No Math Requirements

On August 19, the New York Times published an op-ed by Stephen Budiansky entitled "Math Lessons for Locavores" on the economic fallacies of eating local produce. It's a useful counterpoint to increasingly popular arguments by locavores about the costs of eating foods outside of an ideal radius (this ideal radius -- what is considered local -- isn't set in stone. I've noticed it getting smaller and smaller as the idea of locavorism catches on.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/opinion/20budiansky.html?th&emc=th

The author acknowledges that there are a lot of good, completely valid reasons for locavorism. He just objects to sustainability-based arguments revolving around the transportation costs of non-local food. As someone who enjoys a long drive into the Virginia countryside in search of perfect peaches, I concede. Yes, the economics of driving 50 miles to connect with farmers or inspect ideal chicken housing presents something of a disconnect -- if I copped an attitude about the superiority of what I was up to. I've seen this attitude at the Dupont Circle Sunday market. Like Budiansky, I don't care for it.

While knowing the math satisfies my inner debunker, this sort of math doesn't figure into my decision-making about food. I don't eat locally because it's the right thing to do for the environment either -- no dis to the environment, of course.

Economics figure into my rationale and ethics about eating locally. I want small farms to succeed. I buy local food to protect local businesses. But this isn't the main reason I prefer local food.

For me, eating locally is more about my identity (professional and personal) than sustainability ethics. It's akin to the reason I avoid restaurant chains (unless they're local chains), big box stores and national retailers. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with big businesses (unless they're blighting a cultural landscape). I just generally have better experiences -- better service, better food, more interesting options -- with smaller businesses and small local farms.

Buying local food from (or near) the producer is also a form of recreation and connection for me and my husband. The more I'm learning about food through research for this blog, and in my kitchen, the more interested I am in food shopping outside of grocery store environments. If our combined per-hour rate were applied to the time we spend shopping for and preparing local food, we'd probably be spending about $800 a pop for a home made, locally-produced caprese salad.

When I open our BTU-gobbling refrigerator and see the fruits (and vegetables) of our latest outing, it's all personal, a temporary edible album of the last few weeks. Ethics, arguments and math don't figure.

Home Ick

Image: Home economics class, 1948. Courtesy Museum History and Industry, Seattle, Washington, Seattle Post Intelligencer Archive, No. P125646.

Making the most of leftovers was a common topic in ladies' journals and home economics manuals back in the days when women didn't outnumber men in the workplace. I remember "home ec" being offered in high school but didn't give it a second thought. I took typing or computer programming to satisfy my vocational course requirements. Home ec didn't comport with my AP course load or world view.

I was young and biased. I didn't have historic perspective. And it was the 1980s -- too close to the June Cleaveresque stigma attached to advanced, professionalized domesticity for a would-be neurosurgeon. I did not become a neurosurgeon, by the way. I became a cultural historian and historic preservationist with a strong appreciation for old-school values -- like thrift -- combined with environmental values -- like not wasting stuff, including perfectly good buildings and perfectly good food.

The current drawn-out recession has gotten a lot of historians and journalists busy looking at precedents in the Great Depression. Obama's New Deal type stimulus package drew obvious comparisons. The Chicago Sun Times published this great piece on cooking during the Depression last year:

http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/food/1388298,FOO-News-depress21.article

The author, Leah Zeldes, does a good job of comparing the relative economies of home ec then and now, and sketches a brief but compelling picture of how people made do in the 1930s. She also promotes a book on the topic, Dining During the Depression by Karen Thibideau. The full title pretty much says it all, literally: Dining During the Depression: Strong Family Ties, Hard Work and Good Old Fashioned Cooking Sustained People During the 1930s. Updated recipes included.

During the course of my foraging research, I read about how Depression-era cooks supplemented their diet with dandelion greens and similar -- generally prepared with large amounts of bacon fat. Today, dandelion greens and other foragables are being eaten by people who can afford store-bought greens but use foraged plants because of their extremely high nutritional value. But that's another topic (for more on this, I recommend visiting Linna Ferguson's online foraging 101 slideshow:

http://www.slideshare.net/vafoodscaper/common-wild-edibles

I came across the book How to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher in the bibliographies of many books about foraging and food, including Susan Allport's The Primal Feast: Food, Sex, Foraging and Love (Backinprint.com: Lincoln, NE) 2000, 2003. M. F. K. Fisher was a rock-star food writer in the mid-20th century. The book is a contemporary counterpoint to the dreary gourmand-unfriendly realities of the Depression.

Fisher penned How to Cook a Wolf in 1942, amidst wartime shortages in the US. She and her husband had recently returned from studying in Dijon, and her perspective on wartime American home economics reflects her fresh continental experience.

Fisher's wit cuts through the dull "three squares on a budget" mentality prevalent before and after the war. She notes that the ideal three squares create waste (too much food for an average person). She advocates eating small portions of better quality food throughout the day, supplemented with a good wine if you've got it. She lived a long and prolific life dedicated to artful living and died in a house built for her at a California vineyard.

Sigh. More inspiration for today's economizing foodies. No wonder her books are still in print.