Food and Community

Sorry it's been so long since I posted. As it often does, my life got in the way of my life. Various family members came to visit, we had to do two quick days in New York, etc. etc. The following post was actually begun before all this activity. I'm not exactly happy with it, but I'll improve it later.

Up here in Farm Country, it becomes really obvious how food can encourage community. I’d been having trouble articulating this until I saw a wonderful post on the online magazine Grist, celebrating Iowa farm markets. In the middle of a dissertation on how people socialize at the Farmers’ Market while they move as quickly as they can through the aisles of the nearest Wal-Mart, heads down, the author concludes, “It is another way that real food brings us together, while mass-produced food-like substances further divide and isolate us.”

But wait, you’re protesting, I’ve had fun times at McDonalds. I’m not saying you haven’t. But most of the time, McDonald’s—and most other processed food meccas, including the frozen food aisle of your grocery store—exist to indulge people’s need to eat fast and on the run.

Consider Michael Pollan’s description in The Omnivore’s Dilemma of a typical modern American family meal: “Over the course of half an hour or so, each family member roams into the kitchen, removes a single-portion entrée from the freezer, and zaps it in the microwave. . . After the sound of the beep each diner brings his microwaveable dish to the dining room table, where he or she may or may not cross paths with another family member at the table for a few minutes.”

OK, so we’re not all that bad. But lots of processed food is designed to be eaten conveniently in front of the computer or the television, or in the car, and is not conducive to conversation. According to Pollan, in fact, the new holy grail of the processed food industry is a meal you can eat with one hand, presumably with the other on the steering wheel.

Increasingly, we eat alone—as fast as we can. There is little room for dinnertime conversation, or even for savoring the food we eat. In this context, I can better understand the lure of the masses of starch that now masquerade as food. After all, it’s just fuel.