At the end of a brief break from writing, I lick the last tangy drop of soup from my index finger, set my empty bowl next to the sink, and looks over the aftermath of my home-cooked supper. In a rusting colander, loosely curled ribbons of purple-white turnip peel wrap themselves around a clump of discarded kale spines. Near the back burner of the stove, round seeds from a yellow wax pepper float like flattened coracles on a stream of spilled heirloom tomato juice. At the bottom of my foraging basket, blackened hemlock needles cling to the trimmed-off stipes of golden chanterelle mushrooms. The still-life imagery describes perfectly what I love best about food: humble ingredients and simple preparations which – eschewing artificiality – celebrate the sustainable traditions of the past.
Wiping off the kitchen countertop with a calico towel, I wonder how much of what I love will be retained in our collective culinary future. Will time-honored food traditions prove their durability and relevance in a world which purports to reject such traditions as anachronistic and unworthy of preservation? Or will they slowly disappear, replaced by food products and standards which politicians, bio-tech corporations, petro-farmers, and fast-food empires agree are best for the modern age? The question makes me uneasy. And yet – buoyed by the knowledge that my desires for a simpler, more tradition-based future are shared by a growing number of visionary thinkers, producers, agriculturalists, and culinarians – I see good reason to believe that what I love may flourish in the years and decades to come. Spontaneously, I pick up a scrap of paper and scribble down the names of a few of those who give me hope.
Carlo Petrini – Italian author of Slow Food: Collected Thoughts on Taste, Tradition, and the Honest Pleasures of Food – whose International Slow Food Movement continues to draw attention to the endangered culinary traditions of the past while warning of the pitfalls which attend our deepening fixation on soul-less foods.
Josko Gravner – iconoclastic Friulian vintner – whose commitment to creating and marketing wines made with millennia-old techniques gives the equivalent of a stiff middle-finger to those slick oenological modernists who prefer laboratories and stainless steel to vineyards and clay amphorae.
The late Masanobu Fukuoka – reformed Japanese microbiologist – whose fieldwork and writings on the subject of natural farming continue to resonate and inspire small-scale farmers and home-gardeners with the radical idea that sustainable agriculture sustainably producing sustainable food is essential to a sustainable humanity.
Alice Waters – American chef, author, and educator – whose writings, educational endeavors, and legendary restaurant Chez Panisse, continue to play a visionary role in the burgeoning subculture of those who hold that what we eat should be simple, enjoyable, healthy, and locally produced.
Setting down my quick-jotted notes, I crack a wide smile and feel a new confidence in what will be. Though I can’t deny corporate power, the allure of novel creations, and the global trend toward choosing what nourishes us on the basis of how quickly it may be prepared and eaten, I sense that we are nearing the apogee of what posterity will likely view as a flawed push to reduce whole foods to mere products and formulas. Soon – I believe – we’ll come to a collective realization that preserving and promoting the simple yet richly satisfying food traditions of the past is in our best interest.
Feeling vaguely self-satisfied with the direction of my thoughts, I move from the corner of the kitchen, intending to sit down at the typewriter and commit my ideas to paper. Easing myself into my cushioned chair, I hear springs squawking as the screen-door swings open and shut, tiny tippy-tappy footsteps on the wooden floor boards, and a little girl’s quiet laugh behind me. An instant later, my daughter’s hand reaches over my shoulder and drops a ripe yellow apple onto my lap. Picking it up, I smile, remembering the ripe apples of my own childhood. Rubbing its oxidized skin shiny on the hem of my shirt, I sink my teeth in, taste its sweet juice cool from the evening air and smile again.
“This,” I mumble while chewing slowly. “This is what the future is all about…”
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