Hullabaloo

Thursday, April 22, 2010

 
It's False Dichotomy Time

by tristero

Man oh man. It is truly galling when liberals use stupid rightwing cliches to bash their own. Case in point.* This is a review of In The Green Kitchen which looks like a very interesting, and very necessary, new book by Alice Waters. The book teaches basic skills, the kinds of skills that used to be taken for granted within families but which, for many reasons (including the fact that it is in Big Food's financial interest to sell us overpriced shit rather than real food), many people no longer know how to do. Like boil water for pasta, or make eggs. I certainly could have used that 1 1/2 years ago when I first started cooking seriously every day and it probably still has a lot of stuff I could use.

This is all well and good, and the reviewer makes a good point about why eggs that cost 50 cents each at a farmers market are worth every penny. She also notes, quite rightly, that many people are surely intimidated by the fancy schmancy cooking of shows like Bottom Chef or whatever they're called and decide cooking is too hard.

But then we get this:

And foodies. Do they feed families? Do they struggle to plan meals in the midst of soccer practice, homework and commutes? No, they can sit around, sip their wine, and consider their ingredients. If they do not have the 1/8 teaspoon of Aleppo pepper they need, they can just change their plans and go out for sushi.

I'm a beginner it is true, but I find the preparation of food, and eating it, a source of tremendous pleasure. I want the food I eat - all of it - to be not acceptable, not good, but wonderful. Why? Because it is so much fun and I get tremendous pleasure from it, as do the people I cook for - my family and close friends being the most typical victims diners.

So for the purpose of this discussion I'll accept the label foodie.** Now, to answer her questions:

Yes, this foodie feeds his family. Every night, usually.

Do I struggle to plan meals in the midst of work and other family obligations? Hell fucking yes.

No, I don't sit around sipping my wine while I consider my ingredients. I do that whenever I'm not working. Consider my ingredients, that is, not sip wine.

And yes, if I don't have the ingredients I need I don't make the dish. But fuck no, I don't go out for sushi. I make something else.

What I'm doing is not elitism. It is pride in craft. Not only will I not apologize for caring about what I do - and I mean really caring - I deeply resent being stupidly caricatured with the clear implication that I shouldn't care about excellence. And what if I did sit around calmly considering what I'd make for my family over a glass of wine? What the fuck is wrong with that? Since when is calm consideration something to sneer at?

This is a false dichotomy. There is no difference in kind between the skills I am learning/practicing/using and the skills and techniques both she and Alice Waters believe Americans need to recapture. I choose, out of passionate interest, to set very high standards for my cooking, but that hardly conflicts - let alone disparages - the thoroughly compatible goals of preparing simple food. Just the opposite. They are identical goals. Like most foodies I know, most of the food I cook consists of great ingredients prepared in a simple fashion. Doing that well requires devotion to craft. That is hardly showing off or affectation. (And what the fuck is Aleppo pepper anyhow? And where can I get some?)

If STELLAA wants to bash genuine elitists, she should start with the wealthy conservatives like George Bush who eat organics but provide tax breaks, subsidies, and special favors to the conventional food industry. These elitists have made it possible for the wealthy factory food owners to afford never to have to eat the slop they sell.

Stop doing the rightwing's work for them. Every single foodie I know works like a dog, the vast majority are best described as solidly middle-class, not by a long shot are they all highly educated, none are wealthy, yet we still find the time to obsess about food AND feed our families.

Bush, Monsanto, Cargill, Smithfield - those are the elitists you need to sneer at. We're on your side, STELLAA, and certainly on Alice Waters'. Leave foodies alone.

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*Yes, I know it's a trivial example and it's just a review of a cookbook, for crissakes. There are far more egregious examples of liberal self-hate than this one.

No kidding. That's my point. We have become so inured to arguing the way the rightwing wants us to argue, to split our natural coalitions, that we can't even recognize it when we're doing it. Here, the reviewer buys into a rightwing trope of the Volvo driving, latte sipping, sushi snarfing liberal elitist. Nonsense. Caring passionately about food and wanting to make it as good as you can is not elitist. It's about excelling at a craft. There are few liberal values as fundamental as this one. To disparage excellence and shame at one's achievements is what conservatives do to sneer and dismiss liberal competence.

I often focus on micro-examples of rotten rhetoric like this one because the larger problems are patently obvious. Or should be. Examples like the one here fly beneath the radar but collectively they hold us back from effective advocacy of liberal values.

** With absolute perfect pitch, liberals have self-chosen yet another foolishly self-deprecating label that conservatives will hang around our necks ("politicaly incorrect" originated in liberal circles as a kind of amusing nudge that something may not meet all the social criteria we might like, but it didn't matter that much, as in, "Pass that politically incorrect bottle of Scotch my way!"). I'll use the term here only because it's easier in this particular context. Since I have no intention of belittling my enjoyment of anything I get so much deep pleasure from, from now on, I will describe those of us who make an effort to cook and eat well as "people who care about food," or something similar.

tristero 4/22/2010 06:53:00 AM |