“Yellow and Dijon’s all I knew, but when I had to make that crab cake sauce I was pulling all sorts of mustard that I had never heard of!” My friend Daine worked at a restaurant and had access to the world of mustard. A world that has now been blinded by the scorching yellow light of American style mustard or deafened by the echoing of “Do you have any Grey Poupon?” accentuated by a British accent. Mustard has been around for centuries, King Louis XI carried his own royal pot of mustard on trips just in case his host was un-stocked, and yet, today it is reserved for hot dogs. At least to the common “condimenteer”, mustard is a rather tricky flavor that may only be added at the perfect moment. Yet, as I explore this yellow taste sensation, I uncover a history wed to a diversity so restrictive that only the curious, privileged may have access to its potential. I am going to use mustard to illustrate the way that flavor, or flavoring our food, has been narrowed so that consumption may be more convenient, to “yellow-wash” its history so that variety may be a luxury, and to control little seeds with powerful possibilities and why I think my tongue deserves better.
The Chinese, ancient Greeks, and Romans all valued the concoction of ground seeds from the senvy plant mixed with an unfermented wine, called must, as a condiment and spice. Today, mustard is one of the oldest and most widely used spices. It is in its preparation that gives mustard that kick. Each region that has developed a taste for mustard has also developed their own way to mix the powdered seeds. There are about forty different varieties of mustard plants that produce the three main groups of seeds: black mustard, white mustard, and brown mustard. Black mustard is the most pungent, while white mustard seeds are the weakest and used to make American yellow mustard. Brown mustard is used for the Dijon mustard that originated in France, but is not protected under the Protected Designation of Origin so most Dijon mustard is manufactured outside of Dijon. The mustard seed is a humble plant, grown in temperate zones, not fully realizing it’s own potential until mixed with wine, vinegar or water.
Mustard seeds are mentioned in the writings of Hippocrates for its medicinal properties, in ancient Sanskrit writings, and in the New Testamen they are compared to the kingdom of Heaven: “It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it” (Mark: 31-32). Some of the smallest seeds ever but containing heavenly potential, the mustard seed is one plant that has more to offer than just flavor but a lesson in humility aswell. A traveler through the Sea of Galilee also wrote, “I have seen this plant in the rich plain of Akkar as tall as the horse and his rider.” To state it bluntly, there is more to mustard than the electric yellow drench on a ballpark frank.
How has our spice repertoire been purged of all of the diversity of this heavenly seed? This anthropology of food class has focused a lot of attention to the importance of place, origin, and people as the stewards of the seeds that germinate histories, stories, and traditions. Being critical of where things come from is a process of remembering these secrets. Although many histories can be easily uncovered by the curious, others seem to be purposefully covered up so as to manipulate the power from that seed to another. Control is power: within the world context whomever controls the seeds, has the power. French’s®, Grey Poupon®, Heinz® have all colonized the white mustard seed to be mass-produced, available, and standardized so as to promote a consistent style of taste. Originally, Francis French took the European mustard recipe and toned it down to suit American palates, creating the style of mustard connected to our history or place. However, as we saw with the Obento lunch boxes, something that may seem strange, such as nigiri or pickled cucumbers, can be normalized through exposure. Thus by standardizing supply, they standardize demand, production, and marketing, too.
Since the flavor of the mustard seed is only activated when mixed with a liquid, the development of mustard variety depends on the creator, the one who experiments and takes risks. Rather than criticizing the popularity of our yellow, burger and fries, mustard, I have to acknowledge that its popularity grew from testing to please the original American palates. What I am critical of is the fact that other mustard varieties have become symbols of status. Once a common medicine, now “exotic” mustards are only for special occasions. The 13th century Tudor household once consumed seven to ten gallons of mustard monthly, now it is only offered with its red sidekick, ketchup. What I can take from the Parable of the Mustard Seed and its relevance today is that we don’t know everything. There lies potential amid the smallest of entities, power in the smallest of seeds. The root of food is in the seeds thus the roots of civilization are dependent on their humble might. If germination is the process whereby growth emerges from a period of dormancy, than we must germinate the connectivity of ourselves to even the smallest of mustard seed, cultivating infinite variety and possibilites.
My personal note on all this is that food is a class issue. There is no doubt that I could ‘google’ different recipes to different varieties of mustard and yet that would first assume that I have access to a computer and the internet. I do not find myself to be particularly cultured which is why I feel as if I am left out of the majority of amazing things around the world (and even right in front of me) because I was not raised in an environment that encourage such discovery. There is no doubt in my mind that passion is able to grow in what ever atmosphere, but I think that many people are left out of knowing about diversity and range of spices, foods, histories, and traditions behind even the smallest specimen like a mustard seed. Diversity and exuberance has been chased out by burgers and fries. The narrow view that food has taken is nothing like the kingdom of heaven, in fact I find it rather bleak when examining pop culture. Although globalization has brought us food from all around the globe, I still feel like the stories behind these tastes have been lost and therefore even though our stomach’s are full, our hearts feel empty. However, I am thankful for this class for helping to show me how to ask questions, savor the connectivity of memory and taste, and honor the varieties that have been laid before us in the name feasting. If our world is the Kingdom of Heaven, I would now like to know more, ask why, and is this fair trade? Picture me as humble as the mustard seed, full potential only reached when mixing with others.




*The saying “as keen as mustard” means that someone is very enthusiastic

Wasted

Dave from Food Not Bombs reminded me that there would not be that organization if it was not for our wasteful capitalist food system. Dumpster Divers are a direct result of our overproductive society and are thus surviving because of it. I wonder if they would rather that this free food was not available? Do they want this system to be changed so that nothing goes to waste? I think my broke dumpster diving friends would most likely say no. But don't get me wrong friends, there is nothing easy about diving. Somedays there is nothing and some days its a gold mind. Plus you have to bike from dumpster to dumpster all across town lugging a backpack of food while jumping in and out of dumpsters, squinting under street lights. Some experienced divers bring head lamps. I always use gloves.

One tip: at the Whole Food's dumpsters, make sure not to start reaching in the dumpster that the butcher dumped their stuff in, it's real bloody.  

I know I appreciate that this is a possible form of resistance against the capitalist commodification of food, for I would like food to not be so easily expungeable, and yet what is the point besides getting free food? I like Food not Bombs because they use the free food to feed others, but once the food goes bad, there's no turning back and after all, I will just have to think about buying more tomorrow. I try not to waste food at all costs and yet this picture below is all the food that I threw out of my fridge last month. Some of it was dumpstered, some of it bought, all of it completely undesireable. 

Basically, free food is cool, but there is no way that it can feed a family of four. We need real institutionalized change to stop this overproduction, waste and carelessness attitude when it comes to feeding our American society. What ever happened the status symbol of the round woman who ate a lot? Finish your plate.

URBAN FARMING

http://video.nymag.com/index.jsp?fr_story=6b61f0f97f9a3927acc4afb137fa6323d4d1f1fb

Think for Ourselves

"A common thread in many subsequent historical studies is that
food protests, disturbances, and other forms of collective action around food
are often motivated by ideas of social justice within moral economies, rather
than more pragmatic concerns such as hunger or scarcity" -Leitch The Politiks of Pork Fat

This article was about the Slow Food Movement and its political and cultural importance. As i was reading about the lardo and quarry workers, i kept making the connection between vegans and their dietary lifestyle. Rather than eating foods because they are available, they are making the conscious political choice to attach what they don't eat to a specific message of morality and the mechanization of animal production. Rather than not eating milk because they are allergic, they are shaping their decision around personal values. What we eat, or rather don't eat, is attached to our values, memories, culture, which is why the whole idea of 'we being made for our food' is so disturbing to me. I know many people who make the argument that they buy fast food because they need it to be fast because they have places to go, things to do, but what I argue back is that maybe food sped up so that you would. I know that in many parts of the world, the two hour lunch period, or siesta, is being fazed out due to the increasing demand of consumers. However, I doubt that very many people really want that break to be gone, but rather, the world around them is imposing it. I don't really want to grab a quick sandwich, guzzling it down mid step, but that's what I need now that school fills the mid section of my day. So while everything around us is speeding up, the one thing we can control is what value we place on this speed and our actions within its context. This is why I appreciate the vegan culture, to some degree it is deprivation, but also it is deprivation that has become a symbol for the entire unjust system of over-consumption. It is the intent behind the purchases we make that create the symbolic, and political statements.

"The growth of consumerist forms of identity-production in liberal democratic societies thus coincides with the development of new possibilities for consumer politics in which culture
has become a favoured idiom of political mobilization" - The politiks of pork fat by Lietch

While it may seem petty to think that our decisions at Trader Joe's affect the global market, they do indeed have cultural and systemic potential for creating a resistance to the machine within the machine. That is why it is called a machine, because it reacts to our influence. It doesn't think for itself. We think for ourselves. 

So my argument is, instead of consuming like a machine, stop and think for yourself about what it is you value, who you identify this meaning with, how this is representative in what you eat. 

Maybe if we stopped for a second, we will see that before eating machines, we are memories, traditions, and morals that have taken centuries to culminate, cultivate, and create the person we are today. 

*Image courtesy of ourworld.compuserv.com

Free Write on Franken Food

Pop! Fizz! Ahh! The refreshingly light taste of Diet Coke in your mouth! Gee, why is my mouth burning, taste buds cracking and popping, seemingly as if to run and hide from this beverage bomb attack. Puckered and quenched my lips smack a bit in order to release the air to let the Coke skate down my throat. This glass was a little flat, personally if I'm ever hinkering for that effervescent taste sensation with the caffeine kick, i prefer it out of an ice-cold can so that it really burns my buds. This cup tastes less exciting, maybe a little less youthful than ones before, maybe neglected or not given the proper care and attention that it needs in order to maintain the desired flavor structure. In one sip i can visualize all the product testing and marketing kicks and satisfaction point scales that went in to crafting this desire: addictive and plentiful, empty and satisfying. They definitely knew what they were doing with this one, they of course being the molecular scientists who have created the compounds which birthed the diet drink revolution. NO CALORIES! NO FAT! NO SUGAR! WOW! Yes, this is all going through my mind with one sip.

Next, the instant ramen lunch. First of all, i protest my boyfriend from eating ramen. Second of all, "chicken" flavor has never been my jive. So, thank you Ann for forcing me to open up my mind. I let it cool a bit, but only a bit because i can still grab a forkful of noodles and blow on them. After all, i'm in a hurry, i have a doctors appointment. I actually felt like a college student on the go..broke, inbetween classes, and hungry. How convenient these are. I put the forkful in my mouth, still kind of crunchy but i like it like that. Afterall, i prefer to eat them plain out of the bag, like chips. Slimy, salty, spoonfuls. Each bite goes in and down with ease, even eating this fast snack is efficient. Salty salty salty. After not eating chicken for so long i don't even really remember what it tastes like...but i don't think that this is it. I maybe taste a hint of something fowl, but I'm so covered in salty that my taste buds are numb for almost 30 minutes. Abrasive, lip smacking, and thirsty, I will not be eating Ramen for a while.

It is very interesting to note that the lemon bars that Theresa made also had a very sensation-esque aspect to them. Of course being lemon they are tart, but also being covered in sweetness, gooey, and sharp they are a desert item that cannot be eaten with the ease that one would use on a cookie. Maybe as humans this provides a sort of thrill in our life like whoa we have these amazing things on our tongue that react to the things we put in our mouth! And then those responses are sent to the brain instantaneously attaching to feelings and memory. A complex system that we are experimenting with indeed.

meat

I have been contested about eating meat for quite some time now. My stance is that I don't approve of the act of killing another being to feed me some flesh. I think we can further evolve to not eat meat, and still be "healthy". However, I have lately been tempted by my boyfriend and circumstances to have a burger or two, eat some chicken, or grill up bratwurst's. I am glad that this class has addressed this issue. I am not advocating that everyone goes out and becomes vegan, although that'd be neat, but I am hoping for a realization of the lives and practices that go into making a Dollar Menu® burger.

One big issue that the short film, The Meatrix as well as Pollan's book highlights about factory farming is the extreme pollution that it causes. This is a major problem since it is preventable. That is what really gets my blood boiling the most, is that the small family farm was perfectly sustainable as long as it worked within the energy feedback loops that nature provides. However, factory farming has tainted those feedback loops and choked out any possibility of sustaining their madness. I say madness because they really must be insane.

Another reason I like The Meatrix is because it starts with the hog having to leave the "image" or "false reality" of the family farm myth. Since the majority of meat comes from factory farms, it is hard to see past the strong and persuasive marketing that goes into upholding that myth. I believe that this image is deeply embedded in the American psyche, which is why the corporations are getting away with it so easily. I am glad that people like Pollan and animal right's groups have ceased to show fear in the midst of this gastronomical genocide.

I hope that more people in the class walk away with a greater sense of responsibility and value for the meat and milk products that they consume and also begin to be aware of how saturated our society has become with industry and it's (by)products. If profit is what fuels the madness, it is reassuring to know that you CAN make a choice away from living in ignorance by educating yourself on the sources, cycles, and system that controls your food.

* photo source: http://www.plan59.com/images/JPGs/meat47hands01.jpg

Raj Patel reaction

Raj Patel is discussing the issues that I find fascinating. He is working in the upper levels and trying to make a difference. Stuffed and Starved is his new book, which I hope to someday find time to read.
The parts of his speech that I have been meditating on a bit are “Food as manipulative” and “Democracy as a choice between Coke or Pepsi”. I find these quotes to be stark gauges of reality. First, food as a manipulative medium I think has its roots in our own manipulation of food. And yet, there are much deeper roots in the control of masses. It is no doubt true that if you control the food supply of a nation, you control the nation. As American’s, I believe that as a nation we have been tricked into trusting the system that feeds us. Bundled in the conscious myth which is what it means to be an American is the image of the small family farm, the girl next door persona, that picturesque blond hair, blue eyes with a trusting smile, waking up at the rooster’s call to milk the cows. I am sure that this image still exists somewhere in America’s Heartland, however, the reality has been marketed to feed us this angle of what a farm is like, when in actuality America has been fed through industrial farming system for quite some time now. Only the strong and diversified small family farms are surviving, while the majority of our national and international food supply is controlled by large, industrial companies.

Raj Patel proposed that a democratic act today is choosing between Coke and Pepsi. The fiction that America has a perfect democracy turns to fable as we become more and more aware of our shortcomings. As proletariats and workers, we hardly ever have time to identify as democratic participant’s and activists. So, instead we use our purchasing power as if to show where our political/social loyalties lie. This is a complete sham! No matter which choice, it just feeds into the same system that encourages consumerism and complacency. And now with our American model of democracy spreading throughout the world, it is a necessary time to re-examine the consequences of our decisions. If it really is just a choice between Coke and Pepsi, where’s the can marked Independent? Has our American democrazy been so manipulated that there is no room for effective dissidence and discussion? Or to relate it back to class, has our limits in consumer choice been falsely created in order to narrow the competition, increase the power to one or two hands? I believe that Raj Patel is onto something, but as an outsider it is no doubt up to us as Americans to re-examine what our Democracy is worth, and how we may nourish its dignity. Through the promotion of diversity, transparency, authenticity, and history, we can use our consumer choice as a political act within the conversations of an open, free, legitimate, democracy.