jul 28th, 2005 04:51 PM

kahljorn

I've never even heard of whole foods. We have an organic store near here called, "Lassens" but other than that...

Jul 27th, 2005 10:28 PM

KevinTheOmnivore

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abcdxxxx

Then don't comment in the thread, you pretentious twit.

Quote:

Farm Fresh good isn't a novelty in other parts of the US, but it sure is in Manhattan where the shopping carts she's talking about are like miniature kids size so they can fit down the narrow aisles.

You're absolutely wrong about this, but whatever, it's not really important.

Quote:

Do I think income has an infleunce on diet? C'mon, are you that desperate to milk some substance out of that article? City poverty is a misnomer first of all. You can be poor and still wear a $400 throwback jersey at the Bronx River Houses, where you have no furniture to put in front of your wide screen tv.

Poor parents care about the sort of image their children present, because it reflects upon them. I'm not citing any data on this, merely personal/work experience. Other people can see what kind of shoes their kids have, or whether or not their kids "look" poor. They can't however see if that kid is eating cut up pieces of hot dog and store brand soda every night.

Quote:

You can use your food stamps to buy playstation games, or organic milk. These are lifestyle choices. It's not like people who live off the land with a fully natural diet represent our elite, upper class.

Who do you think precisely is moving upstate in NY and buying up all of the old dairy farms and black soil onion land in order to grow soy beans? They're not "the salt of the earth," they're in fact far from it.

Once again, you're absolutely wrong, but please, keep talking.

Quote:

We're not talking about government cheese or sugar water babies here....we're talking about the difference between the old supermarket chains of New York and a new breed of markets with a pricier product.

The USDA spens the bulk of their nutrition education cash on families of lower-income. Most childhood eating disorders, be it obesity, diabetes, or other related diseases, occur in children from lower-incomes. The way you can eat can effect everything from performance in the classroom, to whether or not you live to see your 50's or your 70's (hey, btw, which income bracket tends to live longer?).

Of course life is about choices, but it hasn't always been that cut and dry for certain Americans. Whatever, it was a fluff piece....yet you still felt compelled to be a fucking prick.

Quote:

it's a specific case study, and a lame article.

No it wasn't, and no, you're lame, nah nah nah!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ziggy

OK. Here's what I took from the article:

"If you're looking to one-up the snobs at Whole Foods, buy nothing preprepared."

Then, once again, I'd have to say you missed the point.

What's your opinion on dietary habits and income? ABC can't really talk, he needs to go pull the stick out of his ass.

Jul 27th, 2005 12:07 PM

kahljorn

Yea, i know it's pretty crazy. There's alot of tricks in gardening though. For example alot of insects are eatten by other insects, usually the preditor insect doesn't eat plants, either. There's even bacterias that are very beneficial to plants and soil because they eat the eggs and larvae of most insects, along with killing diseases and harmful bacterias(they also help in composting by breaking down things in the soil/compost so the nutrients are in a more beneficial form). Also, alot of plants naturally repel bugs, like chrysanthemums, cinnamon and neem.
There's also other tricks like crop rotation and such. Certain plants help replenish certain nutrients in the soil. the reason I mention nutrients is because most of the foods are fed by chemical fertilizers as well.
But for the mass production thing i agree, might as well go chemical. You have to figure though, with so many people going "Organic" and what-not being a local farmer selling organic foods for cheap would be a profitable business, especially in mind with how much you could do with small branching farms.

Jul 27th, 2005 10:59 AM

ziggytrix

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevinTheOmnivore

And Ziggy, I think you sort of missed the crux of it all and read too much into her shopping cart comparison (yes, yes....I know I supposedly do the same).

OK. Here's what I took from the article:

"If you're looking to one-up the snobs at Whole Foods, buy nothing preprepared."

Quote:

What would you say was specifically liberal in her piece....?

I didn't. I was just poking fun at Slate. :P

Jul 27th, 2005 05:10 AM

Abcdxxxx

Holy shit, it's a trite lifestyle article in the NY TIMES about the new organic food trend in New York with the recent opening of Whole Foods. The writer decided to compare two drastically different markets on the same block. Probably to expense account a meal. Farm Fresh good isn't a novelty in other parts of the US, but it sure is in Manhattan where the shopping carts she's talking about are like miniature kids size so they can fit down the narrow aisles.

Do I think income has an infleunce on diet? C'mon, are you that desperate to milk some substance out of that article? City poverty is a misnomer first of all. You can be poor and still wear a $400 throwback jersey at the Bronx River Houses, where you have no furniture to put in front of your wide screen tv. You can use your food stamps to buy playstation games, or organic milk. These are lifestyle choices. It's not like people who live off the land with a fully natural diet represent our elite, upper class. We're not talking about government cheese or sugar water babies here....we're talking about the difference between the old supermarket chains of New York and a new breed of markets with a pricier product. it's a specific case study, and a lame article.

Jul 26th, 2005 11:15 PM

KevinTheOmnivore

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abcdxxxx

Yeah I took it as a fluff piece writer, reporting on a specific lifestyle experience for New York... it's ridiculous....but it's even more ridiculous to try and spark some discussion in context with poverty, diets, and class structure.

I don't see what was NY specific about it at all, and if you think there isn't any link between income, CLASS, and diet, then you're oblivious to reality.

Are you arguing that there isn't a difference between income and dietary habits? Who would you say, statistically, has healthier eating habits, the rich or the poor....?

And Ziggy, I think you sort of missed the crux of it all and read too much into her shopping cart comparison (yes, yes....I know I supposedly do the same).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ziggy

i still think she's makin a big fuss over a big nothing because she's a fluff piece writer for a big liberal blog.

What would you say was specifically liberal in her piece....?

Jul 26th, 2005 08:35 PM

ziggytrix

on a small scale organic is cheaper than using pesticides and hormonal injections and all that, but the thing is mass-production is cheaper per unit produced and for mass production you need things like antibiotics in every chicken, sick or not, to prevent one sick animal from ruing the rest.

here's another tidbit for you. when i was working for a company called alpharma i learned that they put cherry flavoring in the antibotic food supplement because the chickens like it better. just thought that was kinda funny.

Jul 26th, 2005 03:16 PM

kahljorn

It is funny they charge more for organic food, though. You'd think somewhere in between not using chemical fertilizers(albeit cheap, aren't as cheap as a compost pile filled with worms) nor insecticides nor paying for genetically modified crops it would be just a little cheaper. I mean, a hundred years ago food was organic, and in most third world countries it's still 'organic'.

Thanks for that link to the tomato thing, by-the-by, ziggy.

Jul 26th, 2005 09:25 AM

Abcdxxxx

Jul 26th, 2005 01:52 AM

ziggytrix

i still think she's makin a big fuss over a big nothing because she's a fluff piece writer for a big liberal blog.

Jul 25th, 2005 11:47 PM

KevinTheOmnivore

What the fuck does that have to do with it? Availability (and food stamp access

) don't necessarily have anything to do with it. I don't necessarily like the class argument either, but it's easier to use that single word, rather than say "go to the liberal food co-op, then go to the Pathmark in the bad side of town, compare incomes, and tell me which one has the higher average income."

Increased demand has made these things more affordable and more available, but that doesn't change the fact that they are still the expensive stuff, they're still not the store brand with the most frequent coupons, etc.

NYC is a different sort of animal, too. Go to smaller cities in upstate NY, look at the PriceChopper in the "bad" section of Albany, look at its selection, and then look at the PriceChopper that's uptown. Better yet, go to the liberal food co-op where all of the hippies and college professors shop. Most people drive to it, and it's a pain in the ass bus ride away from the lowr-income neighborhoods of the city......since we're giving examples....

Quote:

Originally Posted by ziggy

And Kev, I mean to say that maybe I have the overpriced green teas and premade sushi in my cart at Whole Foods (perhaps for a special occasion), and something more like the Honduran family's selection in my cart when I'm at a Minyard's (more like my regular shopping), but this food critic certainly can't guess my feelings about those who shop differently (complete and utter ambivilance) based off either observation. The fact the she even suggests you can make a value judgement based off someone's shopping cart but NOT their choice of of store seems, I dunno, like she's making a big deal over some unjust condescension and then suggesting to be judgemental for other reasons.

I think she made the comment about the shopping cart precisely because of what you just said about someone's choice of store.

Jul 25th, 2005 11:35 PM

Abcdxxxx

Jeez, is everything "a class thing", or what?

The lower income suburbs of New York have plenty of shopping options where you can get your organic products. Red Hook and Harlem have a Fairway with gourmet foods that accepts food stamps. Harlem also has a bunch of community coop health food stores, and a huge Pathmark that's bigger then any supermarket in the upper class areas. There are green markets all over the place.

The Western Beef she's writing about is in the meat packing district...hardly a low class neighborhood, and it's not the kinda place you see families shopping at....there's a Gristedes chain a block away, and it has all the organic stuff you want.

Jul 25th, 2005 09:44 PM

ziggytrix

Achimp, have you heard about the medicine tomatoes? To think, one day maybe there will be an apple that will work as an AIDS vaccine!

And Kev, I mean to say that maybe I have the overpriced green teas and premade sushi in my cart at Whole Foods (perhaps for a special occasion), and something more like the Honduran family's selection in my cart when I'm at a Minyard's (more like my regular shopping), but this food critic certainly can't guess my feelings about those who shop differently (complete and utter ambivilance) based off either observation. The fact the she even suggests you can make a value judgement based off someone's shopping cart but NOT their choice of of store seems, I dunno, like she's making a big deal over some unjust condescension and then suggesting to be judgemental for other reasons. It's that snide remark near the end "These people have much in common."

I'm guessing one thing they have in common is not giving a rat's ass about what some salon.com food blogger has to say about them.

Jul 25th, 2005 09:25 PM

KevinTheOmnivore

Quote:

Originally Posted by ziggytrix

I don't see anything snobby about paying more for something that is higher quality product.

There's nothing wrong with it, if you have the money to do it. You're not a snob for buying organic milk, but you have to admit that there is a clear class distinction between those who can afford to eat organically entirely, and those who go for the canned veggies and the tuna helper, right?

To put it simply-- those who have more money to spend can/will spend it on things that cost more money. There's nothing new about that basic reality, but the added aspect to it (which is what the author is pointing out) is that there is a degree of condescension from those who can afford to eat better.

I think this really comes into play if you're lower-middle class and have kids. Me, being single, can afford to spend the little I have on organic milk and free range meats. It's also a trade off of priorites, in that I'm fine with spending a couple dollars more on some milk, rather than spending it on bottled soda, or whatever.

But this choice isn't necessarily there for a low-income family. For starters, you're often shopping where public transportation can get you, and the poorly stocked chain place is probably closer than a Whole Foods, or some bourgeois food co-op. Secondly, you buy what's cheap and on sale, cuz when you're feeding mouths it's often about volume rather than quality. Bang for your buck....

Quote:

What's snobby is writing an article about the culinary skills of others based on observations of complete strangers' shopping carts.

Right, far be it from a FOOD CRITIC to do that!

Quote:

Originally Posted by AChimp

I like genetically modified food. I think it's great that I can eat a tomato that looks like the advertising, rather than some lumpy organic turd.

Right, it looks like the advertising, and probably tastes like the paper advertising, too.

Jul 25th, 2005 08:55 PM

AChimp

I like genetically modified food. I think it's great that I can eat a tomato that looks like the advertising, rather than some lumpy organic turd.

Jul 25th, 2005 07:59 PM

ziggytrix

I don't see anything snobby about paying more for something that is higher quality product.

What's snobby is writing an article about the culinary skills of others based on observations of complete strangers' shopping carts.

I like Horizon milk since their half-gallons actually keep longer than the store-brand (that makes no sense to me!) and I've grown accustomed to the taste. But I also know the value of a can of tuna, a box of tuna helper, and a bag of frozen store-brand veggies when you lack either the time or energy to cook something fancy.

Jul 25th, 2005 07:31 PM

KevinTheOmnivore

Quote:

Originally Posted by kahljorn

Most milks are rBST free now. All of them at albertsons are. There's an organic milk at "foodmaxx" that is rBST free(naturally), but who really cares? The only reason we get it(if/when we get it) is because it tastes much better. It costs a dollar more.

Right, and if we bought the healthier option of everything, and it was all just a dollar more, that would add up. Particularly on a tight budget. I can't say I've ever seen a Whole Foods in a poor neighborhood, either.

Jul 25th, 2005 02:19 PM

MetalMilitia

Here we call them whole paycheck!

Jul 25th, 2005 12:02 PM

kahljorn

In the soon-to-be future I'm starting an organic garden for spices and herbs and such to go in tandem with an ayruvedic healing center in town.
Luckily, they're just *plants* so there's no reason to charge people 10 dollars for a pound of "BBQ CHICKEN" Tofu.
Most milks are rBST free now. All of them at albertsons are. There's an organic milk at "foodmaxx" that is rBST free(naturally), but who really cares? The only reason we get it(if/when we get it) is because it tastes much better. It costs a dollar more.

Jul 24th, 2005 08:26 PM

KevinTheOmnivore

I'm sorry.

Jul 24th, 2005 12:01 AM

executioneer

when i read the title of this thread i thought it said "the snozzberry of organic foods" and i thought it had something to do with charlie and the chocolate factory

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