Apr 26, 2010 by David
alice waters on slow food and school nutrition
“The mother of slow food.” “The founder of ground-breaking Chez Panisse in Berkeley.” “The biggest influence on food and how it’s sourced and prepared in America since Julia Child.” That’s a significant legacy that Alice Waters, a spirited revolutionary, carries with grace and a deft sense of humor.
Almost a year ago, I heard Alice Waters speak to—and apparently hold in thrall—a packed hall at the tony Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, CT. I was certain that everyone, from students and faculty to farmers from Sheffield, MA to Millertonm, NY residents, heard her call to action. Charge the barricades! Go local! Boy, was I wrong.
Leaders of the food revolution: 17-year old Sam Levin of Project Sprout, Alice Waters and farmer Dominic Palumbo
The Alice Waters Story
Waters first learned about the importance of food in people’s lives while studying in Paris. Eating food together, she saw, “encouraged conversation and closeness.”
For Waters, food should be a “form of sustenance, not just fuel.” She brought that winning recipe to the opening of Chez Panisse in 1971. Her unstoppable search for great tasting, quality ingredients led her to forage for the best sources of cheese, fruits and vegetables, meat and fish in the Bay area. In the process she created a community of 85 sustainable producers that support and nourish her restaurant to this day.
The Siren Call of Cheap and Easy Food
Fast, cheap and easy may be how America eats but it’s an “illusion that degrades our health and our environment.” While changing the food system may seem “like rerouting the Titanic,” Waters has her eye on a stimulus plan and a workforce that could transform agriculture and our health in a relative jiffy.
She’s focusing on the one in five Americans who are in school. Working through her foundation and a receptive Administration, Waters wants to create a curriculum and lunch program to show kids how to raise, prepare, cook, and share the food they eat during the day.
For students at Martin Luther King Middle school in Berkeley, their Edible Schoolyard is just part of their daily lives. Now thanks to students Sam Levin, Sarah Steadman and Natalie Akers, Monument High School in Great Barrington, MA also has its own organic, student-run garden, Project Sprout, which is inspiring others across the country.
Wondering whether or not to start your own food-garden? Then consider these two simple facts: 1) the White House garden cost all of $200 to start, and 2) during WWII more than 40% of the fruits and vegetables Americans consumed came from “victory gardens” planted in urban, suburban and rural communities.
Words Have Power
Waters kicked things off early on with a story about arugula. During the presidential campaign, Obama may or may not have said: ” ‘Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?’ he asked. ‘I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.’ ” Some political pundits even asked what’s wrong with iceberg lettuce. Waters’s take on this cable news tempest? “It’s amazing that it could be un-American to be able to distinguish between salad greens.”
To my amazement, while I was reveling in Waters’s stories and love of food, some students in the Hotchkiss audience were seething. It turns out that a lot of the junk food they loved had been ripped out over the last two years and replaced with food that was “good” for you. Alice Waters was not among friends that day. Instead, she could have had a bulls-eye painted on her chest. Finally, here was the person responsible for the degradation of “our junk-food supply.”
The Q&A period was tense. The first question from a student was typical: “Hey, I’m from New York and you want us to take up urban farming? Where are we going to do that? In Central Park.” It went on from there.
But the interesting thing is that, as distinct from the typical speaker who charms and then leaves, the Waters speech kept students talking for weeks. And it made me think that words have extraordinary power. Why should “foodie” be a pejorative term? What’s wrong with being enthusiastic about your food and the people who produce it? Or eating arugula, for that matter? But in America “foodie” carries connotations of elitism, even to an audience of students whose annual tuition cost approaches the average American household income.
So how do we create a positive and productive conversation about food in America? Start by listening. Then talk, a little, as reasonably as you know how. And then hand a fresh, locally grown peach to your skeptical friend: It’s worth a thousand words.
Further Reading
Is Organic Food Just for Rich People?
