First, let me make something clear. Ann Vileisis's Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes from and Why We Need to Get It Back, was released last October. I picked it up almost as soon as it came out. The fact that it has taken me, oh, nine-odd months to get through it should not be taken as any kind of reflection on the quality of Ms. Vileisis's work. It is, rather, solely a reflection of my own bumpy life and the fact that I am typically reading anywhere from 3 to 6 books at once.
This work does a fine job of tracing how we, as Americans, got from having our plots of land out back growing vegetables and herbs, with a few chickens scurrying around the yard and maybe a cow for fresh milk, to our present situations--where the majority of our food has traveled an average of 1000+ miles to arrive on our dinner tables. Where the food comes from, how it was grown, and by whom, is lost. This decline in our "literacy" about our food has surely, Ms. Vileisis demonstrates, helped us arrive at factory farming, pesticide scares, bacterial outbreaks, hormone-fed animals, GE fruits and vegetables, and a myriad of other current food concerns. Her book covers everything from the diaries of late eighteenth century farm women to the latest debates about concepts like grass-fed, free range, organic, all-natural, etc. I was particularly struck by her discussion of what constitutes a "bargain" in the contemporary food landscape:
"Everything we humans do to live uses up resources and exacts environmental costs. But, as it turns out, some lunches cost less than others do. As consumers, we've become supremely skilled at ferreting out bargains in the shopping cart that presumably afford us more money to spend as we wish--on more goods or more services that save us time. But now, we need to relearn how to 'bargain' in a new sense; we need to economize on the larger, lesser-known costs of our foods--in order to afford a healthier environment for the future, for us all."
Next time I utter a little groan at forking over an extra $1 for the organic head of lettuce, I will remind myself of those words. Words like cost, value, economy, and bargain must be understood in a different way.
Also compelling and interesting are her considerations of the special and important role that advertising has played in mobilizing Americans (especially women) to get "on board" with whatever message about shopping and food preparation most suited the industry at the time. Over time, that message changed, as women were variously encouraged to have intimate knowledge of their food and its origins, as well as to leave that knowledge to the "scientists" and food manufacturers--after all, modern women had much more important things to worry about.
Although the historical chapters can feel a bit tedious, Vileisis's carefully tracing the story of food in America puts today's most pressing issues in context, giving us a much deeper, richer (if not frightening) understanding of how the heck we got here. And, surely, that kind of understanding is essential if we are ever going to get to someplace better.
