When in Paris, visit the Tomb of the Unknown Chef
My brother said recently that “Rome fell when they started erecting statues to their cooks.” Emperor Vitellus used to spend over $2000 a day on food, and was the patron of the chef Apicius, who was like the Thomas Keller of his day or something.
Martine posts about Ed putting himself under pressure to deliver resto-quality food when friends come over… and conversely, how his gourmet reputation makes others quake at their own lack of mad kitchen skillz.
On the other hand, with well-publicized books and movies raising the issue further, I think about our cultural obesity/anorexia/bulimia epidemic and have to wonder, have we elevated food above its rightful place?
I don’t think I’m saying anything new if I point out that North American culture has pretty much turned as far away as it can go from the Old World model — where food is a staff of life, simple, basic, flavourful and rich, to be enjoyed but not the be-all and end-all.
No, we Namericans have a well-documented unhealthy relationship with food, seemingly due to deep cultural psychological trauma and of course, a matrix of body images and norms that don’t have to do with reality, enabled by economic subsidies that make bad food cheaper than good food.
We all know at least one exercise-bulimic - the people who eat well but then starve or beat their bodies into submission to avoid the appearance of any sort of flab (or even, ahem, curves.) Food isn’t a normal part of life, it’s a carrot dangled in front of a donkey — a donkey climbing the Andes, at that.
On the other side, people are literally using food (especially fast food) as an opiate; as a dopamine-rich escape from emotional stress, caused by (I say) a generally unhealthy way of living. It becomes a self-reinforcing cycle, because being fat in itself is a source of stress. All bad, bad, bad. We know this.
There is an element of class snobbery to our recent ‘rediscovery’ of Good Food, though. There’s walls of new foodie magazines and books everywhere you turn, and of course FoodTV - the culmination of decades of Galloping Gourmets, Julia Childs, (shudder) Emerils and Wok With Yans right down to Martha Stewart - has more than a twist of fear-based marketing to account for its success. If you don’t appreciate Tuscan cuisine, wines and cheeses you’re a slob; if you can’t Cook Like A(n Iron) Chef you’re a failure. (I like the travel-food shows, though, but maybe that’s even snobbier — travel is for the rich, innit?) But you’ll never see a hard-hitting exposé on how many bits of insect are allowed in your canned mushrooms…(hint hint, buy fresh.)
Well, I think the only way off this treadmill is to Just Say No to Fast Culture. You’ve probably heard of the slow-food movement — well to take that to its extreme we’re going to (eventually, whether we want to or not) have to create, or re-create, Slow Culture as well. I’m going to write more about that later.
But in the meantime, Ed, we officially give you permission not to have to turn out restaurant quality every time. (Even KD a la Blork, we suspect, would be excellent fare.)
May 25, 2004 10:10 AM
Comments
I’m totally for eating healthy. I’m just not sure how to. Can you point me to any sites you might know of?
wrote Alex on May 26, 2004 12:53 AM
Ed — believe me, I always err on the side of aesthetics. :)
I didn’t mean to imply you’d been caught up in some sort of foodie hysteria - far from it. I was using M’s post as a bit of illustration about how even talented cooks can feel ‘the pressure’ or as you put it, challenged when faced with a discerning palate…
The general public now have access to a much greater bank of knowledge about food than ever before. I often note how yogurt, which we take for granted now, was a complete novelty in the 1970s. The SAQ was a sorry affair well into the 1970s until it became the boutique experience we now know. Not too long ago spaghetti was exotic, and now it’s only the poorer groceries that don’t have 48 types of European and Asian noodles on their shelves…
I guess my point, if I have one, is that North American Fast Food culture - and even, to some degree, foodie obsessionists like ourselves - tends to compartmentalize food away from a whole, balanced, active life.
I suppose it’s that Protestant ethic of ‘ye canna have yer pudding till ye finish yer meat’ - it’s a chore, utilitarian, a reward for hard work. We also make much less time for food — witness the rise of PowerBar / cell-phone ‘lunch breaks.” Versus, say, a more cyclical, balanced view of the universe that is biased towards work-to-live, doesn’t mistake urgency for importance, etc. etc.
I guess that’s why I like the travel-food shows better, because you see food in its cultural context to some degree.
wrote aj on May 26, 2004 9:48 AM
Alex -
Eating healthy is really just common sense. At its base level, you really should be able to eat whatever you want, whenever you feel hungry, as long as you are active.
Avoid fast food, preservatives, excessive sugar, artificial colours and flavours and saturated fats (animal fats, hydrogenated oils). Alcohol in moderation, although in this town that can be hard :) Coffee is actually good for you, I read recently….
Eat fruit. Eat more fresh vegetables (raw or lightly steamed to preserve the vitamins, never microwaved). If you can, try to buy certified organic, fair-trade and/or local produce; there are lots of co-ops and organic groceries popping up everywhere, and farmers’ markets are in almost every neighborhood and metro-accessible. (Cote-des-Neiges, Atwater, Jean-Talon, etc.) You can even get organic wines at the SAQ.
In general, try to match your calorie intake to your level of activity. If you’re plunked in front of a computer all day, as am I, you can live with one main meal and two very light meals (snacks optional), or 5 small meals, etc. The fitter you are (the more muscle mass) the more efficiently you burn calories anyway, even at rest, so take that into account.
I’m not a fan of fad diets - different things work for different people - but there’s really no need to go all-out in one direction or the other like all protein, all carbs, etc. etc. My wife and I eat generally vegan (no dairy, eggs, fish, honey, meat or animal byproducts) but that’s a mix of ethical and environmental choices and isn’t for everyone — although I have lost a lot of weight :)
wrote aj on May 26, 2004 10:25 AM
oh yeah, here’s a simple thing to do — eat at ed’s :)
wrote aj on May 26, 2004 10:43 AM
Eating at Ed’s will not make you slim, because it’s hard not to go for seconds (but I know we’re talking about health here, not pounds…).
I can tell you one thing: a boy in a kitchen sure makes a lot of dirty dishes! I’m like Lisa (Blog from a broad) and I could eat on a paper towel to save dishes. And to save water, of course! ;-)
Do like me: never really talk about food on your blog so people will be pleasantly surprised when you can actually toast a piece of bread very well!
wrote Martine on May 27, 2004 12:00 AM
dishes….don’t talk to me about dishes…we have a dishwasher no less, and I’m still always doing dishes..cleaning the coffee maker is the bane of my existence. But i’m addicted, it’s like cleaning my works…
wrote aj on May 27, 2004 1:31 AM
We will have no dishwasher at the new place. No space and really, no need. But I know I’ll miss it sometimes.
wrote Bill on May 27, 2004 8:03 AM
our inherited model is so frickin’ LOUD though. And it puts out an insane amount of heat into the general area. Not to be all consumery, but we’d love to get one of those sleek European models that are whisper-quiet and well-insulated.
wrote aj on May 27, 2004 9:30 AM
By the way, I was paraphrasing this article:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2094567
I wonder if outre’ food is on the way out. Even if we now have six types of vinegars in the pantry, everyone in North America who grew up in the 70s is at heart a frito-eater.
All the trendy people I know knit nowadays. What’s next, meatloaf?
wrote Neil K on May 29, 2004 2:17 PM
Come to think of it, I conflated that article with this one.
http://www.economist.com/markets/bigmac/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=2261775
I have a strangely footnoted memory.
wrote Neil K on May 29, 2004 2:31 PM
Designer meatloaf is already in — there are plenty of restaurants offering spins on ‘comfort food’ favourites - like the aforementioned designer KD.
I find the telling note in the Economist article to be the closing line: “The trouble is that consumers want contradictory things. They want to be healthy, but they also want their food to be tasty, cheap and convenient, all of which point in the opposite direction.”
But the Economist gets it wrong again. Most ‘cheap’ food is actually rather tasteless, designed for long shelf or freezer life. It’s cheap only due to the use of industrialized methods on the one hand, and cheap labour on the other. As I always say, when oil hits $200 a barrel, we can kiss ‘fresh-flown-in-from-Chile’ salad greens goodbye.
We taste-tested organic veggies from stalls at the Atwater Market with their equivalent, cheap variants from Super C next door and the cheap stuff was frankly inedible, and I’m not being snobby — it was just gross-tasting, flavourless, bitter. I’d choose junk food too if that’s what I was brought up to think vegetables were like!
Supermarkets by their very nature can’t get everything right. At their most positive, as large institutional purchasers, they can force change in an industry: overnight, it seems like Loblaws is the biggest purveyor of organic products in Canada. But they’re not cheap. A ‘low price’ supermarket like Super C cannot, by its own stated goals, be the best place to buy veggies. On the other hand, obviously people are willing to sell a certain type of mass market product at a certain price, and this leads, hopefully not irreversibly, to the disappearance of diversity and quality in our food chain…
bla bla bla. It’s all been said better elsewhere, which I’ll get to in my next post.
wrote aj on May 30, 2004 8:34 PM
Actually, KD a la blork is excellent fare!
:-)
I agree that the current discourse about food can go over the top sometimes, but frankly, I prefer that to the other extreme (a la “Supersize Me.”)
As with most things, it’s a matter of not taking it too seriously. It’s simply an aesthetic choice to do something interesting with that piece of fish or fowl instead of just frying it or whatever. It’s aesthetics over utilitarianism, which is OK as long as the utility isn’t lost (as in, as long as the food still tastes good and is nutritious).
The funny thing is that if anyone really paid attention to my blog they would see that the vast majority of the food I write about is based on simple, classic, and traditional recipes. My perspective is all about good food nicely — and simply — prepared. That means fresh ingredients and attention to some details in the preparation. It also means learning the recipe’s history and it’s traditional (or classical) preparations, and modifying them if it seems appropriate at the moment.
But somewhere in there I seem to have developed a reputation as some kind of gourmet, which I am not. As such, when I was cooking for (a) a Parisian who is known to eat well, and (b) his partner (who has “gourmand” in his blog name), then yeah, I felt a bit of pressure. Frankly, I feel pressure whenever I cook for anyone — although perhaps challenge is a better word in most cases.
All that to say, I prefer that my chairs be better-designed than tree stumps (unless they are chairs around camp fires) and my walls be painted something other than white (unless I have a specific reason for white). I prefer my pants be made of nice fabric, and that my house be more than a utilitarian box.
These are aesthetic choices, as was my choice that Sunday night’s salmon be roasted on a bed of leeks and fennel instead of just fried in a pan. But I was worried, however, since I had never made that recipe before so I didn’t know how it would turn out, and I was afraid of over-cooking the fish.
But without that kind of fear and challenge to rise to, I’d end up eating take-out pizza all the time! (Mmmm… Amelio’s…)
wrote blork on May 26, 2004 12:10 AM