yearofplenty

My Take on Ethics of Eating - More grace needed in current food debates

Last week I was a panelist on an Ethics of Eating event at Sante' restaurant in downtown Spokane and today's edition of the Spokesman Review has an article on what transpired. The in-person event, pictured above, was organized in response to a heated virtual debate on Facebook over the fact that Sante' serves foie gras. You can look on the Sante' Facebook page for a run down of the debate. Local TV news even did a story on it. Here's one of the critical comments posted on Faceboook:

You will never have our business/patronage because I now know you serve foie gras. And we will never recommend your restaurant to local friends or out of town guests. In fact, we will tell them about your inhumane offerings and I'm sure they will decide the same, as our friends are all animal caring people. In your quest to serve haute' cuisine and be a Cosmo restaurant, you have shown us that you have made unethical choices to seek your customers. With many other dining options, our money will be spent elsewhere. Shame on you for putting money above the suffering of ducks and geese.

I personally really enjoyed the event, especially hearing from Jeremy and other leaders in the Spokane sustainable food community. There were not any strident critics in the audience but there were some good questions from vegans about the justification for killing animals when other alternatives are available. I explained that I find those arguments a lot more compelling than I used to, although I am not yet convinced. I appreciated that the audience expressed a genuine desire to learn about food systems and the my fellow panelists responded with a gracious desire to inform and inspire people to learn more. I guess the big surprise was that the in-person event was such a pleasant dialogue compared to the rancor and bitterness of the online lobbing of accusatory grenades. The online ethical debate around food has taken on an almost religious character, with the puritans on one side and hedonists on the other.

This is one of the reasons I have been compelled to explore actual religious traditions around food. I have suspected that the religious-like debate around food systems might actually have something to learn from actual religious food practices. We've spent the last four months following kosher food laws and Orthodox fasting rules. We celebrated the end of the Orthodox Lenten fast last Saturday with the midnight Pascha service at Holy Trinity Orthodox church. 

I plan on writing extensively about what we have been learning but there is one aspect of the Pascha service that I found especially helpful for current debates around food. In the Orthodox church the fasting rules for Lent are very strict. On most days there is no meat, no dairy, no oil, no fish, no eggs, and no alcohol. On days where there is an evening celebration of the eucharist the strict rule is that you abstain from all food and drink until receiving the communion elements at the evening service. We followed these rules closely but there is a wide range of observance in the Orthodox church, with many loosely observing the rules and many not observing them at all. One of the ethical questions around these food rules in the Orthodox church is how to deal with the diversity of practice given an ethical ideal. This is the same question that faces locavores, slow-food advocates, vegan evangelists and the rest. 

At the Pascha service I learned how they deal with this diversity of practice as they prepare to gather around tables and celebrate the Paschal feast. Their approach is summed up in their reading of the famous sermon from St. John Crysostom which opens with these words:

If any be a devout lover of God,
  let him partake with gladness from this fair and radiant feast.
If any be a faithful servant,
  let him enter rejoicing into the joy of his Lord.
If any have wearied himself with fasting,
  let him now enjoy his reward.
If any have laboured from the first hour,
  let him receive today his rightful due.
If any have come after the third,
  let him celebrate the feast with thankfulness.
If any have come after the sixth,
  let him not be in doubt, for he will suffer no loss.
If any have delayed until the ninth,
  let him not hesitate but draw near.
If any have arrived only at the eleventh,
  let him not be afraid because he comes so late.

For the Master is generous and accepts the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him who comes at the eleventh hour
  in the same was as him who has laboured from the first.
He accepts the deed, and commends the intention.

Enter then, all of you, into the joy of our Lord.
First and last, receive alike your reward.
Rich and poor, dance together.
You who fasted and you who have not fasted, rejoice together.
The table is fully laden: let all enjoy it.
The calf is fatted: let none go away hungry.

When it comes to sharing in the abundant feast of lamb that follows the Paschal service they make no distinction between those who come first and those who come last, those who fasted strictly and those who didn't fast at all. (See Jesus' parable of the workers in the vineyard for the theological background to this.) My orthodox friends model this approach throughout Lent by not talking openly about their individual fasting practices so as to avoid pride and the divisions that it cultivates. In the midst of the most strict food rules I've ever encountered they somehow manage to offer grace instead of judgment. 

The fullness of the gospel expressed in the invitation to the table at the Paschal service can't be reduced to a simple lesson, but it does offer a provocative vision of what it looks like for a community to gather around food practices, which might be helpful for food activists filled with religious zeal for their cause:

Instead of identifying all the people (or chefs) that they'll never share a meal with, how about a grace-filled invitation to gather around the feast table, seeking community and relationships, knowing that these relationships are the foundation for more ethical practice.

Instead of exalting the puritans and hurling accusations at the unfaithful, how about an acknowledgement that we are all sinners caught up in a fallen food system. 

Instead of prideful proclamations of approved practices, how about a humble stance that lifts up ideals but avoids creating a culinary class system. 

I'm glad for the face-to-face gathering at Sante' last week. It felt like a generous invitation to gather around the table in the diversity of our practices to learn and grow together. I look forward to more such conversations.

Top food trends to look for in 2012

The James Beard Foundation has up a list of trends for the coming year from a chef's perspective. They include:

New Nordic Pantry
Chefs are hopping on the Noma-inspired New-Nordic-Cuisine train and are reaching for these ingredients: sea buckthorn (a tart orange berry), wood sorrel (a plant with heart-shaped leaves), bark flour (made from real trees), and evergreens (such as Douglas fir). To wit: a recent Douglas fir eau-de-vie sighting on the menu at GT Fish & Oyster in Chicago.

Locavorism, Redefined
Taking his lead from the Cook it Raw crew, Charleston’s Sean Brock is striving to revive the cooking of the South’s antebellum period, teaming up with foragers and historians to rescue heirlooms from obscurity or extinction. We’re hopeful that his efforts will spark a similar curiosity in chefs working in other regions of this country.

Cooking with Douglas fir? Foraging? I like it.

Here are the 2012 food trends from Phil Lempert at Food and Nutrition Science that include higher costs, more male shoppers, and the ethnic food revolution. My favorite:

Trend #4: Increased emphasis on the “Farm to Fork” journey

Shoppers have become increasingly interested in knowing where their food comes from, which is why 2012 will bring an added emphasis to a different kind of food celebrity – the farmer. Last year we saw sales flourish among grocery retailers who jumped on the movement among consumers to “buy local.” In this age of transparency, interest in the farm to fork journey has grown considerably, inspired in part by food safety scares and more importantly a desire to know how the food we are serving our families is being produced.

This year, we’re seeing more farmers get in on the action. A growing number of farmers are leading the conversation by using blogs and social media sites to bring the story of the American farmer to consumers. According to the American Farm Bureau’s 2010 Young Farmers and Ranchers Survey, nearly 99% of farmers and ranchers aged 18 to 35 have access to and use the Internet, and nearly three-quarters of those surveyed have a Facebook page. Additionally, 10% use Twitter and 12% post YouTube videos. In fact, 77% of those surveyed view this type of communication as an important part of their jobs as farmers and ranchers. In September of this year, the United States Farmers and Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) launched an annual $11 million program designed to open the dialogue with consumers. Expect to see more advertising and television programs starring these real food experts (versus actors pretending to know their food).

And according the big New York J. Walter Thompson Ad Agency this will be the year of food-waste consciousness. From their 2012 things to watch for slide show here is one of their meta trends:

Food as the new Eco-issue: The environmental impact of our food choices will become a bigger concern, driving greater brand and consumer awareness and action around Curbing Food Waste.

I predict that in 2012 we'll see a growing interest in food and food traditions from people of faith.

Chipotle Video "Back to the Start" Advocates for Farmers, Food Movement

This is worth watching.

Portable raised bed farm made from milk crates takes root in New York

An enterprising restaurant in New York has developed a farm to table garden on the dormant construction lot next to their location. According to a Fast Company article, "The farm now contains 7,400 milk crates and over 100 types of plants. Riverpark currently gets about 25% of its produce from the farm, but expects to get more soon."

It's a ingenious design created out of the necessity of not being able to dump large amounts of garden soil on the temporary site they had secured.

Ortuzar and Zurofsky presented their quandary to ORE Design and Technology Group, which proposed the milk crate idea: Staple a piece of landscaper fabric (a material that allows air and water to pass through) to each milk crate, and fill it with soil.

There is now truly no excuse for not growing some of your own food. All you need is a milk crate, a piece of landscape fabric, and a litle dirt. I love it. Now all we need is a design for a milk crate chicken coop.

Sante Restaurant in Downtown Spokane Offers Healthy Mix of Local Food

Sante is the French word for health. Jeremy Hansen, owner and chef of Sante Restaurant and Charcuterie exemplifies a holistic health in the way he runs his pioneering establishment next to Auntie's Bookstore in Downtown Spokane.

Jeremy grew up in Spokane and has been in the restaurant business since he was a young teenager, cutting his teeth at the Mustard Seed and other area kitchens. He eventually attended Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Portland where he not only honed his skills as a chef, but formed a philosophy of food and community that eventually gave birth to Sante.

Sante is remarkable for the way it sources foods locally. Hansen is pictured above processing the half of a steer that was just delivered that morning by Gary Angel of Rocky Ridge Ranch. Most of the beef and other meat at Sante comes from this nearby farm. Jeremy points out that not only is Gary's beef superior in quality because of the feed and care Gary provides, processing beef in this way also makes good business sense. By cutting out the middle-men he makes a good profit, Gary get's a good price and a reliable market for his beef, and the consumer gets a choice meal at a reasonable price. This is a great example of Jeremy's uncompromising pursuit of holistic health. Everyone wins, including his employees who apparently are paid well above average for Spokane area restaurants.

Sante is not only a restaurant, it is a Charcuterie, which is the area of cooking that involves preparing meats like the sausages, bacon, and prosciutto ham pictured to the left in the restaurant's display case. Jeremy was telling me that he really had trouble making good prosciutto with the pork that was available through commercial channels. He said, "When I used Gary's Berkshire pigs it came out comparable to the finest hams available in Europe. The quality really is dependent on what the animals eat. When we eat animals we're really eating what they ate." All of the items in the displays case are not only used in meals for diners, they are available for bulk purchase. They even make their own mustard which I saw being prepared in the kitchen. I imagine the steady stream of income from these items is the envy of every restaurant in Spokane.

There is one other unique aspect to Sante that was a great surprise to me. While it is in many respects a fine-dining establishment, the space they've created is warm and welcoming, even to a guy like me who wants to plug in a computer and do some work while he eats. They have a counter with outlets and stools that connects the restaurant with the book store and free wifi. I had the toasted-cheese sandwhich that included an egg and a couple of slices of their house bacon. It was fantastic and was in the Red Robin range of prices.

Needless to say I'm impressed. While many talk about the virtues of local and sustainable food, Jeremy and his wife took their life savings and are turning those virtues into a sustainable business. Spokane is a healthier city because of their efforts. If you're giving a gift certificate for Christmas this year, Sante should be high on your list of candidates. They are open for breakfast and lunch, 8am to 5pm, 7 days a week. They are open for dinner Wednesday through Saturday till 9pm.

 

Happy Meal News: McDonald's + Ant Farm = Art and A Happy Meal Is Forever

picture: Richard Perry, New York Times

Artist, Elizabeth Demaray, has put together some unlikely eco-art titled “Corpor Esurit, or we all deserve a break today," currently on display at Exit Art Studio in New York. Pictured above,forcing the ants to live off happy meals for a month is supposed to be a commentary on the way the food chain suffers under our fast food habit. The ants are cooperating (and mostly dying) but some scientists aren't cooperating with the cutting edge eco-art vibe. Read about it here.

In other Happy Meal meets artist news, photographer Sally Davies is 140 plus days in her project to take a picture every day of a McDonald's Happy Meal until it decomposes. If past efforts are any indication she may want to specify someone in her will to carry on the project after she dies. Back in March, Nonna Joann, at the Baby Bites blog, celebrated the first birthday of a happy meal she purchased and it was still going strong. Then of course there was the woman with the 12 year old unchanged Happy Meal burger.

But Morgan Spurlock's experiment from Super Size Me had different results, with nasty fungus on the Big Mac and Filet-o-fish althought the fries were unchanged. I think it might have something to do with moisture and condiments. If you dry out any food it will last a long time. If you tie up a happy meal in a plastic bag it will go nasty. Maybe someone needs to put all of this to rest and do a control experiment on several happy meals under different conditions. Maybe that can be a Year of Plenty contribution. And then when it's over we can put the remains in the chicken coop and call it art.

McDonald's "We Buy Local" Campaign Lures Locavores, Critics Call It "Localwashing"

McDonald's is getting on the local food bandwagon in the state of Washington with what they are calling the "We Buy Local" campaign. If you go to their nifty website with a map of the state of Washington you'll find a picture of a potato, an apple, fish, and milk indicating that these are all locally sourced products at Washington state McDonald's restaurants. They have a fact sheet touting the statistics and billboards plastered around Seattle with a picture of french fries under the headline; "Served in Seattle, Grown in Pasco."

Adweek is quick to note the skeptical response;

...a small disclaimer appears at the bottom: “Participation and duration may vary,” which has some industry experts categorizing the campaign as "localwashing.”

Eric Giandelone, director of food-service research at Mintel, said the inclusion of the disclaimer on the billboards leaves McDonald's open to criticism because "[the chain] isn’t spelling out percents or numbers that we can verify." Giandelone cited a campaign for Chipotle Mexican Grill, which promised to increase its locally grown produce from 35 percent in 2009 to 50 percent in 2010, as part of the “Food with Integrity” program. In fact, Chipotle redesigned nearly all of its marketing efforts in 2010 to reflect that goal.

I have to give them credit for the creative effort. They've basically cherry picked the items on their menu that happen to be grown in Washington, a state that is big into the local food movement. Of course most McDonald's throughout the country sell french fries from potatoes grown in the Northwest, fish sandwiches made from fish harvested in Alaska, and apples grown in Yakima/Wenatchee. They are not actually changing any of their practices to make them more sustainable or healthful. They're taking a convenient present reality and slapping the brand "local" on it. The one benefit is that it does educate Washington consumers about where their food comes from.

If they're really going to win me back to eating at McDonald's I'd like to see some sourcing information on every food item on the menu. For example, I'd want something that tells me where the beef comes from in their hamburgers.

In general I think this is a good sign that local food is moving more and more into the mainstream consumer conscience. I'll get excited when I hear that McDonald's has transformed their national distribution network into regional foodsheds and that they actually are changing food acquisition practices. For now a little educational "localwashing" will have to do. If the campaign is successful in Washington I wouldn't be surprised to see some version of it rolled out in regions across the country.

Rise of the "Pay What You Want" Restaurant

Panera Bread, an emerging chain restaurant behemoth, has jumped on the "pay what you want" idea with some concept stores where instead of paying a bill customers are told to "take what you want, leave your fair share." As the NY Time reports it;

Some will call it a hot trend, others a pipe dream, but the notion of letting diners choose what they pay for their meals has been gaining traction over the last decade as an outgrowth of the organic food movement and the advent of social entrepreneurs — those who believe that making a profit and doing good are not mutually exclusive.

The intention is that these restaurants will take in enough cash to cover their expenses. If money is left over, restaurants embracing the concept say they plan to use it to help needy people by feeding them or giving them jobs.

The One World Spokane restaurant is based on this same concept, following the lead of One World Everybody Eats in Salt Lake City;

Founded in 2003, One World Everybody Eats in Salt Lake City is one of the oldest pay-what-you-want restaurants, and like Mr. Peretz, its operators have found the concept a bit challenging. It is now owned by a nonprofit group and suggests customers pay a small amount, say, $4 for a meat or fish entree.

“I used to let people put their money in a basket and make their own change, but then I went to a lockbox,” said Denise Cerreta, the cafe’s founder. “You learn how to cut down on the people who will take advantage of the concept.”

About 15 to 20 of the roughly 60 meals it serves each day are given away to needy customers, some of whom wash windows, sweep or break down boxes for an hour or so in return. “They leave here with a full stomach and feeling like they earned their meal, which is the idea,” said Giovanni Bouderbala, the head chef and director. 

The general theme of much of the media attention I've seen both in the Times article and in the article the Spokesman ran a couple months back is that the model can be a bit perplexing for customers. (Note to Spokesman Review: It's easier to find your article on One World Spokane by using Google than it is using your web site search function. Actually I couldn't find it on your in house search interface, but Google returned it as the top result. Just some friendly feedback.)

Rod Dreher describes his angst about the concept;

On second thought, I wouldn't go to this restaurant because of the new set up. Too much of a head game. I would pay too much, for the reason I just mentioned, but would then spend a postprandial hour or two afterward hating myself for being a chump.

I'm having coffee tomorrow with one of the folks from One World Spokane. I'll follow up with some of their perspective on this growing trend.

South Perry Pizza is "A Piece of Heaven"

I'm experimenting with posting from my Iphone so you've been warned - expect even more typos and random apostrophes than usual.

I took the girls to South Perry Pizza last night for daddy-daughter night. I didn't realize that the Spokesman Review had a feature article on it in yesterday's Food section. I've been wanting to go for awhile and when it won best pizza in this year's Inlander I have felt somewhat obligated to support there amazing effort to keep Papa Murphys out of the number one spot. (I pledge to eat faithfully at any Mexican restaurant that can unseat Taco Bell in next year' contest.)

The restaurant was buzzing with conversation and even had a short wait. The waiter said that it was a pretty normal night for them. There were other families with kids and older couples out for dinner and single folk hanging at the bar. The open airy feel and the simplicity of the menu create a sense of participation for the diners in the flow of the kitchen from dough ball to old fashioned tossing to sliding it into the oven and finally plopping it on your table. I love to watch the kitchen in restaurants and you don't have to sit at the bar to do that at SPP.

The thin crust pizza was enjoyed by all but the highlight was the pizza oven warmed brownie with four dollops of homemade ice cream. Lily, my 8 year old, proclaimed mid mouthful, "This is a slice of heaven!"

Something tells me this will be a favorite destination for daddy daughter night. We've come a long way from McDonalds play place days.

Note: typing this on my Iphone has been like writing words with a pen in my mouth. Bring on the Ipad. Forget all that stuff I said last week about new stuff not making you happy. :)

Is Digital Media Actually Worse for the Environment Than Paper Based Media?

Don Carli has a provocative article up at the Mediashift site. His basic premise is that "going paperless" may not be as virtuous as we think it is, given the far reaching environmental impacts of digital media;

Public opinion polls show that concern about the environment rises and falls based on the state of the economy and other factors, but concern about the negative impacts associated with using paper and printing continues to rise. Nothing captures the essence of these feelings more vividly than the signature line appearing at the foot of more and more emails: "Please consider the environment before printing this email."

This seemingly well-intentioned call to action, as well as others like "Sign up for paperless billing, help the environment and save trees" confront consumers with a false dilemma and present a forced choice that may have unintended consequences. The false dilemma is: "By using paper to print your email or by receiving paper bills you are knowingly degrading the environment, destroying forests and/or killing trees." The forced choice is: "Eliminate your use of paper or feel like a guilty hypocrite..."

He argues that we tend to assume digital media is virtuous because its environmental impacts are hidden, disconnected from the use of our computers or Iphones or massive energy sucking data centers powering our gmail account. He shares the following startling statistics;

America's adoption of networked broadband digital media and "cloud-based" alternatives to print are driving record levels of energy consumption. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the electricity consumed by data centers in the United States doubled from 2000 to 2006, reaching more than 60 billion kilowatt hours per year, roughly equal to the amount of electricity used by 559,608 homes in one year. According to the EPA that number could double again by 2011.

He links to a site (iLoveMountains.org) that will help concretize the connection between our energy use and mountain top removal coal mining in the Appalachians. I tried my zip code and it found no connection between Spokane's energy use and coal purchased from mountaintop removal operations, probably because of our reliance on power generated by dams. I queried my old zip code and Houston and there is a strong connection there as illustrated by the map below the site generated.

I agree his premise that the use of paper is not inherently evil from an environmental perspective. I'm sitting across the street from Inland Empire Paper company and I know they have an outstanding record of managing the forests that supply their fiber. I also know that they have made huge investments to reduce emissions into the river.

I think in the digital age we have to be careful of a kind of Gnostic dualism, where we exalt all things digital as if they have no environmental impact and demonize all things material as if they ruin the world. The article is a good reminder of that and worth reading through as a whole.