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By johnny (Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 12:27:55 AM EST) (all tags)
Tonight I went, with Dear Wife, to a big-ole "slow food" pot luck dinner at the Ag Hall, which is a big-ole barn out in a field where they have the County Fair every summer and the Christmas pageant every winter.

Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma", gave a talk afterwards. Then a string band played.


As Pollan was speaking, I was thinking about how I was off by thirty years.

I grew up on a small farm in New Jersey. We had a cow & 8 sheep & 60 chickens & fruit trees & vegetable garden. (And my father, the farmer's, day job was in New York City, 25 miles away.)

After college I did agricultural development in west Africa. And then I did a Master's Degree in agricultural economics. I was looking for something like the slow food movement then, but I couldn't find it. There were bits of the old hippie sensibility to be found here and there, and a bit of the "small is beautiful", Peace Corps & even Firefox philosophy about.  But that was a fringe position to have as an agricultural economist at a major land grant university. The only jobs were with agribusiness and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Corporate farming was not only the norm, it was an unquestioned good. As was the industrial food industry it supplied.

This was all predicated on what Pollan calls the "ideology of nutritionism." And he's right about that. It's a pervasive ideology, which the slow food movement is only now beginning to chip away at.

What I'm trying to say is that it would have been nice to see this whole "slow food" thing take off 30 years ago. Then I would have written The Omnivore's Dilemma and I would have become a famous writer and foodie and neo-hippie. It would have been inevitable. I feel quite certain about that.

Somehow that didn't happen. It's not my fault. My timing was off, is all.

So I became a computer geek and never did anything agricultural again, modulo growing a few plants in the back yard.

24 hours earlier, yesterday evening, I had been in New York City for a "business dinner" with a CEO of a software company for whom I just co-ghost-wrote a book on software process management.  That was a good meal, and it was nice to meet in meat space a guy I had only known through telephone and email, even though I just written a good part of a book in his voice.

At the dinner tonight I saw lots of my island friends, farmers, boatbuilders, musicians, schoolteachers, jewelers, writers, owners of the Chappaquiddick ferry. Old hippies, many of them. So much food! Just about all of it grown here on the island, 93.44% vegetarian.

I don't understand anything at all about what goes on in the world. I am manifestly confused about the meaning of every little thing (as I expressed so poetically and eloquently in Cheap Complex Devices, have you purchased your copy yet?).

But tonight at the ag hall, listening to the music, tummy full but not overfull, watching Dear Wife talking with all her peacenik friends, I felt deeply content.

< A few random things | Truly I am now convinced... >

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Omnivorous Hippies | 23 comments (23 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback
I am in CA by iGrrrl (4.00 / 1) #1 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 12:57:57 AM EST
I am in the country of the movie Sideways.

I am about to embark on elements of your old life.

I am jealous of elements of your current one.

Too many thoughts swirling in my jet-lagged head.

"I don't have time for martial law, I have to get to the gym!" zarathus


and you didn't even tell us? by MillMan (2.00 / 0) #2 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 01:58:50 AM EST
sheesh!

When I'm imprisoned as an enemy combatant, will you blog about it?
[ Parent ]

It's not like I'm that close by iGrrrl (2.00 / 0) #12 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 08:31:22 AM EST
And I'm working.

"I don't have time for martial law, I have to get to the gym!" zarathus
[ Parent ]

Sideways and Napa by johnny (4.00 / 1) #7 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 08:14:28 AM EST
I want to see that movie again and write a review of it.

I liked it. Dear Wife disliked it violently. I mean, she was ready to divorce me because I liked it. I've never seen a movie make anybody so angry.

But none of the reviews I saw of it caught it right, I think. I saw it as a dark tragedy about a sex addict and a possibly self-deluded writer-alcoholic and self-deluded alcoholic girlfriend. I certainly didn't see it as a comedy. It was more like Leaving Las Vegas, outdoors.

I had a grand time in Napa Valley a long time ago. It seems like the Sun Microsystems board of directors had rented out a fancy/rustic wine-lover's retreat for a 4-day meeting. They cancelled the meeting but couldn't get the money back, so all of the engineering managers in one of the groups used the place instead.  Man, the rich do live differently than you and I.

It all seems like a dream now. I remember that during that meeting we watched the Steve Jobs movie introducing the Next Machine, and we had one of them there and played with the software and took apart the hardware.  Maybe that's why I associate good California wine with matte black computers?
Buy my books, dammit!
[ Parent ]

I dunno by Scrymarch (2.00 / 0) #16 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 10:12:01 AM EST
I'd say it was only tragic insofar as Fawlty Towers is tragic. And seeing life from Basil's perspective is rather depressing. But it's still funny when he does his Hitler impression.

But from my vague memory of past experience I don't think we agree on books and movies much.

The Political Science Department of the University of Woolloomooloo
[ Parent ]

whatever you do, by johnny (2.00 / 0) #17 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 10:29:23 AM EST
don't mention the war!
Buy my books, dammit!
[ Parent ]

Jet lagged? by Tonatiuh (2.00 / 0) #9 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 08:20:03 AM EST
The US is not that big :-)

[ Parent ]

on top of short sleep by iGrrrl (4.00 / 1) #13 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 08:32:42 AM EST
My daughter had nightmares the night before I left, so I'd only had 3.5 hours of sleep, and was at the equivalent of up until 1:00 AM.

So there.

"I don't have time for martial law, I have to get to the gym!" zarathus
[ Parent ]

When I was a kid... by toxicfur (4.00 / 1) #3 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 07:16:43 AM EST
my grandfather took maybe 1/2 an acre of land and put his grandchildren (and himself) to work. We grew enough vegetables to feed the renters of his houses (poor enough that the food mattered), his neighbors, and us through the winter. I remember crawling under his house in the winter to get red potatoes for Sunday lunch. I remember a lot of the lore (don't eat collard greens before the first frost). My grandfather is the one who instilled the "slow food" movement in me -- my grandfather of the Sevin dust and Round-up and chemical fertilizers. But he's the reason why I have a handful of tomato plants in my tiny front yard, and the reason why I'm going to put in raised beds this fall, and the reason why I bought a pressure canner.

My grandfather taught me the values, but Michael Pollan is the one who gave me the kick in the ass to actually do something with those values. Would've been even cooler if you'd been the one to write the book, but then you probably would've been famous and then wouldn't have come to my wedding or signed books for me.
--
To Rollins lesbians are like cuddly pandas: cute, exotic, forest-dwelling, dangerous when riled and unable to produce offspring without assistance.-CRwM


I very much enjoyed your wedding, so by johnny (4.00 / 1) #10 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 08:23:36 AM EST
I guess I can live with the trade-off.

People like your grandfather (and mine, who did similar), were quite naturally persuaded by the technocrats of government and chemical agriculture to use those chemicals, etc. And why wouldn't they be? The technocrats of America had ended the depressions, won the war, and vaulted the USA to world leadership (and later put a man on the moon). It was natural to follow their advice.

Pollan made a point last night of the value of folk wisdom such as you relate about collards and frost. He says that that food culture is an invaluable resource, and the slow food movement, in addition to being about better living & more enjoyment out of food & community, is about saving that wisdom before it's lost.
Buy my books, dammit!
[ Parent ]

I'm not a part of any fancy movements by ObviousTroll (2.00 / 0) #4 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 07:34:12 AM EST
I just like to cook. Unfortunately, my wife is a big fan of pre-packaged garbage.

So, I've found myself doing more and more of the cooking...

--
Has anybody seen my clue? I know I had it when I came in here.


as a movement, slow food by johnny (2.00 / 0) #11 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 08:26:31 AM EST
is not really fancy.

At least, it's not here where I live, which is a pretty rural area.  To grow (or consume) locally-grown food in an urban area, and to connect with similarly-minded people for communal meals, might require a fancy movement for city-dwellers.  Here where I live it's not really a big deal.
Buy my books, dammit!
[ Parent ]

Slow/Organic food is great... by wiredog (4.00 / 1) #5 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 07:43:16 AM EST
If you can afford it. The advantage of Industrial/Agribusiness style food is that it makes large amounts available at fairly low cost.

Earth First!
(We can strip mine the rest later.)


of course, but by johnny (4.00 / 1) #6 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 08:03:42 AM EST
the "western" diet is not only expensive in the deferred costs of ill health (according to Pollan, if current trends continue, 1/3 of persons born in USA this year will develop type II diabetes (This year every case of type II diabetes costs the city of New York $500k. Etc, etc.)), but expensive in the forms of all the taxpayer subsidies that go into producing industrial food, and the massive government bureaucracies that support agribusiness. And that's not to count the cost in terms of misery, illness and death.

The challenge is to change our infrastructure and incentives so that all the externalities of industrial food are internalized in the prices, and that beneficial practices are favored and encouraged (which would lower the out-of-pocket costs to consumers).

The problem is that people tend to think that "industrial food is cheaper".   A good part of the reason for that is because of policy that makes it cheaper. Change the policy, and the relative costs will change. But the "ideology of nutritionalism" makes it hard to even see that this is the case.
Buy my books, dammit!
[ Parent ]

I recall something recently by Herring (4.00 / 2) #8 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 08:16:59 AM EST
saying the most agricultural subsidies in the US go to meat and dairy - the stuff we should be eating less of. I dare say it's similar in the EU. Daft really. We should be subsidising brussel sprouts.

I'm English, and as such I crave disappointment. - Bill Bailey
[ Parent ]

Not just the Western diet by wiredog (2.00 / 0) #14 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 08:43:13 AM EST
GM/Agribusiness produced rice in Asia, for example, is more productive than the slow/organic variety. The same is true, in North America, of wheat and corn.

Earth First!
(We can strip mine the rest later.)
[ Parent ]

nutriionism as ideology by johnny (4.00 / 1) #15 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 09:35:20 AM EST
hey, I know all about yields per hectare and "nutritional content" per unit of weight, etc, etc. Like I said, I used to be a relative expert in that stuff ("he has a master of science. . .in science!). Certainly modern agriculture, to the extent that it helps to feed the starving masses, is a good thing.

But it's hard to make a case that the US/Western way of eating is anything but a public health disaster. Obesity and the diseases that go with it are out of control as are lots of other food-related diseases.

More subjectively, fast-food eating, in-the-car, on-the-go eating represent (I think; YMMV) a net loss of human enjoyment compared to say, a leisurely dinner shared among friends.

Anyway, Pollan says that there are four tenets of the ideology of nutritionism. Let's see if I can remember them:

  1. food is the sum of the "nutrients" it contains (and nothing else);
  2. nutrients are impossible for the lay person to detect (you cannot, yourself, tell how much vitaman b12 or trans fat, etc, is in a food);
  3. therefore you need a priesthood of experts to tell you what and how to eat
  4. the point of eating is to get healthy
From this (false) ideology, Pollan says, come all manner of woe, including not only epidemics of food-related illnesses, but a variety of social ills that arise in the absence of the communal values reinforced by social production, preparation, and consumption of food.

I think he's right.
Buy my books, dammit!
[ Parent ]

where the hell's my meal-in-a-pill? by Kellnerin (2.00 / 0) #19 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 10:06:35 PM EST
I think the contemporary culture of food that you describe is intertwined with the general faster-bigger-more-ness of the world. Human beings are pretty adaptable, but they still can't be optimized to operate in Internet Time, or at least not soon. (If we're lucky, we'll catch up before the world gets faster, or implodes and gets real slow again.)

Anyway, with all love and respect, I don't know that you could have written The Omnivore's Dilemma. Even if the alignment of the movements and the science and the whatnot were right, I think you maybe knew too much. Part of the appeal of that book is the way it follows the pattern of a conversation that one would have on the phone:

Girlfriend 1: Oh my god, you'll never guess what I just found out! Did you know <some fact that, in fact, many people do know>?
Girlfriend 2: Um, I think I saw something about that on TV.
Girlfriend 1: But did you know <some other fact that people who know stuff about stuff know>??
Girlfriend 2: No Way!
Girlfriend 1: WAY!
Except in this case it's:
Michael Pollan: Did you know that the way that the way food animals are raised is totally unhealthy for them and for the people who eat them?
America: Yeah, well I try to get free-range eggs and stuff.
Michael Pollan: No, seriously, I thought beef was beef, too, but did you also know that almost all industrial food is made of CORN??
America: No Way!
Michael Pollan: WAY!
Anyway, I'm not sure if I have a point. It's a tough book to read, but if anything makes me more depressed than its content, it's that I started the book thinking I was the last person in the world to read it (and it's going slowly, because D and I are doing the reading-it-together thing that we usually do with Harry Potter), but I've since realized that there are too many people out there who not only have not read it, but haven't absorbed as much of it by osmosis as I had.

--
"Late to the party" is the new "ahead of the curve" -- CRwM
[ Parent ]

my dear, you don't need to have a point by johnny (2.00 / 0) #20 Thu Jul 24, 2008 at 06:22:44 AM EST
just keep writing pithy apercus (you supply the special characters mentally, please). Especially when they're flattering to yours truly.

I confess that the only thing I've read by Pollan is that NYT article, and I didn't really read that, merely skimmed it.

However, he was a delightful speaker and I find his arguments and life choices congenial. Also, his books are very pleasingly designed. (Now I've gone and done it. I'll have that old rocker tune "Can't judge a book by its cover" in my head all day.
Buy my books, dammit!
[ Parent ]

Meat by ad hoc (4.00 / 1) #18 Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 12:10:18 PM EST
someone pointed me to this yesterday. Prices seem pretty reasonable, but you have to order 10# minimum. Near Cawkcahd, Nah Hampshah.
--
The three things that make a diamond also make a waffle.


have i purchased? by LilFlightTest (4.00 / 1) #21 Thu Jul 24, 2008 at 06:24:10 PM EST
yes, yes i have. it's in the "books by people i've met" section of my bookshelves, next to 256 and CBB.
---------
if de-virgination results in me being able to birth hammerhead sharks, SIGN ME UP!!! --misslake


Ah, and I remember, I think, sending it by johnny (2.00 / 0) #22 Thu Jul 24, 2008 at 06:37:15 PM EST
somewhere in the midwest? Or am I confusing you? (If so, manifold apologies).

Anyway, thanks!
Buy my books, dammit!
[ Parent ]

yes, WI by LilFlightTest (4.00 / 1) #23 Thu Jul 24, 2008 at 06:42:26 PM EST
and you'd have sent it to my hubby (though we weren't married yet), but same household anyway. i think only Acts is signed, though. To confuse you further, you've met me, but not him.
---------
if de-virgination results in me being able to birth hammerhead sharks, SIGN ME UP!!! --misslake
[ Parent ]

Omnivorous Hippies | 23 comments (23 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

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