Reinvigorating the presence and purpose of food in our daily lives involves a few easy steps, writes JOHN McKENNA
IN HIS INTRODUCTION to René Redzepi's astonishing cookery book, Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine, the artist Olafur Eliasson says pointedly: "Food is so commonplace".
He then writes: “Think of a tree. Some people will see it as an object in the landscape . . . but the tree is not a detached object . . . the tree is part of the earth’s lungs and is therefore inseparable from its surroundings.”
It’s an analogy that is beautiful, powerful, and very useful as a philosophical way of thinking about food (as well as trees, of course). For so many of us, food is just commonplace: fuel more than anything else, something whose process is endlessly repetitive, something we unthinkingly advert to everyday.
But if food and cooking bores us, and we want to reinvigorate its presence and purpose in our daily lives, then what if we stole an idea from those forward thinking San Francisco actor- anarchists from the 1960s, The Diggers, who asserted that food should be “an edible dynamic”? How can we make food and cooking – and shopping – an “edible dynamic” in 2011? Here are some ideas.
FOODWORK IS EVERYBODY’S WORK
By foodwork I mean the whole shebang of shopping, preparing, cooking and cleaning up. If all the foodwork in the house is left to one person – Mum – then what happens is that Mum gets tired, cooks repetitively, and everyone’s quality of life suffers. What every cook loves is someone who peels the spuds, empties the compost or brings out the bins, and washes up without having to be asked. If everyone has a part in the house’s foodwork, then everyone eats better, and lives better.
FORAGING IS THE NEW FASHION
Those men and women you see walking stoop-backed along sea shores, or wandering through woods carrying baskets and Opinel knives, are the early adopters of the most fashionable food trend going: foraging. Finding your own food in the wild, from puffball mushrooms to rock samphire, is not just great fun, it’s also the best way to understand the world we live in.
We are lucky in Ireland in that the best book on sourcing and cooking with sea vegetables was written by an Irish woman. Prannie Rhattigan’s 2009 book Irish Seaweed Kitchen tells you everything you need to know about the original health foods, all that lovely kombu, dillisk, carrageen and so on. But let’s agree to lose the weeds word: these magnificent sources of goodness are vegetables, not weeds.
SWITCH OFF THE TELLY
Some 40 per cent of Americans watch television programmes during meals, and I suspect we may not be so far behind. At best, this means that you will spill a lot of food on your shirt. At worst, it is the most profound disrespect to the food you are eating. Anyhow, you can record anything on TV nowadays, so if you really want to watch it, record it and save it for later.
CREATE YOUR OWN FOODWAYS
By foodways, I mean the routes by which you source and shop what winds up on your plate. You can do this the easy, boring way – give all your hard-earned money to a supermarket chain. Or you can do it the fun way, by creating your foodway, a network of people from whom you shop, and to whom you give your money.
Ideally, your vegetables will be part of a box scheme, you will pay into a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) scheme, you will shop at a farmers’ market or at a farm shop, as well as buying specialist foods online, and you will know the source of everything your money is spent on. A decade ago, it was difficult to do this. Today, believe it or not, it is very simple. Oh, and your foodway also repairs our crushed economy.
CUT BACK THE PROTEIN
We eat too much meat and, in doing so, we sideline the importance of everything else on our plate. Eating less meat is good for your health, and equally good for your cooking. Respect that turnip!
COOKING IS THERAPY
Just as a tree is more than just a tree, so cooking is more than just an act to put food on the table. Cooking is therapy. So, when you are doing one of Jamie Oliver’s 30-minute masterpieces, think of it not as work, but as a half-hour workout, 30 minutes of meditation, 30 minutes of therapy. Who needs shrinks or gyms when there is dinner to be made.
GET BEYOND THE BARCODE
This is the catch-phrase of the American locavore movement, and it’s a beauty. How much of your food shopping doesn’t have a barcode? The fewer, the merrier.
THE TEMPORARY DEMOCRACY OF THE TABLE
This is a phrase from the American political scientist, Janet Flammang, and given that we all support democracy, what better way to do it than at the dining table.
Quite simply, says Flammang, it is when we partake in the “temporary democracy” of the table that we learn civility – sharing, taking turns, making conversation, helping others, discussing the day, being citizens, enjoying food, being family. The family that eats together, I will wager, is the family that is smarter, and funnier.
John McKenna is author of the Bridgestone Guides, bridgestoneguides.com
