At first suggestion, the idea of a "Food Secretary" to replace the Secretary of Agriculture sounds a bit redundant, maybe even silly, but in his article "Obama's 'Secretary of Food'?", Nicholas Kristof makes a very good argument for redefining the scope and activities of the Dept. of Agriculture.
A shift away from subsidies for industrial food products would be a start. Kristof makes the point that a farm that produces as much waste (not trash, but literally, to be graphic, shit) as a small town is not required to have a sewage system, whereas the town would be. Who pays to clean up that shit? You and I do, via subsidies.
There is a problem with our food system when everything else is more expensive than it was 20 years ago except for meat and poultry. As my husband recently pointed out: Labor is more expensive, storage, transportation and processing is more expensive but meat and poultry are much cheaper.
Think about where that savings comes in. Part of it is subsidies - your tax money going to make your steak cheaper, instead of the apple, for example. Part of it is just gross: treating animals like products instead of like animals, which is inherently shitty, in all the terms of the word.
There is a problem when it is cheaper for your grocery store to give you that unsubsidized apple from across the country rather than from the farmer 50 miles away.
Kristof says many of these things with less cursing and more precise language than I do, but the point remains: why shouldn't this change? For economic reasons, for health reasons, for environmental reasons, why on earth should this failing system be allowed to stay?
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
On Thanksgiving
This year, for the first time, we had family over for Thanksgiving. We had nothing like Hell's Belle's family influx (with parents and a brother-in-law collapsing in a one bedroom apartment), as we only had one visitor and she stayed in a hotel. Still, we had the least predictable and most potentially stressful family member visiting. Not to perpetuate a stereotype, but this member was my mother-in-law, S.
S. and I have a long history, some of which involves mutual antagonizing, and most of which involves the projection of her own emotional issues on me and my relationship. Sometimes happy, stable, eager to reconcile S shows up, and makes jokes and pleasantries. Sometimes angry, narcissistic, eager to cause pain S shows up and wreaks havoc. There's no real way to tell which one will show up.
So I felt some pressure going into Thanksgiving. I felt pressure to make my house spotless, welcoming, and above criticism; a perfect homemaker's house with the traditional trappings, when in reality, my tiny apartment is more like a nest, with the art being personal, the fancy things mostly hidden away (there's not a great deal of storage space), books piled on the floor, and dirty dishes, dirty pots, and dirty counters accenting how well used the kitchen is. I try hard to make it welcoming, and cat friendly, but it's rarely spotless, and rarely perfect. Right now, there are boxes of Christmas cards strewn over the couch, envelopes labeled and piled according to how much postage they will need, and whether I have the current address, and Christmas ornaments waiting to be put on the tree piled on the end table. The cats are crawling about, calm for once. It's a peaceful scene, one I would not be ashamed to share with any friend who came along, but it is also one I would be deeply afraid of sharing with someone who once openly searched for things about me to criticize.
I also felt pressure to create a big, perfect meal, something which really doesn't happen, at least in these terms of perfect, which has little room for error or flexibility. I do screw up, but rarely big enough to be noticed by family (or at least, my big screw ups don't happen when family is around). I'm a decent cook, and I enjoy food, and for a holiday that celebrates not just food but the love of food, I wanted to put my best foot forward. I had my own personal reasons: I wanted the challenge of creating a huge meal without relying on anything canned or overly processed (the only thing that I can remember that I used that was processed was buttermilk powder). I made two kinds of cranberry sauce, squash casserole (with squash I had frozen earlier in the fall), green bean casserole (with green beans I had frozen earlier in the fall), dressing (with homemade cream of smoked turkey leg soup), and pumpkin pie. John was in charge of the turkey. I made way too much food for three people, and we just finished leftovers earlier today (more on that later) but I feared making a reasonable amount might bring criticism.
Fortunately, the kind, reasonable S showed up, and everything turned out beautifully except the green bean casserole - more the fault of the recipe, from Eating Well, which was not all that good. But still, the build up to the holiday, which was made worse by the bad cold I suffered from, was stressful, less because of the preparations and the food and more about the person whom the preparations and food was for.
Growing up, I never understood holiday stress. Then, when someone truly problematic came into my life, when her huge holiday issues began to be projected onto me, and my smallest steps were laid open to criticism, I began to understand the pressures many felt, and the distaste many felt. I find myself approaching holidays with family with a mixture of dread and excitement that turns my stomach. But I try to fight those tensions by remembering one of the most important parts of the holidays:
The Food.
While it may not be a strong response to retreat into food, during the holidays, there is always food to retreat into. Always something to think about, and to want, and to wander into the kitchen in search of. Always something to offer relatives to eat to shut them up. Because nothing says, "Fuck you" like making a meal completely from scratch that you know, deep down, your antagonist could not.
S. and I have a long history, some of which involves mutual antagonizing, and most of which involves the projection of her own emotional issues on me and my relationship. Sometimes happy, stable, eager to reconcile S shows up, and makes jokes and pleasantries. Sometimes angry, narcissistic, eager to cause pain S shows up and wreaks havoc. There's no real way to tell which one will show up.
So I felt some pressure going into Thanksgiving. I felt pressure to make my house spotless, welcoming, and above criticism; a perfect homemaker's house with the traditional trappings, when in reality, my tiny apartment is more like a nest, with the art being personal, the fancy things mostly hidden away (there's not a great deal of storage space), books piled on the floor, and dirty dishes, dirty pots, and dirty counters accenting how well used the kitchen is. I try hard to make it welcoming, and cat friendly, but it's rarely spotless, and rarely perfect. Right now, there are boxes of Christmas cards strewn over the couch, envelopes labeled and piled according to how much postage they will need, and whether I have the current address, and Christmas ornaments waiting to be put on the tree piled on the end table. The cats are crawling about, calm for once. It's a peaceful scene, one I would not be ashamed to share with any friend who came along, but it is also one I would be deeply afraid of sharing with someone who once openly searched for things about me to criticize.
I also felt pressure to create a big, perfect meal, something which really doesn't happen, at least in these terms of perfect, which has little room for error or flexibility. I do screw up, but rarely big enough to be noticed by family (or at least, my big screw ups don't happen when family is around). I'm a decent cook, and I enjoy food, and for a holiday that celebrates not just food but the love of food, I wanted to put my best foot forward. I had my own personal reasons: I wanted the challenge of creating a huge meal without relying on anything canned or overly processed (the only thing that I can remember that I used that was processed was buttermilk powder). I made two kinds of cranberry sauce, squash casserole (with squash I had frozen earlier in the fall), green bean casserole (with green beans I had frozen earlier in the fall), dressing (with homemade cream of smoked turkey leg soup), and pumpkin pie. John was in charge of the turkey. I made way too much food for three people, and we just finished leftovers earlier today (more on that later) but I feared making a reasonable amount might bring criticism.
Fortunately, the kind, reasonable S showed up, and everything turned out beautifully except the green bean casserole - more the fault of the recipe, from Eating Well, which was not all that good. But still, the build up to the holiday, which was made worse by the bad cold I suffered from, was stressful, less because of the preparations and the food and more about the person whom the preparations and food was for.
Growing up, I never understood holiday stress. Then, when someone truly problematic came into my life, when her huge holiday issues began to be projected onto me, and my smallest steps were laid open to criticism, I began to understand the pressures many felt, and the distaste many felt. I find myself approaching holidays with family with a mixture of dread and excitement that turns my stomach. But I try to fight those tensions by remembering one of the most important parts of the holidays:
The Food.
While it may not be a strong response to retreat into food, during the holidays, there is always food to retreat into. Always something to think about, and to want, and to wander into the kitchen in search of. Always something to offer relatives to eat to shut them up. Because nothing says, "Fuck you" like making a meal completely from scratch that you know, deep down, your antagonist could not.
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