Why Isn't Good Food Normal?

Aaron French has just written a provocative post on Why I Disagree with Thomas Keller, and What Local Food Teaches Me. In it he berates celebrity chef Thomas Keller for not jumping whole hog into the “locavore movement”.

Keller evidently considers any food that can arrive at his doorstep within a short time period as “temporally” local. Thus, Maine Lobsters can be “local” to his Yountville, California restaurant—if the flight is on time.

French argues:

So, ultimately, Keller is justifying the greater environmental load that his purchasing produces by the possible long-term benefits that supporting quality farmers might create. Keller has also said, “Price isn’t important to me, I just want the very best available.” As such, he admits to having an elitist philosophy – which is partly why he has been so successful in the culinary world.

French is worried that the public might follow Keller’s justification for searching far and wide for good food to serve. There is an undertone of “he should use his considerable powers for good rather than evil.”

What I don’t understand is why we always seem to shine a spotlight on elitists when we understand things aren’t going as well as we’d like. Is Barry Bonds really the key to eradicating drug use in sports? How long you gonna wait for that to happen?

My tiny village in northern Tuscany doesn’t even have a bar, much less a restaurant. But let’s just pretend for a moment that some world famous chef came to Piano di Collecchia and decided to start a “gourmet food emporium” (the sort of term my Italian neighbors would never in a million years understand, even translated into Italian). Let’s further speculate that one of this chef’s dishes highlighted Pata Negra, black pigs coming from, let’s say Portugal. Would I eat it? Certainly. Elite food is elite food. Who cares where it comes from? It is art. It is exotica from elite practitioners. It’s…interesting, occasionally.

But it’s not normal.

You see, the difference that doesn’t seem to matter to people is “the norm”. I can get absolutely yummy food in San Francisco. I can get heritage pork in San Francisco. I can get good bread in San Francisco. Yes, all these good things—but not only do they come at a premium price, they come from elitist markets.

You see, San Francisco warehouses good food, there’s no question about it. The difference is, good food composed of good, local, ingredients is the norm in Tuscany.

The best bread in the Lunigiana, for example, is said to be Pane di Vinca, bread from the tiny mountain village of Vinca. I can get it at pretty much any market, along with many other different breads baked in wood-fired ovens at a tiny fraction of the cost of good bread in the Bay Area. Because it’s normal.

I can give you many other examples, but look, you simply can’t look to elites to start your revolution. They’re the ones that have screwed things up royally in the first place. You start at the bottom. With the normal people. Bakers. Mothers. Cooks. Not chefs.

In my Italian village there is a woman whose age I peg at around 80. She farms (or rather gardens, but on a fairly large scale). She has a big patch of corn sitting alongside the road. Italians don’t eat sweet corn; the special breeds of corn around here are for polenta.

Now, polenta costs 99 Eurocents per half kilo (a little over a pound) at the supermarket. Like chef Keller, the woman who raises corn doesn’t give a rats ass that she could buy industrial crap polenta already processed in the store for much less than it costs her to produce her own. She cares about the flavor of it (and boy is it different).

I’d estimate that more than half the families of my village are involved in food production for themselves and their family and friends, edibles which range from pork products to honey to one of the top olive oils in Tuscany.

There is where you start your revolution. You convince normal folks that flavor is worth effort and maybe a few pennies. You teach them how to make yummy food out of what’s just on the other side of the door. Sure, you still have your elite food at special occasions, but let’s not lose track of the fact that the common goal here should be to make good food normal.

La Cucina Povera. Yeah, they’ve even got a name for the best kinda food ever lovingly produced in the universe. You can go overseas and see for yourself what it’s all about. Heck, if you’re some big shot in the media with some clout I’ll show you around if you want. I’ve even gone ahead and bought the domain name. Now to find some writers who want to start a revolution from the bottom up.

Why Isn't Good Food Normal?

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