Author Urges Consumers to Know Where Food Comes From
Wisconsin State Journal, Nancy Webb
Published September 14, 2006
"Grub" -- as a noun -- is slang for food; as a verb, it means to dig up by the roots, as in grubbing carrots or potatoes.
"Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen," then, is a fitting title for a book that urges consumers to become more conscious of food's roots, more aware that, as poet and author Wendell Berry puts it, "Eating is an agricultural act."
At the same time, co-authors Anna Lappe and Bryant Terry open with the remark, "Some people spend way too much time thinking about food." Guilt-free food that tastes good is what they recommend, over "a dozen kinds of olive oil in the kitchen cupboard."
Lappe both inherited and adopted her food philosophies from her parents, particularly her mother, Frances Moore Lappe, whose "Diet for a Small Planet" in 1971 helped lay the foundation for our evolving contemporary interest in organic food, sustainable agriculture, locally grown and raised produce and meat, and unprocessed whole foods. Frances Lappe used young Anna as a test subject for "Diet for a Small Planet," much as Berkeley, Calif. organic chef Alice Waters created an urban school's "Edible Schoolyard" garden-to-lunchroom project around her own daughter.
Waters was keynote speaker at Madison 's "Food for Thought Festival" when it launched in 2002; this year's keynote speaker, Anna Lappe, 26, represents a second generation of food activists. The festival is sponsored by Research, Education, Action and Policy on Food Group (REAP), a Madison nonprofit intended to "nourish the links between land and table."
That echoes Lappe's mission, not to "lecture you or browbeat you into politically correct dining," but rather, "to know what's wrong with our current food system and how easily it can be made right."
'Grub' origins
Lappe and co-author Terry discovered each other in Brooklyn three years ago when Lappe learned about "b-healthy," the New York-based nonprofit Terry founded to teach low-income youth about alternatives to low-quality food, about cooking and nutrition, and connections between food and community. Sensing that she had something in common with a man who describes himself not only as a food activist but a "food justice activist," Lappe learned Terry lived only blocks away and sought him out for conversations that eventually led to "Grub."
He put together a collection of seasonal menus that include poetry, blessings and meal "soundtrack" musical selections by which to cook, eat, and think; Lappe added informational context for the cookbook and compiled an extensive list of national resources, from where to download a wallet-size guide to pesticides in produce (foodnews.org), to Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group's list of fruits and vegetables that are generally most contaminated by pesticides (at the top of those categories are apples and bell peppers).
"Some of us are so very, very detached from where food comes from," Lappe said in a phone interview from a book promotion tour through Virginia. She recalled a child who guessed grape jelly on a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich must have come from purple jellyfish.
Lappe connects how food is raised and consumed to climate change. While little neighborhood cooperative organic food markets might be a pollution-free bicycle, conventional American food processing is "a fuel-guzzling, resource-depleting Hummer." To further emphasize the size, Lappe cites 2005 data that shows the largest American food processors control 84 percent of all beef packing, 63 percent of all flour milling, 64 percent of all pork packing, and 56 percent of all chicken broiler production. Additional cited research finds that the top five supermarkets control almost half of retail sales.
Living in ironic times
Lappe notes that in the middle of some of America's prime farmland, in the 2,000-population village of Paris, Mo., she could not find fresh food of any kind at any store. "I could defrost Tater Tots or personal-sized pizzas" in a convenience store microwave, or "order a hamburger or grilled cheese from the diner."
Even though finding food in keeping with her health, philosophical and political requirements is always a challenge on the road, the evening we spoke, Lappe had found granola and rice milk. Peanut butter on rice cakes is another standby in places where fresh food is hard to come by.
That irony -- that despite America's abundant "real" food supplies, so many of us subsist on food that has a lot of its nutrition processed out and a lot of its flavor lost during cross-country or cross-world transportation -- is noted repeatedly in Part One of Lappe and Terry's book. Part Two is about moving toward a different model of food consumption: connecting local food with local communities, supporting organic food and "fair" food for which farmers and farm workers are paid just wages; never thinking of food and health separately, and explaining to others why any of this matters. In "Cheat Sheet for the Cocktail Party," Lappe provides a "top 10" list of reasons eating more conscientiously makes sense, as rebuttal to anyone who believes it makes no difference (see related story).
"Food," Lappe declares, "should always move us to a better place."
Here is Lappe's favorite of chef Terry's recipes from "Grub," something she likes because it can be served at any meal, any time of day, as salad, side dish, or main dish. The wild rice can soak in the refrigerator overnight to reduce the already minimal amount of required cooking. The dressing can be made the night before. Ingredients are simple, whole and easy to find anywhere.
Wild-Style Salad
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Inactive preparation time: Overnight, plus 1 hour and 30 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Bonus film suggestion: "Wild Style" (1982), directed by Charlie Ahearn. This is a classic hip-hop film that captures the culture at its birth in the Bronx .
For the salad:
1 cup wild rice, rinsed and soaked overnight in the refrigerator
Coarse sea salt
1 red pepper, seeded and diced
1/4 cup diced carrots
1/2 cup thinly sliced celery
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup cashews, toasted and chopped
For the dressing:
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon pure maple syrup
1 garlic clove, minced
2 teaspoons chopped parsley
Fine sea salt
Freshly ground white pepper
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
To prepare the salad, combine wild rice with 3 cups of water in a medium saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil, add teaspoon salt, reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes or until all the water is absorbed. Remove from the heat, transfer to a strainer or sieve, and rinse under cold water until the rice is completely cooled.
In a large bowl, combine the cooked rice, bell pepper, carrots, celery, raisins, scallions, and cashews with clean hands.
To prepare the dressing, in a small mixing bowl, combine the vinegar, lemon juice, mustard, maple syrup, garlic, parsley, teaspoon salt, and white pepper to taste. Mix well. Slowly pour in the olive oil, mixing until emulsified.
Pour the dressing over the rice and toss well with clean hands. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour to allow flavors to combine. Remove the rice from the refrigerator 30 minutes before serving.
