Seminar Week 5

Week 5- February 6, 2017

Wk 5 Seminar

“The rise of huge distribution networks changed the way business was conducted in a sweeping way…produce business was merely a kitchen-garden offshoot of the mighty Midwest grain machine…the ability to roof chicken coops with aluminum helped maintain even temperatures inside the buildings year round. As a result, chickens began laying eggs all twelve months of the year rather than just in March, April, and May”(Newman, 2013: 64, 65, 72).

 

Did someone say food fight? U.S. farmers-and especially those in California—fret over a possible trade war

“Even a small alteration in trade — a strike, slowdown or other protest in Mexico, for example — could hit consumers, who expect fruits and vegetables in the produce aisles year-round, regardless of growing seasons… resolving a tiff in one economic sector by using food as a pawn is not an unusual tactic. Food frequently bears a steeper penalty in trade wars because it carries a lot of political clout.” (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-agriculture-trade-20170206-story.html)

 

“From the kitchen she seems to speak from power, and a power that is undercut by the broad vernacular of her speech and her “natural” embrace of manual labor…she is not allowed the value of her own craft, and thus the object of her craft engulfs her…the white desire to devour black subjectivity also indicates the desire to annihilate it, to recognize the black subject only in terms of her capacity to regenerate whiteness” (Tompkins, 2012: 107, 110, 112).

 

 

 

Food is, and will always be, political. In The Secret Financial Life of Food, economic markets changed based on the supply and demand of eggs and dairy and the evolution of technology that allowed these items to be sold year-round instead of seasonally. Today, eggs are no longer traded because they are accessible year-round, but the competitive egg markets in the late 19th and mid 20th century called for increase production of eggs and new technology. These advancements became a part of current agri-business markets.

In the article from the LA Times, the author writes about the possibility of increased tariffs on imports from Mexico into the United States under the Trump administration. The concern is that these tax increases would cause further conflict with the Mexican government and also hurt states such as California that receive more that 40% of their state revenue from agricultural exports. While the economies of both countries would be affected, consumers and agriculturalists would also be at a loss, losing produce options in grocery stores and restaurants as well as losing money on farms.

In Racial Indigestion, Tompkins presents the person as political through the identity they have with food. The black cook’s power was present only in the kitchen, architecturally separate from the dining area. However, in literature, it is clear that she also had control over the mouths of the family who she fed, and therefore the health and wellbeing of their bodies. Yet, the cook was still object to the white family and was valued only by her capacity to sustain whiteness from the said family.

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