Perhaps I’m the only one in the universe, but I look forward to winter cuisine. I don’t seem to have the aversion to root vegetables that other folks have. Nor do I find a diet rich in them monotonous.
Then again, root vegetables seem to be the current focus of a backlash against eating local foods. You know, “who’d want to be stuck inside eating turnips all day?”
Full disclosure: I had chickpea and kale soup last night. It was good, especially with a drizzle of olive oil, a winter thing, too. Now on to the story:
“If you are determined to eat locally in South Dakota or northern Germany, you’re going to be eating a lot of potatoes, parsnips, and kale in the winter, and not much else,” says Anthony Fisher, professor of agricultural and resource economics at Berkeley in the article The Locavore’s Dilemma
I wonder if Mr Fisher knows how to cook. It’s not all about parsnips. Ever had shavings of parsnip with nuggets of pancetta over pasta? Winter dish.
Italians often jack up the flavors of things with a small amount of intensely flavored pig slaughtered in December, just in time for the root vegetables. In fact, if you tell an Italian waiter you don’t eat red meat and ask him what he recommends, I’ll bet he mentions at least one dish flavored with pancetta or prosciutto. In Italy, meat used as a flavor enhancer isn’t even considered meat. In small amounts, it’s a spice.
In any case, let’s see what kinda guy Mr. Fisher is:
“I enjoy eating two navel oranges every morning,” Fisher says. “Whenever possible, I prefer oranges from California—their taste is excellent. But in the summer, when the oranges are out of season in the state, I buy oranges from the southern hemisphere. Without global trade, I wouldn’t derive the enjoyment and nutritional benefit I get from oranges for much of the year.”
Well, ok then. Now we see the problem. The Hypocrite’s Dilemma. Yes, if you’re determined to eat the same goddam thing each and every morning then you’re gonna be a cheerleader for a humongous transportation network to bring you that thing from afar you absolutely must have. But then you can’t—or a reasonable person like me won’t let you—claim monotony at being forced to eat root vegetables in winter.
The article cited above is also oddly market ignorant:
“We did a study with Columbia University and MIT with one of our cafés at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York,” said Maisie Greenawalt, vice president of Bon Appétit, a Palo Alto–based food service management company that endeavors to buy at least 20 percent of its food from local producers.
The café served 1,500 students. The experiment was to feed them local foods.
“While it was clear that it was possible to feed them 100 percent from local producers, it also became clear that we would strip the entire region of local food if we did that,” Greenawalt says. “In other words, nobody else from the area would be able to buy locally if the café became the priority for suppliers.
Wow. Let’s get this straight. We have local producers of food who are perfectly able to supply 1500 people with adequate nutrition. Now, the moment the demand increases, the supply stays the same? Whatever happens to market economic theory when it screws with your argument? What about that supply and demand thing we all learned in school (at least if you “caught sense” in the 60s and 70s as I did—I have no idea of what kids learn these days of “supply side economics”)? Doesn’t the price go up when demand exceeds supply to encourage more folks to enter the market? Don’t they flock to plant ‘nips?
Final confession. I’m not a locavore, although when I’m in Italy I’m probably closer than anyone in the US has ever been. Besides the lunatic fringe I mean. I’ve eaten meals with my Italian neighbors composed of things from the area around our little village. Polenta and the wild boar that loves to chow down on the corn they make into polenta, for example. I’ve had sausage from a neighbor’s pig simmered in the local and highly touted cranberry beans of our area.
Was it good? Why yes, those dishes were so darn good I’ll likely never forget them. The foods preserved for winter and a bounty of root vegetables are nothing for the Ivory Tower Wizards of Spin to sneeze at. I won’t let them.
Endnotes: Twittered from Bologna just today by @cookitaly: Beautiful winter produce in Bologna market today: cardoons, red ribbon radicchio, Puntarelle, artichokes both round and pointy, citrus…
Lordy, what a monotonous diet those Bolognese must suffer in the winter! Turnip your noses at that!