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Jetlagged Ramble
Nov. 9th, 2009 09:15 pmBack from San Francisco. Seriously jetlagged, especially with the red-eye back in which I probably slept about 4-5 hours across 3 timezones.
One bit of interesting coincidence. Before we left, I bought the new Clinton book -- The Clinton Tapes, which is cool, but really wonky and political (but intriguing, especially with my hate-love-hate-hate-love relationship with #43). We browsed an airport bookstore in Atlanta, and I happened upon The Omnivore's Dilemma, which has been on my must-read list for a couple years, and I just haven't gotten around to it. I bought it, and it was a lot more appropriate to read while embarking upon, and mingling with, various foodies from around the world in San Francisco. I am liking it a lot more than I expected I would.
Pollan quotes Virgil at one point, in which he says that when a culture starts to celebrate chefs, then it has slid into decadence. It reminded me of a book I recently read about the cusp of Rome when it switched chaotically from Republic to Empire, and the shift in cooking that occurred at the same time; from the Republican fetish for cooking simple peasant meals (it was considered a sign of strength and patriotism to eat simply), to the extravagance of the Empire dinners. In a sense, it reflects America with it's early Puritan simplicity to the 101 flavors of ice cream we have today. I'm sure early Massachusetts settlers would be aghast at what we eat today just for lunch.
Yet, there's also another educational shift of importance that America has undergone. A couple hundred years ago up to a few decades ago, if I were an educated American I would have read Virgil and Cicero in the original and made up my own metaphor on American history, instead of inferring it from two popular authors in English with their selected quotes who have done the work, translation, and interpretation for me.
It wraps back to food again, where most of our meals have been preprocessed and removed from the original source in a similar fashion, even the high-end decadent ones that Virgil and Cromwell would have been against merely in principle.
And yet, in Virgil's time or Cromwell's or John Smith's or even FDR's, it wouldn't have been possible for someone to get half their daily calories in a single meal for the payment of an hour's work, no matter how far removed from that food's natural origins.
I don't really have a point, I'm just brain-flitting around a weekend of wonderful food and travel, some interesting and fun people, wrapped with a bit of questioning about how food and industry and nature and modern life all interact.
One bit of interesting coincidence. Before we left, I bought the new Clinton book -- The Clinton Tapes, which is cool, but really wonky and political (but intriguing, especially with my hate-love-hate-hate-love relationship with #43). We browsed an airport bookstore in Atlanta, and I happened upon The Omnivore's Dilemma, which has been on my must-read list for a couple years, and I just haven't gotten around to it. I bought it, and it was a lot more appropriate to read while embarking upon, and mingling with, various foodies from around the world in San Francisco. I am liking it a lot more than I expected I would.
Pollan quotes Virgil at one point, in which he says that when a culture starts to celebrate chefs, then it has slid into decadence. It reminded me of a book I recently read about the cusp of Rome when it switched chaotically from Republic to Empire, and the shift in cooking that occurred at the same time; from the Republican fetish for cooking simple peasant meals (it was considered a sign of strength and patriotism to eat simply), to the extravagance of the Empire dinners. In a sense, it reflects America with it's early Puritan simplicity to the 101 flavors of ice cream we have today. I'm sure early Massachusetts settlers would be aghast at what we eat today just for lunch.
Yet, there's also another educational shift of importance that America has undergone. A couple hundred years ago up to a few decades ago, if I were an educated American I would have read Virgil and Cicero in the original and made up my own metaphor on American history, instead of inferring it from two popular authors in English with their selected quotes who have done the work, translation, and interpretation for me.
It wraps back to food again, where most of our meals have been preprocessed and removed from the original source in a similar fashion, even the high-end decadent ones that Virgil and Cromwell would have been against merely in principle.
And yet, in Virgil's time or Cromwell's or John Smith's or even FDR's, it wouldn't have been possible for someone to get half their daily calories in a single meal for the payment of an hour's work, no matter how far removed from that food's natural origins.
I don't really have a point, I'm just brain-flitting around a weekend of wonderful food and travel, some interesting and fun people, wrapped with a bit of questioning about how food and industry and nature and modern life all interact.
