Category: Seminar Writings

Kathryn Allen

3/6/18

SOS Food and Ag

Word Count: 956

Puer Tea Seminar Ticket

“According to one study, before the Han arrived, at least 5,000 mu (a unit of of measure of equivalent to 00.67 hectares) of tea lands were cultivated by the indigenous ethnic group. The new Han immigrants gradually acquired rights to the land, sometimes by buying it and sometimes through intermarriage with local Dai aristocrats. By making use of obsolete areas and clearing new areas, they developed their own tea plantations and came to rely on tea as an important part of their economy.” (p. 37)

“Most families in the area who used to make tea in their houses had moved to one of the new tea factories” (p. 73)

In the United States, we often see tea as a ‘blow off’ product – one that you throw in your grocery cart without much thought to the authenticity behind each blend. For the most part, North American culture is unconcerned with the palette associated with tea and is often found mislabeling/disregarding the traditions that go along  with the many different varieties of tea from across the globe. As someone who is steeped (pun intended) in said culture, I approached Puer Tea: Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic by Jinghong Zhang  with little to no knowledge about Chinese geography, culture, and especially none regarding Puer tea. Because of this, nearly every bit of information that I read was new to me. As someone who is often happy to throw a few mint leaves in hot water and call it a tea, it was an incredibly different experience for me to actually consider the quality and authenticity of a very specific tradition. Even still, I was able to draw some incredibly relevant connections to the Puer tea industry of the Yunnan province in China and the work I have been doing during my own independent project.

The most interesting facet of my newfound knowledge about Puer tea was the information that Zhang covered in Chapter 2: Tensions Blooming. In this chapter, she talks about the growing tourism industry associated with Puer tea and the image of the city of Yiwu that has been created by the mass production of this particular kind of tea. Zhang’s main point in this portion of the book is that Puer tea production has undergone industrialization in order to keep up with the global demand for the product and that in some ways this has affected the global perception of Yiwu and the authenticity of the tea itself.

When Zhang describes the experience of many people who travel to Yiwu expecting an experience as authentic as the product that they have grown to love it was a very similar tale to that of the global textile industry. A particularly poignant example was that of the film crew that was in Yiwu filming a documentary about the production of the tea. When the crew went to film a scene on the actual processing of the tea, “they were unable to find a family on the old street that was processing tea.” (p. 73) Zhang goes on to say that “most families in the area who used to make tea in their houses had moved to one of the new tea factories, which did not fit the requirements of the film crew.” ( p. 73)

Learning about this aspect of the Puer tea trade was very relevant to what I have learned about traditional textile crafts in the past 8 weeks. The shift of the tea trade from at home processing to factories is incredibly similar to the shift from cottage industries in both India and the British Isles to full scale mills during the industrial revolution. What is particularly interesting to me about that connection is that for both cases, industrialization allowed the product to be more globally distributed – which created the global idea of the place of its origin and thus contributed to the tourism of the region. However, the globalization of each of the products also led to a demand for more which then separates the product from its original mode of creation and leads to the true ‘authenticity’ of the product being called into question.

Furthermore, the industrialization of the two industries also seems to be related to the product’s original inception by indigenous communities and then later its “discovery” by aristocratic populations that move to the area further along. Zhang states that “according to one study, before the Han arrived, at least 5,000 mu (a unit of of measure of equivalent to 00.67 hectares) of tea lands were cultivated by the indigenous ethnic group. The new Han immigrants gradually acquired rights to the land, sometimes by buying it and sometimes through intermarriage with local Dai aristocrats. By making use of obsolete areas and clearing new areas, they developed their own tea plantations and came to rely on tea as an important part of their economy.” (p. 37) This evolution of the product is incredibly similar to all of the traditional garments I have studied. In the cases of tweed, khadi cotton, and Aran wool, they were all originally created by indigenous or “lower class” groups out of necessity for survival. Later down the road, more wealthy individuals from outside groups saw the “cultural potential” in the market and led it forward to industrialization.

Learning about this aspect of the Puer tea industry has only helped to solidify previous suspicions that I had about the extinction of cottage industries and the globalization of the market. In the very way that a narrative is being marketed to a global audience, it seems that  the product itself is being separated from that narrative by that exact means.

 

Letter Back to a Farmer

Wendell,

First, I want to say that I appreciate you taking the time to communicate your thoughts on matters I’m sure are very important to you. I realize it must be hard to try to pack years of knowledge and opinions into a short letter and I do respect that. I think it’s easy for us young farmers to feel like it is our responsibility to understand each and every one of the injustices that have occurred since the Industrial Revolution, so having older farmers willing to share their wisdom and demonstrate their learning curve gives me a lot of hope.

I was actually quite surprised and rather grateful to see someone mention the current state of Appalachia and what exactly big name farming industries have done to the spirit of the community there. It isn’t a subject I hear spoken on or named too frequently in the grand sphere of the discussion on agriculture. Unfortunately, it seems that poverty there has created a perpetual state of purposelessness. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said “without connection to the land, people become useless to themselves and to one another except by the intervention of money. Everything they need must be bought. Things they cannot buy they do not have.” Reading it stated so clearly really helped me to understand the cycle of poverty that that region is experiencing. They have no money because, like you said, their former jobs are being carried out by machinery, and they have no connection to each other or to the land because that very issue has made it quite impossible to make ends meet.

I do think, though, that the subject of land and belonging to the land is hard to approach without considering the history of the land and the people who inhabited it before us. Interestingly, when you mention that politicians and how the system that is currently in place is not coming to save the people of rural Kentucky, it makes me think of the indigenous communities who have likely been displaced from that very land and who also cannot count on the government that carried out that act of displacement to help. It does make me wonder what your take on how first peoples fit into the picture of North American community-oriented action. How do you approach the issue of colonialism and how it fits into where we stand now and do you think it has affected the way us settlers have viewed ourselves in relation to the land we inhabit?

On another subject, I did find your proposed solutions to our current predicament to be both helpful and amusing – amusing because if distrusting (see also: completely rejecting) the federal government and looking within your direct community to get things done isn’t truly an Appalachian way of looking at the world, then I don’t know what is. I did find the list to be very inspiring, though. I think that because a lot of us were raised within the industrialized system, it is easy to forget how much power us as individuals have because we are so used to belonging to a machine-cog mentality. In the same way, we are also unable to see any solutions other than working within that system because we were never raised to believe in our own capability of creating change. I do believe that this is only part of the issue though, and that there is quite an uphill journey when it comes to human rights and equity – because we are a country of over 300 million and while, our immediate communities are a perfect place to start the fight for food security and justice, the fight should not end at the county line. That is why I so greatly appreciate the willingness of farmers across the country to share their knowledge and thoughts on the current state of the agricultural world. Through that, all of you have helped me to see that my decision to become involved in farming and the origin of our food is one of the most simple acts of inspiring change and I hope to continue to be a part of this changing world for the rest of my life.

Kathryn Allen

 

 

Word Count: 746

The Cooking Gene Seminar Ticket

“For all its familiar tropes, there are multiple Souths, not just one, just as there are multiple ways of being Southern.” (p. 7)

“I wanted to weep for the Irish. I have seen the bullet holes in the columns and walls all over Dublin. And yet it was the Irish buying into whiteness that gave birth to the minstrel show, draft riots during the Civil War where black people were lynched, and violence over schools busing in South Boston. There are no heroes here, just varying levels of power and responsibility.” (p. 384)

Reading The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty was something of a surreal experience for me. My family has been in Virginia since they immigrated there in the 18th century and I grew up not thirty minutes away from where Twitty himself grew up. I recognized all the names of the counties, towns, and plantations that he mentioned. In fact, there was never a time while growing up in Virginia that I did not live more than a few miles away from a historic plantation – when I was homeschooled, visiting them was often part of my schooling and I have in fact heard the myth about slaves being made to whistle while carrying food many times before.

While reading Twitty’s accounts of his south and thinking about the way it was similar to mine while simultaneously very different  is summarized by his opening statement, “for all its familiar tropes, there are multiple Souths, not just one, just as there are multiple ways of being Southern.” (pg. 7) This is a concept that I had thought about quite a lot in the past, but had never considered just how much food played a role in the differing realities that many southerners have.

Twitty’s experience with a mother who was unenthused about the consumption of certain aspects of southern cuisine was quite like my own experience growing up – but also not quite. As a child I was not allowed to eat grits. When I asked, my mother made a face and said something about grits being food for poor people (I’ve since read between the lines of that statement). I do believe that the essence of my childhood experience with southern cuisine and Twitty’s is rooted in the same subconscious memory of slavery. We know why things exist in our South’s cuisine but families from both sides of history are not quite willing to face the reasons that are staring us the face.

I do believe, however, if there is one concept that could begin that slow, painful healing process from multiple generations of hiding from guilt, shame, memory, etc. it would be the ideas Twitty has to share when he begins to explore his European roots. In particular when he states “I wanted to weep for the Irish. I have seen the bullet holes in the columns and walls all over Dublin. And yet it was the Irish buying into whiteness that gave birth to the minstrel show, draft riots during the Civil War where black people were lynched, and violence over school busing in South Boston. There are no heroes here, just varying levels of power and responsibility.” I don’t think that there is a statement that could better sum up the South and its long history of peoples asserting whiteness in order to raise their social standing.

As a white person who grew up in the south and was raised by people who identify as “Southerners” I know that most white southerners don’t know that their Irish ancestors were not considered white upon first coming to the south, nor do they know the history of the blackface minstrelsy, the fact that banjos have their roots in West Africa, or that their fondness for fancy cooked soul food but aversion to things like grits are rooted in the same racism that gained them their whiteness and power in the first place. Twitty’s journey of remembrance for all of his past through food and ancestry is a form of healing and one that I think could result in the merging of southern realities in the best possible way. When he cites the varying levels of power in responsibility that different peoples’ have, I believe remembering is one of the biggest responsibilities of those of us who are still benefiting off of the power we gained through the marginalization of others.

“Only in the past century, as wheat squeezed through a genetic bottleneck of uniformity of flour blends intended for mass-produced breads, has the wealth of wheat biodiversity been forgotten.” (Rogosa, p. 24)

“Just as today the organic farmer understands we need to nourish the soil and the earthworms in order for the earth to to be fertile, the ancient Israelis not only enriched the soil with animal waste, compost, ash, dried blood, fallowing, and crop rotations but believed that it was necessary to feed the people in order for the earth to be fruitful. Ancient Israelites believed that soil fertility was based on food justice.” (Rogosa, p. 131).

It has been a long time since it was a secret that our food systems are monopolized by big names, that the supply chain is not sustainable, and that the methods of production focus on profitability rather than nutrition and environmental responsibility. However, Restoring Ancient Grains by Eli Rogosa goes far beyond what has made its way into the minds of the average consumer and explores just how deeply the wounds of mono-cropping and genetic modification have become over the last century.

As a student of plant fibers and textiles, when Rogosa states that “only in the past century, as wheat squeezed through a genetic bottleneck of uniformity of flour blends intended for mass-produced breads, has the wealth of wheat biodiversity been forgotten.” (Rogosa, p. 24)  and continues to tell the tale of the complications that have arisen from a market that has become globalized and dependent on an array of fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides, it sounds all too familiar to the countless studies done on modern day cotton crops. Similarly, the way the industry has adapted to the mechanization of bread production sounds eerily similar to the way the clothing industry has adapted to industrialized textile creation.

While reading Restoring Ancient Grains, I was made aware of just how vast the amount of wild (and domesticated) varieties of wheat are edible and suitable for baking with. But perhaps more importantly, I was made aware of how hardy the wild varieties can be and of how different species have evolved to fit certain climates thanks to traditional farmers and seed savers. This makes me wonder if the global use of G. Herbaceum cotton for textiles is something that should be re-examined and if there are not more “wild” alternatives to the sustainable fashion industry.

Interestingly enough, when Rogosa says to “follow the money” in order to see where our food systems have gone wrong, the rest of the book shows that when you look where the money is lacking, you find centuries of survivors who have adapted with their surroundings and have used the plants that were available to them instead of being able to afford imported goods. In the same way that you had rural farmers saving the seeds of landrace wheats to bake into traditional cuisine, Swedish peasants learned how to create fabric from nettle (known as “the peasant’s linen”) that grew abundantly nearby because they could not afford the heavily imported linen garments of the upper class.

Because landrace wheats were not bred to be mono-cropped or mass produced, it is much harder to manage them in an industrialized manner. You cannot rely on machines to knead them and you certainly cannot pack breads baked with this wheat into shipping containers and expect them to last the journey over to a different continent. This is yet another parallel to the issues we are seeing in today’s textiles. Instead of being made meticulously by hand to last for ages, they are made to fall apart in order to sustain the worldwide demand for new trends.

Rogosa takes our modern day issues with globalized crops to a very spiritual place. She states that “just as today the organic farmer understands we need to nourish the soil and the earthworms in order for the earth to to be fertile, the ancient Israelis not only enriched the soil with animal waste, compost, ash, dried blood, fallowing, and crop rotations but believed that it was necessary to feed the people in order for the earth to be fruitful. Ancient Isrealites believed that soil fertility was based on food justice.” (Rogosa, p. 131). Looking at the contrast between ancient ideas of agriculture and the modern day industry has led me to ponder on these aspects of the wheat industry. As with the rest of my research into the agriculture involved with textile production, it once again brings me back to weigh the pros and cons of globalization, and if there is any way to truly find a balance between mankind’s ingenuity and an understanding of the land and plants that we are working with and rely on so heavily.