Author: Erin Pickens

No Matter How Small

by Erin Pickens

This summer we have had many conversations about the benefits of access to fresh and locally produced food- benefits to community health, social relations, economic development and many more. However, when talking about the benefits of fresh and local food access, it is important to make the distinction between locally produced items and self produced items. While these two categories overlap in many aspects, I truly believe there is an added benefit to self production, no matter how small the production.

I don’t have a garden of my own, but this thought came to me when visiting the home of my boss at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, Ferd. Before we ate, Ferd and his wife showed me around their rather extensive backyard garden and new chicken coop. The garden included pretty much any summer vegetable you could imagine from squash to a variety of berries and fruit. The couple had begun the garden upon moving into the home 31 years prior. The garden provides the couple with an excess of produce year-round. Although they complained about the many Saturdays spent pruning and weeding, there seemed to be an inseparable connection between the gardeners and their garden.

I connected this experience to the story of Robin Forshee featured on the Why Hunger website. Robin was a recipient of an earth box (essentially window garden) courtesy of the Appalachian Sustainable Development program. As a low income, disabled and elderly woman, she uses this box to grow various herbs and small plants that she uses for making salsas and for cooking. She uses the herbs in ways that her grandparents and family have for generations and she even makes enough herbs to occasionally share with neighbors. Although the plants Robin grows do not provide much in terms of nutrients, she still visits the plants multiple times a day and describes her relationship with the plants as providing her life with joy.

Although these two stories may seem very dissimilar, at the root they portray the same truth about a personal relationship with crop production. The act of personal crop production, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, provides the individual with a vital personal relationship with nature.

Complicated Order

by Erin Pickens

Most millennials will remember a Mad-Tv skit from 2007 featuring an unaccommodating fast food employee named Bon Qui Qui. The video satirizes the American habit of customizing our meals at Fast Food restaurants. Customers casually approach the cash register and are immediately shot down when ordering anything that deviates from the specified menu item. Viewers realize that ‘Bon Qui Qui’, clearly will not be inconvenienced by a “complicated” order.

While this scene comments on many different aspects of the American cuisine and culture, the most interesting to me are the ideas of individualism and convenience.

Contrast, for example, the scene of Bon Qui Qui with the experience of grabbing a quick bite to eat, in a country with a strong cultural unity, such as Italy. For anyone who has ever spent time in Italy, you will find it easy to recall the process of ordering a panino (singular form of panini). The process is easy to recall because it involves only one decision. When ordering a panino, you simply select the sandwich, as is. Unlike for Bon Qui Qui, changing the defined menu item is not simply an inconvenience for your vendor, it’s a personal and social offense.

While traveling abroad as an American, my initial reactions to this experience were ones of outrage.  How could they tell me that I couldn’t add an extra meat? Who are they to say that mozzarella wouldn’t be better than pecorino? What if I don’t like the sauce, but still want the sandwich? I identified as an individual and wanted to assert my individuality! Not only that, I also wanted to be applauded for my ingenious sandwich creation! Although this outlook was hard to shake, I soon came to understand the greater implications of accepting a meal as it was presented to you.

It turns out, this concept is much related to the concepts of terroir and tradition, as described by Trubek and Berry. While being denied my individualism, by accepting a sandwich as presented to me I had become a part of something greater. While fast food gives us an instant gratification of our perceived personal needs, it is denying us a vital cultural connection to a history, a place and a people. I think Trubek said it well that “They don’t know where they come from or where they are going.” While I could not tell you the cultural significance of every panino I ate while living in Florence, I can say that there was a contentment in not having to make choices. There is something hauntingly lonely about constantly accommodating my personal desires and something indescribably inclusive about accepting a food item the way it is “supposed to be”.

Food Justice: A Broader Perspective of Our Food System

by Erin Pickens

The term “food justice” is new to me. However, as I sat in a coffee shop reading and discovering what exactly it meant, I had the realization that my understanding of the issues facing our food system had been previously incomplete without it. By that I mean that my perspective had been lacking a critical consideration for greater political, economic and societal issues that form the basis for the “food justice” movement.

My realization was most impacted by the contrast to what Agyeman calls the ‘alternative food movement’ (AFM).  For a variety of reasons, a large portion of my support for change in the food industry has been dependent on concepts of supporting local farmers and local industry, environmentally beneficial farming practices and ethical production- essentially the AFM. Given that I am a white, middle to upper class woman, Agyeman would probably argue that my perspective was predictable. Agyeman criticized the AFM for “working within current capitalistic market frameworks and disregard and demotion of social justice considerations” Essentially for being exclusive and working under the pressure of private market. On the other hand, while Agyeman strongly criticized the AFM, he also mentioned that Food Justice incorporated some aspects of the AFM. Although he goes into little elaboration of what aspects specifically he supports, I am glad that he, at the very least, made a reference to some positive component. I truly do believe in aspects of the AFM, specifically the local movement, and it’s ability to contribute positively to our food system by doing things such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving community awareness. That being said, I am now of the opinion that the AFM cannot solve the world’s food issues on its own.

A flaw of the AFM that really resonated with me was the idea of being able to ‘buy a solution’. It’s easy as a citizen of a capitalistic society to fall victim to the belief that everything can be bought. A prime example of this idea was the idea presented by Agyeman of “fixing” a food dessert by supplying the community with a grocery store. Though at first one might think that this is an obvious solution, in reality it’s simply a band aid. The real questions that need to be asked relate not solely to the physical presence and specific sourcing process of food, but also to the root causes of the food dessert itself. What social injustices have allowed for an area to exist where people not only live without adequate access to food but also without adequate funds to purchase food?

 

Living to Eat

by Erin Pickens

Something I’ve always been fascinated by is the varying role food can play in a person’s life.  As the saying goes, some eat to live, others live to eat. I would guess that most of the western population would fall closer to the latter of the two options. The idea that one might even have the option of ‘living to eat’ (a luxury that has only been feasible in recent history and that is still only enjoyed by a fraction of the population) is almost entirely dependent on a surplus of production. Thanks to industrialization this mass production of food was made possible for western society and thus food began to take on new roles. Food is now a hobby, a sport, a national pass time-but most importantly a commodity.

In my opinion the commodification of food is not all bad. To have a substantial and competitive food market and to be able to produce food abundantly should be a victory not a defeat. However, somewhere along the road of this abundant production, the lines became blurred. By this I mean that though food is being produced cheaply and has been made readily available, mass production in itself has also created a distance between the true value and production process of a product and the consumer. Largely, consumers fail to know what their potato chips are made of, let alone where they come from!

In Fast Food Nation, Schlosser expands on this idea by suggesting that the commodification of food both literally and figuratively portrays the effects of mass production- that being over-consumption. We see this literal and figurative portrayal in rising obesity rates and growing health epidemics related to consumption. Personally, however, my biggest concerns with the industrialization of food are less related to health and more related to the mental and meta-physical effects created by this production distance. As Pollan writes in The Omnivores Dilemma “The way we eat represents our most profound engagements with the natural world”. By denying ourselves the knowledge of where our food comes from and how exactly it is created, I fear that we are denying ourselves, most importantly, a fundamental and vital life experience.

The Mantra of “Good, Clean and Fair”

by Erin Pickens

When I think of the local food movement, I draw inspiration from memories of a semester spent in the Tuscan hills of Italy and the voice of a burley Italian professor repeatedly and exaggeratingly preaching that “food-ah must-ah be-ah good-ah, clean-ah and fair-ah”. In one of our readings, Petrini explained this to be the motto of the international eco-gastronomic organization and social movement called Slow Food. Having spent time in Italy working with advocates and members of the Slow Food organization, I was reminded of the connection between this organization and its Italian roots. I can confidently say that the rationale behind this particular local food movement is born of the heart and soul of Italian culture. The Italian culture is one based on respect, rooted in tradition and alive with a lively passion. In Italy, food is not simply a source of fuel or an economic commodity, it is an integrated part of society, a cultural glue, a sacred entity. Farm to fork is less a revolutionary concept and more a societal given. The food system is very dependent on the cultural importance of relationships and personal accountability. Quality of food is very reliant on the maintenance of a consumer-producer relationship as built through community markets, family connections and regional tradition. The national relationship with food can be summed up in a belief that food is a product of many parts of life including culture, politics, agriculture and the environment-all equally important. Food plays an active role in life and is not compartmentalized. Through my time spent in Italy, I have come to take on the motto of Slow Food as that of my own personal belief of what constitutes local food or sustainable food, terms that I believe should be interchangeable. To me this motto, or mantra as I like to refer to it, perfectly describes a holistic perspective on the movement. As explained by Petrini, the concepts of “good, clean and fair” are, and must be, interdependent.