food culture shock

Listening to the class’ food adventures from over the weekend it became increasingly clear, as Dr.’s Schwartz and Underwood pointed out, that here in New Orleans we having a thriving food culture and a strong local food ethic. It is in our culture as southern Louisianans (or adoptive southern Louisianans) to value our local seafood and produce harvests, we tend to eat by the seasons, oysters and oranges in winter, crawfish and strawberries in summer. This value for food has, I feel, lent itself well to the business for alternative food stores like Whole Foods, New Orleans being one of the first sites of the company’s expansion, because these stores also tend to value selling local harvests and flavorful organic foods rather than processed “junk”. It’s easy to become a bit of a food snob here. Rather than opting for a lot of chain restaurant and convenient store goodies we are attracted to the goods at our local restaurants and pursue gourmet tastes. Perhaps this is why when I moved from New Orleans to Saint Louis last year I was faced with a complete food culture shock. Gone were the ambiences of local mom and pops. Instead, we’d drive to hit up the local Steak and Shake, or the McDonalds a block away from that, or the intimidating Taco Bell/Pizza Hut hybrid, a popular option for those with the late night munchies. Being from New Orleans, I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten fast food, and I have to admit, I was probably a little snobby about it. I definitely felt like a food snob. Even when I did try to eat out with my mom at the local restaurants I yearned for that heavy southern spice that permeates the food here, no matter what style. Before moving to Saint Louis I had never really been faced with the concept of going out and receiving a “bland” meal. I had never thought about a restaurant being a hit or miss experience because, at least in my experience, when you go out, even if it’s not what you expected, it’s usually still pretty good. But alas, in Saint Louis fast food is the best bet if you’re on a budget, which we all were. So I ate it. And it was good… Well, good enough. I only felt a little bit like a sellout. It’s great to be able to eat with some greater consciousness of where your food is coming from, to have some refined taste for seasonal delicacies like tomatoes and strawberries, crawfish, oysters, and crab, but out there in the real world, the big bleak Midwest, it’s just not “the jam” to have a strict food ethic. My mom is a vegan so my house was always the Whole Foods house and nobody liked to go there for snacks. I was raised eating foods lower on the processed spectrum, veggies and organic wheat pasta. I never realized the pretension. I don’t blame anyone for not being into celery and rye crackers; they all wanted Cheetos. Which is fine, but I like hummus and celery.

Don't trust images just like that!

Be more deliberate where your food comes from! One thing I learnt during this food experience. I do not want to eat vegetables that are highly treated with pesticides, so I can't just grab the next tomato. Already before this I bought organic food whenever possible, but did not really pay attention to the fact that it is often from far away. And it is often hard to track the food. Honestly, I was a bit shy to ask the staff – I did ask, but it cost me quite an effort. I don’t exactly know why, maybe because it is such an ‘unusual’ question to ask at the coffee shop where the muffin was made and where the ingredients came from. At the same time, I felt kind of silly that I considered it as an ‘unusual’ quest. Should not it be the most ‘naturally’ thing to ask? I definitely have to work on that.
For the last question, I concentrated on the atmosphere created at a location. At WholeFoods, there was a clear attempt to create a “green” atmosphere, a close connection to what we conventionally call nature: the first items I saw were herbals, flowers, fruits, and vegetables. The vegetables closer to the entrance were unpacked to create an even more “fresh from the farm to you” image. However, different types of lettuce were from California and Georgia,, and the blackberries from Mexico. Not very local. And at CC’s, which also emphasizes the local aspect and familiarity, I was told that the Coffee Cake probably came from New England, “somewhere close to Boston.” So much about the New Orleanian/Louisiana connection. This taught me: do not believe in images created by companies just like that. Because of this, I started researching the brand of my “USDA organic” oat flakes I eat with milk, nuts, and fruits for breakfast almost every day. Here is the information given about the local sources: “Arrowhead Mills sources more than 70 percent of our ingredients from local farmers, with fully 90 percent coming from North America. Our protein-rich Hard Red Winter Wheat is grown on farms within 100 miles of our headquarters in Hereford, Texas.” Well, North America is a continent…But I have to say that these oat flakes nonetheless really taste better. Last semester, I once made the mistake going to Wal-Mart. Never again! The oat flakes were without any substance and flavor. This tells me: most of the time, I am willing to pay more for a better flavor and product. See the story I told about the bread on Monday.
We often talked about the issue of time concerning the time we “save” when we take the plane instead of the train or just heat up something in the microwave instead of preparing a meal. Being at WholeFoods,, I got the impression that people really took their time, no one seemed to be in a hurry. Contrary, CC’s is a place where you literally buy your coffee and cookie “to go.” And although there are tables and seats to stay, there are no reusable dishes. I sometimes find myself eating something on the way. I try to change it.

Irritated and annoyed by Kingsolver...

Did anyone already continue the Kingsolver reading? I'm kind of angry right now because I did...Throughout the novel, she more or less explicitly says: buy locally. Reduce the carbon footprint of your foot. Buy locally. Eat in season. Buy locally....like a mantra. I really like her writing style, the slight irony, and some of her descriptions make me want to harvest my own tomatoes and strawberries or to go and cook my own super delicious meal. But then chapter 15-17 happened. First of all, she flies with her husband to Italy on a vacation, and does not say anything about the fuel used by the plane. Being in Italy, she does not have huge problems to talk with natives about food for hours though she does not speak Italian. Her strategy: " I was going to be one of those Americans who traversed Italy with my forehead knit in concentration, divining words from their Latin roots and answering by wedging French cognates into Italian pronunciations spliced onto a standard Spanish verb conjugation" (244). I mean, really? I do not deny that there are some similarities between these languages but this upset me. It sounds so arrogant. Camille, by the way, seems to fly frequently, too...
And then, there is the chapter about celebration days. They prepare a large Thanksgiving meal but unfortunately do not have any cranberries because they grow farther north. And what do they do? They buy cranberries from Wisconsin because they think they really need them for the dinner. I can understand that some things are so traditionally important that you do not want to miss them. But it kind of goes against her philosophy. Oh, and their wheat is also not very locally grown but somewhere from Virginia...Kingsolver admits that it is frustrating not having a mill that meet their demands close to their town. But still.
I can follow her argumentation. As Kingsolver says, they are "converts in progress, not preachers" (282). But on the other hand, does not she always preach the high value of locally grown food, the value of preparing a meal together with the whole family? I feel badly tricked and cheated. These might be small things, but they highly irritate me and weaken my belief in the rest of the story.
A last thing, completely unrelated to the food: I'm not a very religious person, but it annoyed me how she kind of tauntingly talks about Christian religion and its holidays. It's okay if she does not believe in it, I don't believe in everything either, but should not she at least respect it?
Sorry for being so picky, maybe she just caught me at a bad moment, I hope it is going to be better in the last part.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/04/coastal_restoration_project_is.html

Coastal restoration project is ill-advised, St. Bernard residents say

By Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune

April 20, 2010, 9:55PM

David Grunfeld, The Times-Picayune archiveThe Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet and Intracoastal Waterway, looking west toward New Orleans, were photographed in August 2009.

Plans by the Army Corps of Engineers to build a freshwater diversion across an open stretch of land in St. Bernard Parish to restore wetlands and cypress forest areas in New Orleans, along the closed Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet and Lake Borgne ran into criticism from St. Bernard residents at a public hearing Tuesday night.

"This is not going to build any land, and a freshwater diversion is not going to re-create the Biloxi marsh," said Robert Campo of Campo's Shell Beach Marina. "The first line of defense, people, is rebuilding the damn barrier islands.

"This is going to screw up recreational fishing, going to screw up our marina," he said.

The new diversion would be part of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet Ecosystem Restoration Project, authorized by Congress to restore wetlands damaged during the operation of the MR-GO until it was closed last year.

Corps project manager Greg Miller explained to an audience of about 75 at the Holy Angels Convent in New Orleans that the diversion would be designed to reduce salinity throughout the 6,000-mile area stretching from Lake Maurepas to Gulfport, Miss., to the mouth of the Mississippi River.

However, the diversion will be of a fairly small amount of water -- only 1,000 cubic feet per second for 11 months of the year and a pulse of 7,000 cubic feet per second during May.

Salinity levels would be restored to pre-MR-GO levels of about 15 parts per thousand at the outer edge of the Biloxi marshes and about 5 parts per thousand in northwestern Lake Borgne, according to computer modeling conducted by the corps, Miller said.

Since the MR-GO was built, much saltier water had reached as far west as Lake Borgne, exacerbating wetlands loss and resulting in more saltwater species being caught in what were once freshwater areas.

If successful, the diversion canal would move water from the Mississippi River just south of Meraux toward Lake Borgne, with some of the water funneled into the Central Wetlands Unit, sandwiched between the levee along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the MR-GO and the populated areas of the Lower 9th Ward, Arabi and Chalmette.

That area was a mix of freshwater wetland and cypress swamp before the MR-GO was built. Construction of the shipping shortcut from the Gulf of Mexico to the Industrial Canal in New Orleans killed much of the cypress, The corps plan would include moving sediment dredged from the Mississippi or the GIWW into the Central Wetlands Unit to provide a platform for three sections of restored cypress and a large border of freshwater wetland grasses.

The plan calls for creating about 9,500 acres of cypress swamp in that area.

Sediment also would be dredged from the center of Lake Borgne, for use in rebuilding wetlands along the lake's shoreline, including the Golden Triangle at the junction of the MR-GO and the GIWW.

During construction, the project would require temporary bypasses to be built for St. Bernard Highway and Judge Perez Highway and a railroad track, with construction expected to take between 2 ½ and 3 years.

The corps hopes to release a draft of the study and a draft environmental impact statement by the end of May, Miller said.

More information about the project is available on the Web atwww.mrgo.gov.

Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3327.

Michael Specter: The danger of science denial | Video on TED.com

Michael Specter: The danger of science denial | Video on TED.com

On GMOs and science and the difference between that and unsustainable practices

"We live in an age where only unnecessary things are our only necessities."-Oscar Wilde

For the sake of clarity and precision, I must define the “natural world” and the “artificial world,” for both concepts have become increasingly vague and overused. In my judgment, the “natural world” must be broken down into two categories: the simply “natural” and the “natural proper.” The word “natural” by itself means “existing in or derived from nature, having a real or physical existence.” If one looks up this word in a standard dictionary, the definition, for some odd reason, consistently excludes humans, wrong-headedly suggesting that humans are not a part of nature when we do exist in and are derived from it. Undoubtedly, we are carbon-based creatures. Around 99% of the human body is made up of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. Then, the standard definition goes on to state that what is processed, made, or caused by humans (who are natural beings) isn’t natural either. Elementally, what excludes something human-made as plastic from being natural since it “exists in nature and has a real physical existence” and is composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc?

On the other hand, the “natural proper” is the state of nature where complete ecological units function as systems with little to no human intervention, including all vegetation, animals, microorganisms, soil, rocks, atmosphere, and “natural proper” phenomena (volcanic eruptions, weather, and decay). Wilderness is a perfect example. It’s often idealized and romanticized, described as a Platonic perfection. The distinction between the “natural” and the “natural proper” is an important one because human beings alter and modify their environment like no other species on Earth. When it comes to destruction, of course, we’re not as powerful, as say black holes or supernovae—but as a species with reason and the ability to make ethical decisions about our environment, we have a moral obligation not to harm the Earth.

In truth, there can be overlap between the natural and the artificial. The “artificial world” can be “natural,” but never the “natural proper.” The artificial is basically the built environment: man-made surroundings that provide the setting for massive human activity, ranging in scale from personal shelter to a Manhattan skyline. It has two subsets: the positive and the negative artificial. The positive artificial includes human-made materials that create a balance between our survival and environmental conservation: medicine, x-rays, MRIs, sustainable architecture and agriculture. In contrast, the “negative artificial” includes human-made materials that are unnecessary and over-lavish for our well-being, which are harmful to us and the environment: oil, plastics, paper mills, large gas-guzzling vehicles, electronics, batteries, aerosol sprays, planes etc.

I routinely return home for spring break to Lake Charles, LA, a moderately-sized, southwestern Louisiana port city. While there, I constantly felt as though I were saturated in a negative artificial environment, which was unfortunate, largely because such a state was preventable. Lake Charles is the parish seat of Calcasieu Parish, first organized in 1840. The now-extinct Attakapa Indians originally occupied the area. But in 1781, the French were the first recorded Europeans settlers. Interestingly enough, the infamous pirate Jean Lafitte held a base of operations in the city. By the 1850s, a bemoaning timber and cattle-industry had turned Lake Charles into a fast-growing parish seat. But slightly west of the city, another industry would contribute to its growth; that is—the oil industry. This was the moment when the city completely turned itself into a negative artificial environment. It had a lot of potential to become a “natural proper” environment, given the abundance of freshwater marshes, bayous, marshlands, lakes, cheniers, wild alligator populations, and other teeming wildlife: 28 species of mammals, more than 300 species of birds, monarch butterflies, 39 species of mosquitoes, and 13 species of fish. Further, rice, sugar cane, soybean, and cattle comprised the extent of farming in Calcasieu parish. This city used to be more rural and anti-urban, a condition which could easily transition to a more sustainable living space. Instead, as is the case almost everywhere in the U.S. in the 21^st C, it was turned into an unnecessarily, over lavish mechanized space. A society loses its rural nature once endless rows of commercial restaurants and retail chains, along with multinational oil and gas corporations, replace quaint local businesses and green space.

Heading west from New Orleans, I-10’s large, concrete legs buried themselves in LA’s swamps, bayous, and rivers. The monolith, a decadent living area for oil, grease, and coolant, stretched for miles. When I returned home, I noticed numerous everyday practices that impact our environment: holding the refrigerator door open for too long, cranking the A/C, lacking a recycling program, carbon-emitting vehicles, keeping cell phone chargers plugged while not in use, etc.

When it comes to my land ethic, I wholeheartedly agree with Leopold. In like manner, the land ethic “cannot prevent the alteration, management, and use of these ‘resources,' but it does affirm their right to continued existence, and, at least in spots, their continued existence in a natural state.” Secondly, the role of Homo sapiens should change “from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it.” It can be argued that Descartes laid the modern philosophical foundations opposing the above view. Thirdly, we need to end our separation from the land by middlemen and by unnecessary physical gadgets and other barriers ( iPods, Blueray DVD players, shopping malls, Wal-marts, asphalt, concrete, steel, utility poles—I call them electrical crucifixes). More than ever, we need a vital relationship to the true land. As well, we need to examine each ecological question in terms of what is ethically and aesthetically right, not only in economic terms (economics shouldn’t determine all land-use. “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.” Lake Charles has failed to abide by this land ethic by building golf courses, paved roads, casinos, and, lastly, oil refineries—PPG, Conoco Phillips, and CITGO. These three refineries are primarily thought of in economic terms, never ethical terms. If they weren’t, it would be nearly impossible to justify the petrochemical wastes found contaminating the Calcasieu River and the estuarine environment. In 1994 Condea Vista leaked about 47 million pounds of highly carcinogenic ethylene dichloride into the river, and then tried to cover up. Most of it drained into the Gulf. Or in June of 2006 when the CITGO petroleum plant released between 15,000 and 18,000 barrels of oil into the Calcasieu ship channel. How can one justify that PPG averages more than 2,000,000 Ib of air pollution nationally? Petroleum production and petroleum products have contributed to air and water pollution, disturbing Louisiana’s fragile wetlands (LA has lost up to forty square miles of marsh per year for several decades). While the river’s diversion is a primary cause of wetland loss, canals dredged for navigation in support of oil and mineral extraction have allowed saltwater to penetrate into previously fresh marshes. Leaking underground storage tanks that may pollute groundwater and create noxious fumes haven’t helped either. Energy from carbon-based fuels such as oil and gasoline produces carbon-dioxide, now a major cause of climate change. Lake Charles could change this by not only switching to renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, water, biomass, or geothermal, but also by practicing energy conservation.