SOS: ComAlt
Seminar Pre-Writing Week 2
11 April 2017
Word Count: 301
Passages:
“ The answer to malnutrition does not lie in monocultures and a masculine corporate domination of our seeds and food. It lies in the biodiversity of our seeds and food. It lies in the biodiversity of our farms and garden, and in the cultural diversity of our food systems: it lies in women’s hands and in women’s minds” (Shiva 2016: 123).
“ I don’t like fancy food. I like simple – plain – ordinary – call it what you choose. I like what is readily available. … I’m talking about being able to turn the daily ritual of cooking for your family into a beautiful everyday happening. Now, that’s something else again” (Smart-Grosvenor 2011: xxxviii).
“ …I know it is important to analyze the systems of production that are used around the world, to question their quality, verify their sustainability, and ensure that all other cultures and societies of the world are respected, but if people do not take into account the ‘gastronomic’ side of things, they make the same mistake, in reverse, as gastronomes make when they talk about food without knowing where it comes from, confining themselves to learned disquisitions on taste” (Petrini 2010: 50).
News Media Context:
“Food is unique. It doesn’t exist except for story. It is just too small and personal and consumed. All you have are the stories,”
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/04/03/520973202/the-jewish-food-society-wants-to-save-the-recipes-of-grandmas-everywhere
Discussion:
In each of the passages, there is a common idea that food is more than just food. It is more than an item to buy and sell, more than a daily routine, more than a part of a production system.
In Who Really Feeds the World, Vandana Shiva consistently lays out the argument that biodiversity in food, ecosystems and culture is what keeps the world fed – not big industrial monoculture-style agriculture. Petrini, in Slow Food Nation, echoes this from a gastronomical point of view.
I have focused on food studies for the entirety of my education at Evergreen – in part because I have a deep appreciation for how food can connect people and ideas. Just about anything can be studied through the lens of food. Shiva’s emphasis on needing cultural biodiversity in our food system, particularly with women, really stood out to me. Smart-Grosvenor in Vibration Cooking seems to have written with such freedom, I almost feel as though she is talking to me directly over the kitchen table. She promotes simple food over lavish. She believes that being able to make and see and feel simple, accessible foods is a beautiful thing. This passage particularly stood out to me, as a reminder to do everything with a sense of awareness and gratitude. It speaks to the true cost, or value of things and how through too much processing, soul can be lost from the end product.
The media passage I chose was from an article about the Jewish Food Society holding onto traditional recipes and the bridging of cultures through food. To say that food doesn’t exist except for in story is a really intriguing way to think about how recipes and cultures around food developed and have been maintained through narrative – essentially what Smart-Grosvenor has done with Vibration Cooking.
Works Cited
“The Jewish Food Society Wants To Save The Recipes Of Grandmas Everywhere : The Salt : NPR.” Accessed April 12, 2017. http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/04/03/520973202/the-jewish-food-society-wants-to-save-the-recipes-of-grandmas-everywhere.
Petrini, Carlo. Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean, and Fair. New York, NY: Rizzoli Ex Libris, 2013.
Shiva, Vandana. Who Really Feeds the World?: The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology. Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books, 2016.
Smart-Grosvenor, Vertamae. Vibration Cooking, Or, the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011.
Be First to Comment