Looking for a 'secretary of food'

In all of the appointments to cabinet that the president-elect has been making lately, his pick for secretary of agriculture has been put off. In fact, the discussion about the post has been sort of lost in the shuffle of economic crisis that as taken over the country in recent months. A New York Times columnist has returned to the discussion, outlining an argument for the renaming of the post as "Secretary of Food." His point is that agriculture is no longer what it was when the governmental department was created. Since then, "fewer than 2 percent (of Americans) are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat." Citing the affect of agribusiness on the environment and the economy, Nicholas D. Kristof argues that something must be done and that the perfect message of "change" that Obama can send is to refocus on that sector of our country. As Kristof says Michael Pollan (author of the "Ominivore's Dilemma") told him: " 'Even if you don’t think agriculture is a high priority, given all the other problems we face, we’re not going to make progress on the issues Obama campaigned on — health care, climate change and energy independence — unless we reform agriculture.' "

Read the complete article on the NY Times Web site. It even links you to a handy little petition to Obama asking him to focus on reforming the decripit state of agribusiness in the U.S., if you agree with that statement, anyway.

Giving Thanks for our Food

Well, Thanksgiving has passed and most of us were subdued into turkey comas. Eating season has begun. It starts on Thanksgiving and ends on January 1, when we make our fanciful resolutions to go on diets and work out.

I cannot begin to TELL you how much I ate since Thursday. In a matter of days, it seems like my face has filled out again. It all started with the fried, breadcrumby artichoke. I consumed two very oily, delicious artichokes on Thanksgiving, along with a turkey sandwich, sweet potato pie, broccoli casserole, mashed garlic potatoes and my very special mulled apple cider.

You would think I would ease off since then, but everytime I go anywhere, people suddenly have their holiday pastries baked. I have been a culprit of such hospitality as well. Saturday was a very decadent day. My friend Laura came over and we baked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies which I would lie if I told you I made them from scratch. Baking's not my gift and betty crocker can just do it so well sometimes. I did make a small experiment batch where I put ingredients to my mom's sweet potato pie topping into the mix. This consisted of coconut, corn flakes, and pecans. It wasn't too bad. I also topped some of the cookies off with caramel. We ate the cookies and got lattes from Claytime Cafe where we painted ourselves mugs. The funny part is I have a brother who has no sweet tooth so I didn't think he would indulge in the cookies. But he had a late night craving and finished the whole plate of them! It made me very proud.

This past Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent when the candle of Hope got lit. This past Sunday, I went overboard. My friend Sarah invited me to an Advent dinner and I accepted. Priot to that, I got home from lunch to discover my Dad cooking his traditional, Sunday meal- meatballs and pasta with homemade sauce. I cannot begin to tell you, my Dad might make the best sauce you've ever had. Then at the Advent dinner, I could not pass chicken and dumplings over rice. I had two dinners and was completely exhausted the next day.

But the point of this is not to inform you that I eat too much. Most of us eat too much at this time of year. Sometimes it feels very good to indulge and not feel any guilt. However, we also need to aquire the spirit of gratitude. I am so blessed to be able to enjoy food so much, but why can I not use my blessing to bless others?

So at this time of year, where the spirits are high and sweets are everywhere, remember this:

enjoy. be thankful for everything. but don't hoard, share. you are blessed to be a blessing.

donate food to food pantries. volunteer at a food pantry. work at a soup kitchen. buy a homeless person a meal. provide groceries to a friend in need.

we can all do something to express our gratitude.

The return of ugly food

In this time of food crisis it hardly seem likely that anyone would choose to ban food based on what it looked like. I know I've gotten some of my yummiest tomatoes from a garden and they rarely look pretty. And yet, for years the European Union would not allow so-called 'ugly' fruits or vegetables to be sold in the nations included in that group. They did this, obstensibly, to keep prices uniform. Which is silly. And they finally realized this, after years of ridicule from the world. And so, countries within the EU can now celebrate in their new found 'ugly fruit.'

Slowing food down...

What is Slow Food? Have you ever taken a look at our blogroll and thought, "What is that link to 'Slow Food USA' all about? I've never heard of slow food. Did our esteemed contributors make an error?"

Actually, the slow food movement is real and its making its way onto the national food scene. We think it's important to realize what this movement is all about and what it can (and cannot) do to solve the problems we are seeing in food policy in America. In this post, I spoke about the politics of food and how the next president can solve them. This is what Slow Food USA is all about: bringing about better food policies.

But let's rewind. What is "slow food?" Well according to the Slow Food USA site, "Slow Food is an idea, a way of living and a way of eating. It is a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members around the world that links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment." Well that didn't help very much did it? Okay, maybe it did a little.
First, skip all that stuff about a way of living and grassroots. Most movements proscribe to these notions. Now, linking the 'pleasure of food' and a 'commitment to community and the environment' is a little different. The idea here is that with fast food has created a disconnect between people and food. Before the advent of grocery stores, we grew our own food and dirtied our own hands doing so. Before restaurants become an everyday habit, we used to make our own food, too. We'd know every ingredient in a dish because we had put it there, and likely grew that ingredient ourselves.
While the slow food movement does't aim to shut down grocery stores and fast food chains, they want people to remember the "people, traditions, plants, animals, fertile soils and waters that produce our food," as their About Us page says. In order to return people to these traditions, the group also aims to "inspire a transformation in food policy, production practices and market forces so that they ensure equity, sustainability and pleasure in the food we eat." So, the slow food movement is to essentially educate people on our real connections to food (beyond that obvious 'we need it to survive' angle) as well as help instigate change in the way food is treated in our government policy by engaging our policy makers.
Hmmm...well that sounds familiar, at least partly (see our about us post and this post to remind you what this blog aims to do).

To learn more, read this interesting glimpse at the movement, printed in the New York Times, called "A Slow Food Festival Reaches out to the Uncommitted."

Humanity's Marriage with the Earth: Part III

Look in the archives for parts 1 and 2 of the series...parts 3b and 4 with the conclusion are coming soon!

Part IIIa: Good Soil

The stories, essays and poetry of Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder and Barbara Kingsolver take on an ecological nature, which are concerned with contemporary ecological sciences, persistently stressing, what scholar Harold Bush calls a “human cooperation with nature conceived as a dynamic, interrelated series of cyclic feedback systems (Bush 267).” While Romantic poets, such as Walt Whitman, were concerned with obtaining solitary inner peace with nature, the “eco-poets” are focused on the interdependent nature of the world, an imperative toward humility regarding the natural world (Bush 267), and an intense skepticism about rationalism and technology. In John Gatta’s study Making Nature Sacred, he argues that eco-poetry “denies the Romantic solitary's view of nature as a functionally private arena of self-transcendence" (Bush 271)”. The Romantics are only concerned with the anthropocentric human benefits of restoration but not the benefits to the biosphere. However, he does not deny that eco-poets do focus on transcendence, but it is not simply the transcendence of self. It is the transcendence to the world through transformation of the self’s heart and mind to sustain and maintain the planet.

The vision of today's eco-poets is to recover and rejuvenate humanity's almost-lost abilities to see nature as sacred. Berry’s “Window Poems” captures the heart of this endeavor, as it starts in Part I.-
Window. Window.
The wind’s eye
To see into the wind.
The eye in its hollow
Looking out
Through the black frame
At the waves the wind
Drives up the river,
Whitecaps, a wild day…

The symbol of the window represents the civilized eye looking out at the wild of the waves of wind driving up a river. Repeatedly through the 27 part poem, the window is given more characteristics, and his connection with nature becomes more sacred. The window, even though, it is an outlet to creation, also blocks the person, preventing them to see beyond themselves. The window onlooker watches a man who is working the land. In stanza six, there is a downpour of rain and the working man submits to the wetness, while the observer sits inside- “How sheltering and clear/ the window seems, the dry fireheat/ inside, and outside the gray/ downpour. As the man works/ the weather moves” (Collected Poems 77). “Window Poems” highlights the ways people try to fence God, under human control, like some domestic creature. In stanza 7, the man, a god symbol, comes inside, and the people react in initial fear, watching his eyes but fleeing from his sight when he looked up. Their fear turns into indifference when they realize he means no harm. “But they stay cautious/ of each other, half afraid unwilling/ to be too close. They snatch/ what they can carry and fly/ into the trees. They flirt out/ with tail or beak and waste/ more sometimes than they eat.” However this man’s greatness reflects his wild nature, which the observer was afraid of, but then ignored. Berry contends that God

is the wildest being in existence. The presence of His spirit in us is our wildness, our oneness with the wilderness of Creation.... it is why the poets of our tradition so often have given nature the role not only of mother or grandmother but of the highest earthly teacher and judge, a figure of mystery and greatpower (Bush 271).

The man, a wild farmer, knows the price of the seed, wishing these people would take more care. The people only understand what is free, and because of that, the man buys the seed, making it free, which is reflective of God’s salvation of humanity- giving a free gift to an ungrateful, apathetic species.

“Window poems” follows Gatta’s perception of eco-poetry, showing how the act of imagining nature as sacred is a co-creative act between place and person—it is to be discovered, possibly through hierophany, the physical manifestation of the holy, and possibly through imagination. But in order to experience hierophany in regards to nature and place, the human imagination must come alive. In Western culture, it is particularly difficult to open up the human imagination. The miracles we see are limited because we have a limited perception of God and an even more limited perception of how He interacts with Creation. Bush says this is where the work of poets comes in, helping us to perceive name nature as sacred, closing the gap between the secular and the sacred, the material and the spiritual (Bush 270). As Gatta declares, “the poetic imagination may require a perception of transcendence” (Bush 271).

The concept of good soil, in relation to place and salvation is pivotal in Biblical scripture. In Mark 4, Jesus delivers a parable to his followers, which perplexes his disciples:

Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty fold and sixty fold and a hundredfold."

In this parable, place plays an important means. Seeds cannot simply flourish anywhere- not on a manmade path, nor on an unkempt piece of land ignored by humans, but in a field flourishing with life, tended and cared for by a farmer. When Jesus explains the story to his puzzled disciples, he draws on his metaphor that the people are the seeds to be planted. A close reading of this passage suggests that human beings as well as plants flourish best where sustainable agriculture is being practice- the place of marriage between human beings and the earth- a farm.

Place is means to experience hierophany. Snyder suggests that no one but the first Americans can bring us to experience this spiritual transcendence in the places we Americans inhabit (Snyder 70). After all, Native Americans had been practicing sacred unions to the earth for centuries. Native American agriculture has been passed on to the colonists, and it has helped the Europeans survive in America, ironically leading to their own dispersion and extinction of culture. Snyder says we have a lot to learn from exclusively the first Americans about our place. While we have a western white history of a hundred and fifty years, “we’re catching just the tip of an iceberg of forty or fifty thousand years of human experience, on this continent, in this place” (Folsom 220). Unbeknownst to ourselves, we have adopted some of their ways, names and beliefs at the same time we have been diluting and absorbing them (Folsom 221). In Snyder’s discourse, The Practice of the Wild, he reflects on living in Northern California:

My family and I have been living twenty years now on the land of the Sierra Nevada range of Northern California. These ridges and slopes are somewhat “wild” and not particularly “good.” The original people here, the Nisesan (or Southern Maidu) were almost entirely displaced or destroyed during the first decades of the gold rush. It seems there is no one left to teach us which places in this landscape were once felt to be “sacred”— though with time and attention, I think we will be able to feel and find them again (Snyder 78).

Bush, Harold K., Jr. "Wendell Berry, seeds of hope, and the survival of
creation." Christianity and Literature. 56.2 (Wntr 2007): 297(20). General OneFile. Gale. Christopher Newport University. 24 Feb.2008 .

Berry, Wendell. Collected Poems. San Francisco: North Point P, 1985. 148.

Literary Study Bible- English Standard Version. Mark 4:1-4:20. Crossway Bibles, 2007.

Snyder, Gary. The Practice of the Wild. Berkeley: Northpoint P, 1990.

Why we are taking food so seriously

Some may wonder where this blog about food originated. As Janelle wrote in our "About" post, our endeavor is to "explore this crucial field of study." We both rediscovered food in a capstone course for seniors in the English Department at our university. We have that course to thank for the push in this direction, and that course's creator, Dr. Scott Pollard, for bringing out our own passions for food.
But why would Janelle use the term 'crucial'? Why is food such a 'serious' issue? Put simply, food is everywhere and it is everything. Without it, frankly, none of us would be alive. But more than that, its place in our culture is as inextricable from the human condition as our search for meaning. We view most things in our lives through a lens of food. Wasn't it a particular food that will always make you think of your beloved relative? Wasn't it the first time you made your own Thanksgiving dinner that made you realize that you had finally 'grown up'? Isn't making chicken noodle soup when you're sick only a habit because that's the food your mom made for you when you were a sick child?
Unfortunately, people have begun to lose sight of how much more important food is than a "necessary fuel whose only requirement is that it can be obtained and consumed without much difficulty or cost," as Mark Bittman writes in a recent New York Times article entitled "Why Take Food Seriously." When did 'cooking' suddenly become popping a frozen dinner into the microwave? What are we as a culture losing when we've lost our seriousness about food? Will we know how to make a Thanksgiving dinner when we've moved out on our own or what is the best homemade remedy when we have a cold? Will we be able to as easily remember our grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. when we no longer have a vivid detail like food to jog our memories?
Bittman says he is seeing signs of hope in the conversations people are having on food. And that's what our blog is really intended to do: generate, expand and inform those conversations we as a culture are and should be having about food.
Feel free to join us.

It's time for a recipe!

It's beginning to get cold out there. I'm a cold person by nature, so when the temperatures outside start falling below 50 degrees, I need heavy layers or hot food in my tummy to keep me from getting uncomfortable. Which brought me to a recipe for "Roasted Autumn Vegetable Chowder." There's nothing like a huge pot of wonderfully thick chowder of fairly cheap ingredients (what's cheaper than potatoes and broccoli?) to make you feel better about life, especially when your roomies don't bother to turn on the heat so we can all save money (and energy!). As always, take this recipe and make it yours. Add squash or leave out the broccoli. And goodness, this can be vegan or you can add cheese (like I did). It's your stomach. Just watch the proportions when you begin to make sure you have enough liquid in the roasting pan. That's what makes the veggies taste yummy and gets them nice and tender.

So, without further ado...

Roasted Autumn Vegetable Chowder
from Pinch My Salt blog

Firstly, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. (Not only is this the 'perfect' roasting temperature, it heats up the kitchen quite nicely.)

Prepare the following:
3 small russet potatoes, peeled and cut in chunks
1 sweet potato, peeled and cut in chunks
1 small head of cauliflower, cut in chunks
1/2 head of broccoli, cut in chunks
2 leeks, white part only, rinsed well and sliced
1 onion, cut in chunks
3 large garlic cloves, peeled

Put all those vegetables into a roasting pan and toss them with the following:
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried sage
1/2 teaspoon coriander powder
large pinch of kosher salt
fresh ground black pepper

Pour in:
one cup of vegetable broth
1/2 cup of white wine (any wine will do, but make sure you cook with a wine you would drink. Heating wine only intensifies the flavor. So normally bitter wine turns vegetables into bitter vegetables. Also, add more wine as you see fit. You can never have enough, which is why you should now pour yourself a glass of wine and sip it as you finish up the chowder.)

Pop the pan into the oven and roast the vegetables at 400 degrees, stirring occasionally, until they are tender and slightly browned (about 30 minutes).

When you have five minutes left of the roasting:
In a large saucepan, heat two tablespoons of butter over medium heat, then add:
1/2 onion, diced
one carrot, diced
one celery stalk, diced
Cook, stirring for about five minutes or until the vegetables are softened. Add the roasted vegetables (making sure to scrape out all the liquid with a spatula).

Add:
three more cups of vegetable broth.
Bring the mixture to a simmer. Pour half into a food processor or normal blend and pulse until smooth. Pour that back into the unblended part and combine. (This gives you a smooth yet slightly chunky chowder, and we all know chunky is good!)

Add:
one cup of milk (I used soy, which is better than milk to me)
one cup of defrosted frozen corn.
Heat the whole thing through. (If you used soy milk, don't boil it. Soy milk will curdle when boiled.)

Finishing touches:
Season with salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
Add a tablespoon or two of hot sauce, to taste (I used Cholula - add more if you want).
If you like cheese, shred some over your bowl.
And this picture, taken right before I ate it and in really bad light, is what you will have. Dig in and warm up that tummy.

Letting your stomach cast the vote...

It seemed like kismet when I walked into Silver Diner, a small, old-fashioned diner/chain based in Virginia and Maryland, and found the establishment polling its customers, but not in the way you might expect.
For the month of October, the diner offers Obamalettes (a Chicago pizza-style dish) and McCainlettes (a BBQ chicken dish inspired by the senator's home state). As customers order one or the other, tallies are counted and on Oct. 30, Silver Diner will post the results and predict a presidential winner. Who's winning? Well, it seems that pizza for breakfast (or do you think people are actually swayed by their political bent?) is too great a pull. Obama is leading with 1026 votes (orders) to McCain's 485. While this experiment did make me laugh, what made me connect it with kismet?

Well, I posted this New York Times article in our Food in the News box a few days ago. I didn't get up the interest to write about what should be the connection between food and politics right away. It seems it is more of an interesting topic than I first considered and it took a political omelette to remind me of that.

Okay, first off let me say that food has a much biger impact on our everyday lives than we are usually willing to acknowledge. It not only affects our wallets and our health, the abudance of food keeps us from needing to start wars with other nations, keeps us from turning on our neighbors, even keeps us from going hungry to feed our children (or watching them starve cause we have no food at all to give them). But as Americans, except for those who are poor and unable to acquire food, we have chosen to forget those times in our evolution as a nation that are comparable to many countries in present-day Africa.
As the New York Times article, published in a recent issue of The Sunday Magazine and phrased like a letter to the coming president, states, "Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration..."
It seems that we've forgotten the connection between food and every other aspect of our lives in America. Michael Pollan lists some of these connections in his 'letter':
-Mass food consumption has led to industrialized food production which has increased the impact on our environment (through releasing carbon as we creat new crop fields, using gas in our farm equipment, and killing the land with overuse). As Pollan states, "When we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases."
- The way we live in America, with such easy and cheap access to all the foods that are bad for us (I say this as I eat a donut generously brought in by a fellow coworker), has contributed to our generally low health. Most of our top diseases are actually related to what we eat. As Pollan states: "You cannot expect to reform the health care system...without confronting the public-health catastrophe that is the modern American diet."
- America, because we have placed such value in helping others (generally a good thing) and because we have perfected the mass production of food, has become key to the survival of many nations. As we scramble for our own food, we are less and less able (or willing) to give to other nations. How many riots do you think we have set off when we have taken away food aid? How come we didn't help these areas grow their own food, instead of letting them rely on a finite source that so many others rely on? We will soon see how much more valuable food is than previous 'allies' are. "Expect to hear the phrases 'food sovereignty' and 'food security' on the lips of every foreign leader you meet," predicts Pollan.
Pollan raises many more interesting points after offering a look at how we got where we are now. The article is definitely long, but it is worth a read and some meditation on the points he brings up. These are issues we will be facing in the near future.
As Pollan warns the next president of the United States: "What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention."

Whether Obamalette or McCainlette wins, it will be up to the American people to actually address this growing issue. What options do we have to solve this coming crisis? What are we doing wrong right now that could be changed to promote good food policy? This is what we need to ask ourselves, and our leaders, no matter which omelette wins on Election Day.

40 hour work weeks + laziness

The new Starbucks I'm working at is open and I am working 40 hour weeks there, just to go home, loaf around my house and not do anything substantial. But once I find my camera, I will post pictures from the VA wine festival, a whole two weeks ago....woooooo. And maybe I'll blog about my lasagna Sabbath meal I prepared for 16 people and how religious feasts tie people intimately with food. Or the absolutely amazing salad I had at Lindsey Seipp's wedding- she got a caterer who only does organic, locally fresh foods. And it was seriously the best salad I ever had. But right now, Starbucks owns me. : \

A breakthrough in farming

Well it's not really a new concept, but The New York Times published an article on Vertical Farming July 17. Even though it is a relatively older article, I thought the concept was so cool (and the accompanying slideshow so nice) that I would post here and try to generate some talk about this specific kind of farming.

Here's the gist: We are in a population boom. We've had to worry more and more about where we are going to get food, especially with drought and floods (both of which bring their own set of challenges to crops). So what happens if you have a population that needs more room to live, but one that also needs more food-growing space to live? Your answer involves towers of food and new thoughts about how to grow that food.
Scientists, most recently a professor from Columbia University, have begun encouraging interest in this field again. Bringing together scientists and architects, experts have been able design buildings, such this one, above (NY TIMES PHOTO) that is more about aesthetics and powering itself through solar panels, that expand on an idea brainstormed in New York - the skyscraper.

When an influx of immigrants caused a population explosion in cities where the jobs were, those cities just started stacking living quarters on top of each other, solving the problem of lack of space. The question is this: Can the same idea solve our coming food shortage problems? Scientists say yes. I hope they're right. But with skyscapers we ran into the problem of disease, expounded by the close-quarters. It was unnatural to live like this. Can an unnatural mode of growing plants work? What other concerns might we run into with a system like the one above, or this one, seen below:

(NYTIMES PHOTO)

Humanity's Marriage With the Earth: Part II

Part II: Coping with the Broken Land

An American poet, essayist and novelist, Wendell Berry offers hope to the modern American, a hope that they can re-achieve a connection to Creation by the source of agriculture. To align oneself in relationship to land, imitating nature in agriculture, one can simultaneously align himself to a spiritual goal. This thought travels through Berry’s poetry, whose focus on nature and agriculture run with themes of grace, redemption and transformation. Not only images of farming line up with these themes, but through these connections Berry honors his food. His poem, “Prayer after Eating” encompasses his attitude toward food- “I have taken in the light/ that quickened eye and leaf./ May my brain be bright with praise/ of what I eat, in the brief braze/ of motion and of thought./ May I be worthy of my meat” (Collected Poems 148). The light referenced in this poem could allude to the light of God as incarnation in the Bible. As a popular Christian worship song eludes Jesus Christ in the words “light of the world/you stepped down into darkness/opened my eyes/let me see beauty that made my heart adore you (Hughes),” Berry sees Creation as the light stepping into darkness to expose the eye’s attraction to the leaf, a sign of new life, triggering the mind to see the beauty of his food, in order to honor and adore it, and hope that he might be transformed to be worthy of his meat.

First American spiritual perspectives complement Berry’s thought. The First American sees his relationship to a God force through his relationship with nature. Judeo-Christian tradition does not contradict this notion, but establishes it from the beginning of humankind:

Then the Lord God formed the human from the soil of the ground and breathed breath into its nostrils the breath of life and the human became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in theeast and there God put the human whom God had formed (Gen. 2:7-2:8).

This scripture shows that humanity is intimately related to the rest of the creation. Like all other creatures, we are also formed from the earth. If humans are related to the rest of the earth, it is no wonder that Great Mam scolds her great-granddaughter, Gloria, informing her that flowers are her cousins when the girl picks flowers in Barbara Kingsolver’s “Homeland.” Great Mam, a Cherokee Indian, lives with her anglicized grandchildren on a Kentucky farm, and struggles to retain her dying culture in an environment which does not approve of it. Gloria does not intrinsically understand, like her great-grandmother, the value of other living things in their relationship to human beings. Great Mam tries to explain:

Sometimes a person has to take a life, like a chicken’s or a hog’s when you need it. If you’re hungry, then they’re happy to give their flesh up to you because they’re your relatives. But nobody is so hungry they need to kill a flower (Kingsolver 11).

Gloria does not accept this teaching, defending that she only picked weeds which no one cared about. At that point, Great Mam gently rebukes her, telling her that it is a bad thing to take for one self something that belongs to everybody. “It is a sin (Kingsolver 12).” In this scene, Great Mam unites Christian and Cherokee notions of relationships and sin to correct her great-granddaughter.

Not only are humans part of creation, but Wendell Berry contends from an ancient perspective, we are small in the scheme of the rest of Creation. We are not greater than nature, nor are we its equal. Primal art displays this notion; on a painted wall in a Lascaux cave a small, childish stick figure is surrounded by vibrant drawings of shaped, shaded and colored animals. The stick figure who had cast his only spear into the guts of bison is now without weapon, revealing him to be vulnerable, frail and incomplete against the magnificent animals surrounding him (“Unsettling” 98). The Bible illustrates the smallness of man in the book of Job, when God speaks to his suffering servant Job from a ferocious whirlwind. Job questioning of God’s sovereignty triggers this storm which God uses to show his subject his full bounty and mystery next to Job’s mere humanity (Job 38). If we are but small creatures in the big scheme of things, we need to be good stewards of the environment. We are no bigger than our land, but we act so in the way we treat it. Berry contends that we can be redeemed from our anthropocentric point of view. In the past, we have focused upon rituals of return to the human condition. A man would go into the wilderness and after measuring himself against Creation, will recognize his true place and as a result, will be saved from pride and despair.(“Unsettling” 99). The man went hungry and therefore had to kill animals and pluck plants, but as he killed and ate with care, he became a restorer of order, a preserver of life.

The ethic of reverence for life was set at precedence in Judaic law codes, established early Genesis, and then in Exodus. Richard H. Hiers, professor of Religion at University of Florida, points out that before the Great Flood, humans along with birds and all other land creatures, were vegetarians. In Genesis 1:29-30, God addresses human and animal needs respectively:

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground- everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food.”

After the fall of man in Genesis 3, when Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, humanity eventually faced their downfall. The earth was full of corruption and violence and God saw all man and that every inclination in their heart was evil (Gen 6:5). He sent a flood which would wipe out all of creation, except for Noah, his family, seven of every kind of clean animal and two of every kind of unclean animal, and seven of every kind of bird, to maintain biodiversity throughout the earth. After the flood, God gave Noah’s family animal for food: “Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything” (Gen 9:3). With the initial shalom obtained in the Garden of Eden at the end, human beings were still expected the respect the life of animals and birds killed for food (Hiers 134), as stated in God’s following commandment, “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. And for your lifeblood, I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal” (Gen 9:4-5). Because the life of each animal was contained by their blood, human beings were to express a reverence for life, by not eating it. Similar provisions appeared later in Judaic law, and is the reason why many gentile converts to early Christianity had to agree not to eat blood of the meat of animals that had been strangled (Hiers 134). Judaic law codes were set up to restore human beings back to God and the Earth, however human beings failed to get the point.

Berry, Wendell. A Part. San Francisco: North Point P, 1980. 5.
Berry, Wendell. The Unsettling of America. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1977.
Hiers, Richard H. "Reverance for Life and Environmental Ethics in Biblical Law and
Covenant." Journal of Law and Religion: 127-157. JSTOR.
Hughes, Tim. "Here I Am to Worship." By Tim Hughes. Rec. 2001. Here I Am to
Worship.
Kingsolver, Barbara. Homeland and Other Stories. New York: Perennial, 1989. 1-22.

Where do you draw the line?

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Beth. I'm a friend of the creator of the Hunger Years blog. To my great excitement, Janelle requested that I contribute articles or ideas to this new blog. We're setting out on a serious endeavor here folks: to explore, research and document the world of food and how it affects all aspects of our lives. You'll most likely be hearing from me often. So let's get on with my first contribution.

Browsing food news, one can't help but notice the many headlines about genetically-modified food. Janelle has even commented on this in an earlier post. Some say this practice has great merit. This group often points to the practice of sending seeds or enriched flour to the hungry in third world countries. These seeds may be genetically modified to withstand drought or disease with the hopes of giving poor farmers more food. Enrich flour/corn is said to contain nutrients necessary for youngsters to develop normally. Detracters point to a plethora of environmental and medical risks, even ethical implications we can't even imagine at this point. For example, what if genetically-modified food affects our own genetics? What if these super-plants take over an area and kill off native flora/fauna that were necessary for that ecosystem (and the humans it supports) to survive?

Both sides of the debate have valid points, but what about a related field?*

An article in our 'Food in the News' section entitled "Orange juice laced with anchovies: Superfood or Monster from the deep?" outlines a burgeoning area of food sales known as nutraceuticals or enriched foods.

What exactly is an 'enriched food'? Since the 1940s, the food manufacturers have added nutrients to their food to help boost the health of those who eat it. In the 1940s, it was the discovery that you could add B vitamins to food that created this revolution. I distinctly remember as a milk-hating kid in the 1990s drinking Vitamin-D- and calcium-enriched orange juice. Now we think nothing of finding labels on our food that say "Enriched/Enhanced with ______" (see left) or seeing commercials about yogurt with added bacteria to help regulate our digestive system.

But what is the difference between refining fish oil (chock full of all those beneficial Omega-3 fatty acids) to add to orange juice and genetically modifying oranges to produce fish oil/omega-3s as they grow?

It's a serious question to add to the modified-foods debate. And one still open for a discussion of our very own. Where do you draw the line? What do you think about the pros/cons of genetically-modified foods or enriched foods? Is this sort of food actually healthy or is it a bad practice of the overly-competitive food industry?

*disclaimer: I'm purposely keeping my own opinion out of the contents of this post and will most likely comment later once I've decided what I actually feel about the ideas presented here.

Humanity's Marriage With the Earth: Part 1

One of the goals of this blog is to establish the connections between faith and food, which pours into all religions. However, I am a Christian, and as the interactions between other religions and food are interesting, I focus naturally on food in the Bible and the theological framework for Christians to care about what they eat and become good stewards of the environment. My senior seminar food and literature paper focused on this subject and I am posting it on here because I want to engage other Christians (especially those of us on the East Coast of the US) in this discussion. Like my food bio, I will post this in excerpts, starting with my thesis and part 1.

“Our bodies live by farming,” author Wendell Berry contends in his work. “While we live our bodies are moving particles of the earth, joined inextricably to the soil and to the bodies of other living creatures (Unsettling 97).” With this thought, we as human beings are connected to the food we consume, reflecting a marriage, a connection which is rooted in our spirituality. However, as American consumers of supermarket foods, we are ignorant to the fact that our bodies do live by farming, hunting and gathering. We pull boxes and cans from the grocery shelves, which usually contain all the chemically processed ingredients we need to “cook” a meal, which displays our lack of concern for the environment. From the Judeo-Christian perspective, humankind has fallen from being good stewards of their earth, which is prevalent in the ways Western culture regards food. As a result, humans are separated from nature, distancing themselves from the source of their food as technology progresses. However, humanity can be redeemed, by realigning themselves with the notion of creation care. This is seen through practicing good, sustainable agriculture seen in the writings of Wendell Berry, in which he consummates his marriage with the earth. Although the Puritans separated their religion from the Native Americans, as they separated the material from the spiritual, Christian faith can be edified through adapting the practices of Native Americans, in how they view nature as sacred. Although much of this culture has died, writers Gary Snyder and Barbara Kingsolver still challenge people to keep their sacred notions alive through their novels, essays and poems.

Part I: Holy Marriage and Broken Ground

We are currently in the midst of an ecological crisis in America – by ignoring nature we have ignored the source by which our food comes from, distancing ourselves from what we daily consume. However, the movement in sustainable agriculture is providing a means to address a source of the ecological crisis- agribusiness (Unsettling 5). This has brought many Christians to address their call to care for creation. Christians in America for a long time have separated themselves both from the soil and from natures. This rooted in the foundations of Christianity in America. Nature and religious writing typically occupied separate spheres in Puritan American literature. This is reflective of the settlers’ eager preference to possess the land, than be possessed by it. The longing to survive in an environment removed from their society, compelled them to desire control of the land rather than appreciating the marvels of an environment almost untouched by Western society. Due to this, first-generation Puritans armored themselves against the wilderness, walling out what they regarded as untamed and ungodly (Gatta 17). The early attitudes of the Puritan settlers fed into a misinterpretation of the book of Genesis. They found warrant in Genesis 1:28-29 to destroy the wilderness and achieve mastery over nature. They defended their expansion into territories by invoking the Old Testament precedent of Hebrew advances into Canaan. Because New England’s indigenous peoples, were not indulged in the habits of Europeans, never taking formal title of their lands, enclosing them to maintain livestock or establishing permanent dwellings in the same manner of the English, the Puritans justified possessing the land to improve cultivation over the existing environment.

Bruce Breseford’s 1991 film Black Robe historically addresses the similar domination the Jesuits seized over the Native Americans. The Jesuits will only worship God in the cathedrals they build and do not grasp the ability to worship God in nature as the Native Americans did. Father Laforgue views the Algonquin Indians as savage because they do not consider his view of eternal paradise as one they would also desire. Scenes of Laforgue’s early interactions with his teaching priest in an ornate cathedral are juxtaposed with him struggling to survive in the North American wilderness. Jumping off the assumption that Christianity is the true faith which brings truths from other faiths into completion, the Puritans and the Jesuits in their attempts to convert the Native Americans did not contextualize the gospel to their culture. Rather they used the gospel to dominate their culture, replacing primal ways with their own ways perceived as superior and more civilized. Laforgue attempted to convert the Algonquin, however his failure to do so resulted out of his own pilgrimage with the natives. He went up the Hudson River with them to convert the Herons. Instead, by leaving his civilization, his struggle with his personal faith became more real. To the European settlers, civilization was closer to godliness than nature. If the Puritans and Jesuit settlers had a more complete understanding of the Bible’s connections with the environment, and were not inspired by ungodly motives to dominate, nature would take precedence over civilization.

Many scholars have held the mainstream tradition of biblical Christianity responsible for the ecological harm caused by Western culture. Historian Lynn White Jr. made known the idea that the Judeo-Christian doctrine of Creation is fundamentally exploitive of the natural world because of the “biblical” assertion that man’s dominion over nature establishes a trend of anthroprocentrism, because Christians view themselves as the pinnacle of Creation, and they can subdue the earth to their will. Genesis 1:28 has been read by some in this light, but has been read by many theologians as a message of stewardship- “And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” There is no doubt that God created human as the pinnacle of creation. God created human in his image, blessed them and deemed them very good. However, according to Genesis, before he created human, he created nature and every other living creature. It is important to note that the earth preceded human and humans completed the earth (Gen 1:31). After God saw everything he made, in its completion, he deemed it very good. He did not only claim humans as very good, but the rest of creation once humans were brought forth. An anthropocentric version of the creation story would have deemed nature as not having worth. In Eden, nature is not separate from human. God brought Adam into Eden to work the land, not because the land would suffer without him, but so that humans could imitate God’s act of creation and stewardship (Beisner). Bringing Adam into Eden put Adam in a holy partnership with the Earth, which is reflective, but not the same with his bond with Eve. God brought every kind of animal to Adam as a companion for Adam to name, but with each animal Adam could not find a partner (Gen 2:18-24). God created Eve for Adam to be equal partners, on the same spiritual, emotional and intellectual level. Unlike the rest of species, humans were created in the image of God, which gave them dominion over the earth. This dominion, however, was not meant to be a dominating, exploitive rule. The concept of dominion has been for centuries, manipulated and misinterpreted by western Christians who failed to recognize the limitations of the English language in fully translating scripture, word for word (Beisner). Dominion comes from the Hebrew letters בּעל, which is translate to ba’al, meaning to be husband to or to marry ("Dominion."). This makes it a command to be in relationship with the earth, to care for it, and nurture it. The biblical concept of rulership, furthermore, is far different from our modern ideas, although we still live in a society where we are subservient to someone. God’s rulership is clearly established in Scripture, as a rule of peace in both the Old and New Testament. Job 25:2 ascribes all authority to God- "Dominion and fear are with God; he makes peace in his high heaven.” Colossians sets Christ with God as part of the triune God- Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace (Col 3:15).

While the biblical concept of marriage does not suffice many modern day scholars’ views in accordance to feminism, it is not meant to shame or exploit women. Like the humans’ response to nature, marriage is a sacred union, which has been defiled and blasphemed by many men who have abused their headship in marriage. Many ideas of biblical marriage are simply not biblical. These ideas marginalize women, stripping them of their voice, and constricting them to the household. Written in a patriarchal society, many parts of the Bible were very progressive in its time, allowing women the ability to associate with men in public. In the days of Paul of Tarsus, Greek women were seldom allowed outside their house, or to participate with men in religious services (Carson). Paul’s first command to the wives seems misogynistic out of context- “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.” (Ephesisans 5:22) However Paul’s marital directions in Ephesians were even sterner and more descript to men:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh (Ephesians 25-31).

These directions leave no room for abuse or marginalization. Paul goes as far as to instruct men they must give themselves up for their wives, loving their wives as Christ loves the church. Furthermore, the wives must be empowered by their husbands for the display of their splendor- not an outward, domesticated beauty, but a beauty which is reflective of God’s glorious nature. If humans assumed the role in marriage to the earth in a similar way that the Bible instructs husbands to take, earth should not be exploited. As human beings, we are to cherish nourish the earth for its own beauty and splendor.

Our relationship with the earth is neither one of possessing or being possessed by it. In a biblical perspective, humankind must take partnership with it. The partnership is often symbolized by a triangle, used in Christian theology to also illustrate the triune God and marriage (Beisner). In theologian Dean Ohlman’s illustration, God is at the top, in control over all. Both humans and the earth respond to God in obedient praise. God is in fellowship with his covenant people, and is in ownership of the earth. People are to respond to the earth in a peaceful stewardship, and the earth is a subservient provider to the people. Before the fall of man, as recorded in Genesis, the earth is full, alive and without blemish. It is perfect bride to its people.

In Eden, God, people and the earth were all part of one holy, complete body. According to Ohlman, everything was in harmony or shalom from the Hebrew שלום, meaning- peace, nothing missing, nothing broken, wellbeing, and complete. However, Genesis 3, records the fall of human, where this concept of shalom was broken. Adam and Eve both disobeyed their creator, in their first act of human control, when the Serpent deceived them, telling the humans that they become like God, who had authority, knowledge and power. All the relationships of paradise were broken by that act of control, and along with the fall of humanity, the earth also fell (Beisner) It became an imperfect provider, resistant to people, fragmented, and blighted by death. The relationships humans had with themselves, God and nature were shattered as they became self-centered, deceptive and deceived, profane, unmerciful, unloving, unjust, evil, violent, and condemned to die (Ohlman). Ohlman says that “Peace was shattered and humanity’s covenant of care, compassion, and priesthood for the earth ignored and eventually forgotten.” The sacred union between humanity and the earth was then subject to futility.

Sources:
Beisner, Calvin. "A Biblical Perspective on Environmental Stewardship." Acton. Acton.
6 May 2008.

Berry, Wendell. The Unsettling of America. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1977.

Black Robe. Dir. Bruce Beresford. Perf. Lothaire Bluteau, Aden Young, Sandrine Holt,
and Tantoo Cardinal. DVD. Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1991.

"Dominion." Strong's Bible Dictionary.

Ohlman, Dean. "The Two Ways Powerpoint Presentation." The Practical Ponderings of
Dean Ohlman. Restoring Eden. www.restoringeden.org


More to come!

What do you think of "Frankenstein" plants?

Personally, I do not like the idea of genetically modified foods. However, that is me looking at it from an environmental perspective, not an economic one. However, I think that sustainable development in different countries should remain just that- sustainable. I think that GM plant production could have long-term costs though it may look good to some now, economically speaking. However, if you are vegetarian I would suggest you be very cautious to avoid GM foods, as they often put genes of different in animals in DNA of plants to help them grow more efficiently. I'm not vegetarian anymore, but that's kinda weird.

Prince Charles is acutally vehemently against GM food

There is a very two-sided debate at hand here

BBC Quick Guide to GM Food

Read up on it and make up your own mind. What do you think of it? Do you think it will really help feed the hungry or mess up the environment?

On a very related note, there has been a recent television campaign to bring modified food back into peoples' good graces. With the marketing of the organic food movement, I guess those big companies invested in GM are losing a lot of dough.

There is this pro-high fructose corn syrup commercial, where this guy picnicing with his girlfriend refuses to eat a popsicle because of its high fructose corn syrup and the girl asks him what wrong it could do to him, and he can't answer. She then continues to say that its "just corn" and good for you in moderation and then this website comes up:

www.sweetsurprise.com

The website states that high fructose is the equal of every other sweetener, affirms its safety and talks of its "numerous benefits" which is mainly food preservation.

Anyways, I got a kick that they did not blatantly lie and say that it is healthy for you, but just that its as good as every other sweetener, and oh yeah, it won't kill you.

food in the news: 10 points for Starbucks

Much to my own surprise, I am currently a Starbucks employee.A year or two ago, you would hardly even see me set my feet inside the store, unless I was meeting with friends who liked to hang out there. This was because I was fervently against big corporate giants. However, I am not against Starbucks anymore (I wouldn't be working there if I was, because I'm admittedly pretty prideful). I learned that they have a commitment to corporate social responsibility and the environment and even community involvement. And I dig that.

Check out this morning's story.

Ike-battered Texans find comfort, help over coffee.

A couple things that popped out to me when reading this-

It's true that communities and people grow closer together out of disaster. Strangers talking to each other? Who'd of thunk it.

Speaking of community, I saw a good example of it even at a Starbucks Drive-Thru! I was training in Ashburn the other day, treating a laboriously long line of customers at the drive-thru window, when this one lady in a minivan with children said she was paying also for the car behind her. I was under the assumption that she knew this person and they were just driving in separate vehicles. But when the next woman pulled up, she was reaching for her wallet. I told her the woman in front of her already paid for her, and a look of delicious shock swept her face. "You didn't know her?" I gasped. The woman had no clue who the other woman was, and she offered to pay for the car behind her. Then the man in the car behind her paid for the car behind him. Finally, my manager told me I had to cut this off, that we didn't want to screw with the system too much. I had to spend a moment convincing the lady in the last car of the "pay it forward" spree to do a random kind act later on that day, instead of paying for the car behind her. Who knows how long this would have gone on if I didn't have to cut it off?! People really surprise me sometimes, even in Northern Virginia.

Back to Houston, there is something about food, about coffee or tea that brings people together. It's a common bond. There's something soothing and comforting, and even healing. What is it? Thoughts?

About "The Hunger Years"

"The Hunger Years" is a food-related blog aimed to

1) educate and learn importance of eating nutritious, ethically-produced food

about gardening, sustainable agriculture, hunting and gathering

connections between food and faith

2) engage our resources to provide healthy food to hungry people all over the world


3) explore the realm of food culture studies

book reviews and article critiques on well, what else but food?

unique and diverse recipes and food traditions

4) entertain the "masses" with silly food anecdotes and poems

This blog was created by Janelle Esposito but is a vehicle for various contributors to sound off on food, as we explore this crucial field of study.

The key contributors are Beth Beck and Lindsey Seipp, with brain storming by Justin Esposito.

Janelle's Food Autobiography Part 1: Food Talks to Me

Before we delve into my food autobiography, which will be given in segments, just wanted to mention that I am shamelessly using material I had already written in my Food and Literature senior seminar last semester. Nothing wrong with recycled materials.:)


Food was always a big deal to me. As young as three years old, I would hoist myself up on top of the dinner table, with tomato sauce smeared all over my face, and eat the scraps left over on other family members’ dinner plates, because I was not fed to my satisfaction. To this day my brothers still tease me about my food quirks as a child.

I was never a skinny child. From the moment I moved up from baby food, I delighted in the riches the kitchen brought. My dad would frequently bring home fresh loaves of Italian bread from a bakery. The sweet, buttery bread would immediately fall prey into my little hands before dinner was served. I ate lots of bread, lots of pasta, lots of salad and drank Pepsi religiously. That was my normal diet- and it filled me to my hearts content.

Whenever I was denied what I wanted to eat, there was havoc. This most frequently happened when my family would go out to eat or dine at someone else’s house. I quickly outgrew the kids’ menu, scrunching my nose at chicken fingers and grilled cheese sandwiches. I wanted shrimp scampi or linguine Alfredo. When I was made to order off the kids’ menu I would ask if I could order two meals. When my tastes were appeased, a giant crying monster would be released. My brothers would try to subdue my embarrassing behavior with the ‘mute button,’ but this would make these situations all the worse.

I am still frightfully embarrassed when I think about those times I ate at my friends' houses. Poor Mrs.Sturm. Little did she know that the eight year old girl she was serving was a gourmet. One time I was over, she served a very lovely, but different meal complete with angel hair spaghetti. I was quite accustomed to eating normal spaghetti at least three times a week. The angel hair offended me and I did hold back my preference for normal spaghetti. For dessert, she offered apple pie. I never liked apple pie, but took some because I thought I was supposed to, and I felt bad about my angel hair comments. I did not eat much of it. Mrs. Sturm leaned down and asked me “How come you’re not eating your apple pie?” I took a moment to think about what I’d say, and it did not sound as bad in my head- “I’m sorry Mrs. Sturm. I thought your apple pie would be better than the other apple pies I’ve had before.” It took my friend Samantha years to let me live that night down. It wasn’t until I was 12 that I was invited back over for dinner (and I only lived a few houses down). Things were going well, until I choked on a piece of chicken.

Ask my family and they would tell you that I talk to my food. This is not so, but being an expressively metaphorical girl in a very a literal family, they would not have known either way. The infamous event occurred in 1994 on the 4th of July. We were gathered around the typical all-American BBQ feast, all seven people in my family, seated at their usual spots around the table. We always caught Justin checking out his reflection in the sliding glass door he faced. Always needing someone in the family to make fun of at the table, we picked on the vanity of the oldest of my three brothers. We had just about finished the meal, and I was full. Whenever my dad makes corn on the cob, he forgets about it until the end of the meal. He brought it out, and offered some to me, and I declined. Everyone looked at me in surprise. Janelle never declines food she likes. I left the table and everyone continued eating. Part of my fixation of eating as a kid, was not on the food itself, but that it gave me something to do, and it brought my family together despite our disorderliness. So, as soon as I left the table, I found rather bored. I walked around the house in circles, before I finally came back and asked for some corn. When asked why I came back, I replied in my lisp: “The Food! It swas sayin’ ‘Eat me! Eat me!’"

food in the news: crisis in haiti

As you might notice, I have a "food in the news" listing on the sidebar. And I will also feature some stories here.

This video from 9/12 covering the food shortage in Haiti was, of course, very disarming and heartbreaking to watch. All those women fighting for food for their families (note that only men on the scene were mainly either guards or distributors).

Watch the Video Here

How and Why

This is the part where I am supposed to give you facts and figures of why you should consume ethical foods. Well, I'm not gonna do that just yet. My aim is not to propagandize you with figures taken completely out of context. As I see different well-researched articles, I may post them up for you to look at. Sound fair?

And I'll provide you with a little bit of background on how and why I actually came to care about food and the source of it...my food autobiography! Of sorts.