considering food

this past week i felt like every time i picked up a magazine or a newspaper, someone was writing about food. there are many different reasons to write about food, just as there are many different ways to think about it.  the more i read, the more i began to consider this.  i was struck by the paradox of two articles in this week's new yorker. first was an article profiling legendary los angeles food critic jonathan gold, who with an almost obsessive fervor and a sixth sense has a talent for revealing the most authentic dishes in the most innocuous places. he is revered for his writing style as much as he is for his pious dedication to his quest for the next delicious discovery. his writing is so witty and colorful that reading one his reviews can be more satisfying than tasting the food itself. in fact he is so good at what he does that he received the pulitzer prize in 2007 for criticism, making him the first food critic to ever win this award. i found it utterly compelling to read about his conquest of pig's ear, followed by noodles, dumplings, wontons, pork and fish at a mini-mall sichuan restaurant, only to be followed by more noodles from a different establishment. i could never endure such epic eating, but there is something fascinating about his itinerant lifestyle and relentless tasting.

as soon as i finished the article about jonathan gold, i flipped a few pages and read a review of jonathan safran foer's latest book, eating animals, which unlike his other books is non-fiction. safran contemplates the cognitive dissonance between loving one's pet and consuming an animal for dinner. he concedes that there is truly no simple explanation for why humans can become so attached to their animals as to consider them part of their one family, and not have any moral pangs about eating meat. previous to writing the book, foer dug deep into his own conflicted relationship with eating animals, and after careful examination, came out convinced that it is not justifiable. after reading a few paragraphs about foer's voyage into the underbelly of livestock farms and slaughterhouses, i found myself guilt ridden for having enjoyed the jonathan gold article so much. why, i wondered, did i just take so much pleasure in the description of gold's mass consumption of animals? i have made my own decisions based on my  conclusions about what i deem to be senseless cruelty, and yet somehow i forgot my own scruples the minute i picked up a well written food article. my own hypocrisy became startling to me in that moment. why do i enjoy shows like no reservations so much but would rather eat dirt than a hamburger? i used to be a vegan but now i occasionally eat fish, and yet i would look down on someone who might refer to themselves as a vegetarian because they "only eat red meat." i find the word 'pescatarian" abhorrent, but it probably has more to do with the shame of my own hypocrisy than the obnoxiousness factor of the word itself. i don't think i need to become enraged every time i see or hear about someone eating meat, but it did seem odd in that moment to come to the realization that my own values did not  trump the vicarious pleasure i was taking in reading about someone else's carnivorous adventure.

the undeniable correlations between  livestock production and the destruction of the environment, the danger of consuming hormone-riddled animals and the senseless suffering of so many creatures are certainly strong arguments for giving up meat, but they are by no means new revelations. why, with so much strong documentation out there explaining in detail what actually happens to the animals, to the planet, and to our own bodies is it so easy for most people to eat without consideration of what it is they are actually consuming?

this same week i read an article in the new york times eating & drinking section about sam kass, chef to the obama's and advocate for  locally grown nutritious food. like mrs. obama, sam is an advocate for eating healthy, sustainable food and believes an education about nutrition should extend into the school cafeteria menu. unlike previous chefs in the white house, kass is more than a cook; he is a nutritional advisor to the obamas and acts as a liason between the white house and non-profit organizations that could potentially engage in government food initiatives. kass works actively on behalf  of the white house agenda to spread a message of eating sustainable and organic foods (we all know how much attention the white house garden received) and his endeavors are as blue hill chef dan barber put it, helping us "think about food in a different way." i can only hope that with this pursuit coming from such a conspicuous place, some of the efforts the white house are making will actually trickle down into the collective psyche of the american people and cause us to consider where our food has come from. in michael pollan's the omnivore's dilemma, he talks about the origin of food such as corn, which started out simply as a staple for so many cultures, but has now been processed into unrecognizable forms in countless ingredients with hard to pronounce names like maltodextrin and xantham.

everyone has their own philosophies about what they decide to put in their mouths, but i think if we can try to spend a little more time thinking about what it is we eat, we can learn a lot about ourselves and our food.

*the photo at the top of the page is from here