NOV 11

19: NOV 11. Unit 5: Gastronomy and 3 points in American Food Culture

Assigned Reading

• Barber, Dan. Introduction The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food, (1-22). (22)
• Andrews, Geoff. Chapter 2: "The Critique of 'Fast Life'" The Slow Food Story (pp. 29-47). (18)

Andrews, Chapters 1 & 2, The Slow Food Story

Chapter 1, "Politics in Search of Pleasure"

(This wasn't assigned for us, but I have these notes to share:)

• context for slow food: social movements of the 60's and 70's. (Italian counter-culture.)
• low power radio stations common means: Radio Bra Onde Rosse.
• politics at Club Tenco, also the pursuit of pleasure.
• revival of traditional festivals: the singing for eggs (Cante i'euv)
• 1982 incident: Montalcino Sagra del Tordo (thrush) Mention Arci clubs.

• in play: Is the pursuit of pleasure through healthy food and culture a capitalist bourgeoisie plot or a fundamental right to be advocated politically?

• formation of an "Arci Gola" (appetite)
• projects: Gambero Rosso, wine guides, Osterie d'Italia, guides to osterie.
• 1986: wine poisoning scandal. McDonalds opens in Rome at Spanish Steps.
• Slow Food Manifesto
• Parallel movement in US embodied on story of Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse. Pollan also finds sources of these ideas in 1960s US counter-culture.
• Eco-gastronomy -- (a great sub-field of food study, by the way! cf. Dan Berber, The Third Plate) and the "politics of aesthetics" (only partly in line with Marxism). (So Carlo Petrini is another candidate for Gramsci's authentic intellectual.)
• Projects: international food exhibitions, then Terra Madre (2004), related movements in Germany (Greens)
• slow food also has a conservative dimension. Restoration and preservation of historical food systems.

• Mention experience with Guido and the ancient grains seminar. Photos.

Chapter 2, "The Critique of 'Fast Life'"

• some key dates: McDonald's in Rome, 1986, incident between the two arci chapters (a moment in which politics and gastronomy interact to great effect!).
• critique of "productivity culture"; efficiency vs. frenzy; idea that you need to live faster because other things are accelerating (financial trade volume, sale, news cycles, social media posting and communication). Especially focused on speed.
• [In terms we have been using, Slow Food manifesto calls into question the "culinary cosmos" of the industrial lifestyle when it compromises basic human modes of experiencing pleasure in authentic and just food. ]
• critique includes resistance to corporate formations and rationalizations (degradation) of taste. Slow Food is tied to leftist politics, but also has a US upper middle class "face" in the US site. [1]
• Castell's theory of time-space compression -- capitalism more and more about speed of transactions. circulation of capital. (on edge of a big discussion about the future of work - piece work is coming back).
• Counter view of Charles Leadbeater and others: fast culture is the answer, the problem is that we have all of these institutions from the 19th century and earlier slowing us down.
• Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America's Advance through 20th Century Europe -- American hegemony in food expressed in "reduction" of all class and value distinctions in food. Rich and poor eat McD's.
• Ritzer's "McDonaldization of Society" -- "globalization of nothing" (social forms centrally conceived, centrally controlled and lacking in context).
• Schlosser, Fast Food Nation:

• 1970 6 billion on fast food; ("million" in the text is a mistake)
• 2001 110 billion
• 2010 200 billion (not in text)

• British "trolley towns"; American suburbs. globalization of construction and architecture.
• Petrini on slowness: p. 39 read
• Slow cities: features of slow cities

• Slow Food USA

Small Group Discussion: Slow food culture

• Does the slow food movement present an attractive ideal for you?
• For those of you for whom it is an attractive ideal, identify 3-5 ways that you might implement slow food culture in your life?
• Does Slow Food culture require a loss of productivity or is it more about reclaiming some of your time for an essential activity?

Barber, "Introduction" The 3rd Plate

• Browse to these three restaurants

• Blue Hill and Stone Barnes -- as a project [[2]]
• Chez Panisse [3]

• Story of Eight Row flint corn at Blue Hills. sig. "varietal restoration" "heritage cultivation"

• Story of the summer of corn at Blue Hills Farm when Barber was a kid. Note diffs.
• planted in "Three Sisters"
• polenta not typically thought of as high flavor experience, but in this case it was.
• Barber says (8) that the polenta story is the kind of experience he found himself repeating. What does he mean. What are the main features of the polenta story?

• Barber's "Plates"

• some background on "farm to table" "artisanal eaters" "locavores" -- (another side of industrial food, esp. for a chef, is the effect of varieties and production methods on flavor).
• chef as activist (p. 10 reference to Paul Bocuse) -- Wolfgang Puck -- eventually industrial food system produces a version of the chef's innovation.
• p. 11ff: Barber's critique of farm to table and the 1st and 2nd plates. Criticizing the way we eat: protein-centric plate, small side of veg Protein consumption per capita by country
• Some detail on Blue Hills.

• lamb chop story-- Problem: farm serving table. Table is still in charge of the plate. "cherry picking ingredients that are often ecologically demanding and expensive to grow" So, eliminate the menu! p.14 top of 15. Note characterization of American cuisine vs. French and Italian. No peasant heritage to base it on. Am: immoderation, big slabs of meat. (Carla's story Fall 2018 - What it means to have a place based culinary identity).

• 16: Note discussion of cuisine - based on ingredients local and sustainable.

• 1st, 2nd, 3rd plates 17. Claim: "The future of cuisine will represent a paradigm shift, a new way of thinking about cooking and eating that defies Americans' ingrained expectations." 18 Note that he gives another definition of the 3rd Plate at p. 21.

• 18: "truly delicious food is dependent on an entire system of agriculture. .... 21: the thrid plate goes beyond raising awareness about the importance of farmers and sustainable agriculture. I helps us recognize that what we eat is part of an integrated whole, a web of relationships, that cannot be reduced to single ingredients"
• The food "supply chain" is an ecology. The implication is that we can assess it in terms of sustainability, flavor, quality, diversity...etc.

Practicing Critical gastronomy on your own diet and supply chain

• How much of the following is true of your diet?

• When I think of dinners, I think in terms of the first or second plates. +3
• I typically check to see where produce comes from and try to buy seasonally. +3
• I know which of the things in my pantry and fridge are least sustainable and I have concern about limiting them in my diet. (Not just meat, but certainly meat. Also, coffee, strawberries, fruit from Chile or any distant place, industrial foods with high processing, industrial ag products.) +3
• I agree with the consensus of nutritionists about protein, contra my culture's practice. +3 Or, I'm thinking about it more now. +2
• I want my supply chain to maximize not only sustainability, but also flavor, which means good soil health and food grown with care. +3
• I regularly look for "trade ups" or incremental improvements to move me toward better gastronomy and better food values. +3