No, really. What is safe to eat?

After writing the previous post I have been thinking a bit more about the idea of cleanliness of food. Specifically, I began thinking back to my time in India and a common concern I found while speaking to folks there. Opposite the general American viewpoint, there was a bit of skepticism about the cleanliness of packaged foods there. While initially confused by it, I eventually came around to see that the skepticism as pretty understandable. Food has been coming to us as just plain food for millennia - and then suddenly it began to be forced into plastic pouches and frozen lumps - the sudden change should make people a little wary. While packaged foods have existed for decades, the real onslaught of industrialized food in India is relatively recent - only since the Indian government loosened intense protectionist policies against foreign corporations in the early 1990s - and consumers are still warming up to the idea.

Several folks talked to me about the idea that Indians like to know what is happening with their food from start to finish. These suspicions are relatively well founded - there have been a number of incidents of tainted foods in the country in the past. Poor regulation of pesticides and insecticides, use of food colors which cause cancer or other serious ailments, unstable refrigeration make many foods, etc., etc., etc, all make food which you haven't produced yourself a bit suspect. Even minimally processed foods like flour are subject to scrutiny, with horror stories about various adulterants being slipped in to save a couple of pennies.

Additionally, there seemed to be an inherent mistrust into just the notion of packaging foods. Even without the practical fears from contamination like have historically existed in India, there is good reason for a visceral hesitancy to eat products of industrialization. Food is inherently raw. Coming from the soil or being cut out of an animal, food is something which is gladly decomposable - it is in being able to break down that food is actually edible to us. Spoilage is practically inherent to the notion of food. Things which bacteria, maggots, or rats can eat are more likely to be things we are interested in eating as well. Making a food such that other creatures don't want to touch it should be a warning sign that something might not be right.

It's this healthy skepticism has meant that companies have had to do some convincing to get Indians to eat industrialized food. The most apparent result of this quest is the somewhat absurd labeling on packaged food there - much like that on western foods describing various (supposed) health benefits to eating a product - but instead described how sanitary and clean the food is. This reassurance is needed because really, who knows what is in them? In France, I have begun to notice that at many retailers there is an emphasis put on the idea of traceability. Some products, restaurants, and bakeries are bragging that they can provide complete documentation showing the origins of each of the ingredients in a food they sell. Whether it is as needed in France as it is in India is up for debate, it is more interesting simply that consumers feel as if it is necessary here.

I feel like in some backwards turn of events Americans want as much distance as they can from what they eat - vegetables shouldn't come to us with a trace of dirt on them, they need to appear at the supermarket looking as if they sprang full-grown from the head of Zeus. Meat that we have seen raised, slaughtered, or cut is often seen as gross or disturbing. While some foods can be eaten with your hands, generally it is felt that food in the West needs to be handled with metal instruments so that they touch as little of us as possible. Many an American omnivore profess to me that they believe that ignorance is bliss, but really it's just a way of delaying or distancing unhappiness. Due to the sorry monotony of the American diet we lack a palate able to discern the difference between good and evil in our meals. This allows the transition from consumption of food to nutrient supplying (and sometimes not even that) nonfoods to march on at an ever increasing pace.

What is safe to eat?

One of the most pronounced differences which I see in the difference between how Americans and Europeans look at their food is in terms of food safety. In the US, food safety regulations are relatively stringent in the last stages of preparation - in the kitchen - but virtually non-existent or unenforced on the farm or in factories. In Europe, things seem to be just the opposite - restaurants have little regulation while farms have strong rules on what can and cannot be grown. Talking to the French about their food, they wonder why someone would ever worry about refrigeration, but are shocked that I have been (inevitably) been eating genetically modified foods for the past decade and I am not dead.

I guess one of the surprising facts is that Americans do want stronger regulations on food - they are simply unwilling to make the government do anything about it. Consistently there is support for the labeling or banning or genetically engineered foods, surveys show for support for country of origin designations, and Americans overwhelmingly oppose the approval of cloned meat, yet the government just bowed to industry pressure to allow it and all else. Americans are clueless about where our food comes from and what it contains because the government keeps it that way. However, you will (usually) see hairnets, washed hands, and food stored four inches from the floor because the government takes a special interest in all the little things being done just right. While recalls of millions of tons of tainted foods from poor factory conditions are becoming regular in the US, you are protected from the harmless hair which may fall from the head of the fellow making your sandwich.

I have had several French people tell me that they thing US health code is hypersensitive and ineffective.* A little bit of the right dirt never killed anyone. With a much less centralized food system, if something does go wrong it effects dozens, maybe hundreds, but rarely the millions that it can harm in the US. They are committed to this idea of decentralizing problems with good reason. Mad cow seems to have made a much greater impact on the psyche of people here than it has back home. A problem was identified - the cutting of corners in the cattle industry leading to animals being fed major components of the nervous systems of other animals - and a solution was found - stop it, test for it all the time, and make there be repercussions. With any other potential risk which rears its head, the government here is sure to make sure that things are tested and regulated before things go wrong rather than trying to make up for them afterwards.

I don't know where to place the origins of this strange divide. Why do Americans need all their soaps to be anti-bacterial (even though the small amount of anti-bacterial does not clean hands any better than regular soap) yet don't take a stand and demand that our food processing system clean up and decentralize? For lack of a better place to direct blame, I will say it has something to do with the American individualist notions of responsibility vs the collective lovefest generally favored by Europeans, but just a guess... Until then, I will brush the dirt off of my baguette, made from wholly traceable and safe ingredients.

*A theory of health that says that low exposure to bacteria helps promote a healthy immune system. The American style sterile environments breeds weak immune systems which are knocked out easily by a rogue bacterium, hence Americans being generally less healthy today because of (not in spite of) their ever increasing cleanliness.

Every Day Should Be a Holiday

I will be the first to admit I am not too big of a holiday-fellow. And my friends, tired of hearing me complain about the omnipresence of Christmas and the such, will be the first to confirm it. These past 292 days since I left home have been largely without holidays. My birthday was a couple days after I left home. I went to dinner in a Mexican restaurant and accidentally ordered a steak, my first beef in eight or nine years. The Fourth of July was greeted with a somewhat ironic celebration by the American Expats at CIMMYT where we tried to eat as stereotypically American as possible. Halloween and Thanksgiving were, of course, nothing in India. Christmas had a little cheer, but wasn't a real big celebration, just a larger meal than normal at the homestay I was at. New Years was celebrated with gusto, but with the large number of frightening Indian fireworks present, I did nothing to celebrate and instead hid in my room as war raged on outside. Today is Easter, but to walk around in Paris, you wouldn't know it. I saw a man eating a chocolate rabbit, but otherwise, nothing.

It's a bit odd to admit, but I am starting to miss holidays a bit. I tried to get into the holidays of where I have been. In Mexico, I found out how you should properly celebrate the Assumption of Mary - burn things you are wearing. In Thailand I walked into the King's Birthday celebration, and it was quite elephant filled, but it took me a good chunk of time to even figure out why there were so many animals in the streets (and I still wonder why so few people were watching them march about). I was in India during Diwali - the celebration of lights - but because those lights took the form of scary fireworks sometimes being hurled from rooftops towards me, I again hid in my hotel room. Along the way I have been around for many minor holidays, but with the obscene number of saints worshiped in Mexico and gods in India, it was hard to keep track of them and none seemed to have a clear message I could relate to.

I guess overall my trouble has been that without holidays I am having a hard time remembering what the date is. Those overly commercial days of celebration are good for that, and apparently in cultures worldwide, burning things...

New Home Redux

I don't know why several weeks ago my stolen internet wouldn't allow me to upload photos, but today it is, but I have finally posted pictures of my little French home. A nice place to be, if I do say so myself.

The Saucier's Apprentice

So, this past week I began my long anticipated apprenticeship. It's been a whirlwind of French and baking detail - with lots of ups and downs already. There are some things in my life which I am not sure that I will ever be able to quite capture to words, and this may be one of them. I spend eight hours standing, watching, working, trying desperately to understand everything which is being told to me. At the end of the day I am tired, tired, tired. My hands are dry and sore. My mind is whirling from the French. My knees and back aches. My belly, however, is full of bread of my own hands. So much to say, maybe by breaking things down into bullets I can make more sense of all of this. Yes, bullet points:

- Best interaction overheard by coworkers:
Scene: The baking table is placed so that passersby can watch us form bread loaves from the street through a large window, but that window also allows us to look out on the intersection in front of us. Many funny things happen out there, but one day two egregiously skinny women walk out of Starbucks across the street.
Baker 1: Look! The anorexics! (everything in French has an article in front of it, but this made the statement sound even more bizarre)
Baker 2: Oooooo.... (disapprovingly)
Baker 1: They are so skinny. It is not healthy.
Baker 2: They are too skinny.
Baker 1: They do not eat much bread.
Baker 2: They do not eat bread. Bad for the boulangerie, the anorexics.

- I will refrain from making comments about my own bakery, but make a general statement that health code in Europe and America have little-to-no overlap. In fact, though I spoke to someone at the ag fair last week who insisted that there is a health code, I am yet to have seen any evidence of it in restaurants, bakeries, and shops. Probably my favorite example of the troubles here occurred while I was buying some chicken last week. I went to the neighborhood butcher and asked for a chicken breast. He picked it up with his bare hands, put it in a plastic bag, then took my money, and gave me change, all in one fell swoop, no sink it sight. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Everyone thinks it's strange I spend my time cleaning things when I am waiting for another task.

- Baker 1, who I have been working with for most of the time, had been admonishing me for doing lots of things wrong (think overly precise ways of folding dough or how to properly stretch the gluten skin on a firm ball of dough), so I have been working hard to try to imitate everything he does. Though I have done these things before, he does them differently, Frenchly. Being young, he has clearly never worked with someone who doesn't speak perfect French before and gets real frustrated when his poor instructions aren't followed exactly. When working with Baker 2, he shows me the way he does things, which is different from Baker 1. Going back with Baker 1, he tells me what I am doing is wrong, though it is what Baker 2, his superior, has told me. When I point this out, both shrug. Baker 1 continues to admonish me for doing what Baker 2 does and fails to do the things he himself had admonished me for having done.

- Another beloved interaction:
Baker 3: What is the American's name?
Baker 2: Nathan.
Baker 3: He does not speak French.
Baker 2: He speaks some French.
Baker 3: He does not speak French. He is American.
Me: I speak some French.
Baker 3: He does not speak French. (Goes on to talk about me in French as if I were not five feet away and and understanding him.)

- It's good eating, working in a bakery. I have made it a goal to try eating everything we make - which as it turns out is quite a few breads and pastries. Day by day I am making it through, but along with my quest to eat in other bakeries in my time off I am quite full of bread all of the time. Luckily there are so many good things to put on bread in this city and I have a limitless appreciation and stomach for baked goods.

- Forming loaves of bread all day, I have quickly remembered what doing repetitive tasks is like. I am whisked back to my time at Deep Springs; dreaming about times gone by and making up conversations which will never take place in my head. Neither good nor bad, but makes me wonder if I ever want to pursue a career which involves doing the same thing hundreds of times a day.

- This is my first job where I have a uniform (cute little hat, apron, white polo shirt, and checked blue pants (my internet still is failing to allow me to upload pictures)) and my first where I am standing all the time. I sorta dig the uniform (though because there is no mirror at work, I haven't seen myself in it...) but not the standing. The lack of chairs combined with the low counters has been giving me a bit of an ache in the back. All of the workers find it quite amusing I am a giant.

- Because I am the only native English speaker around, when a tourist comes in (the bakery is apparently in Fodors and some Japanese guidebook) and wants something complicated, I get to play the role of vendor. So far I have gotten to help navigate a needy American woman around the things with meat in them and helped a Japanese woman find a heavy bread. Being a translator makes me feel smarty smart.

(I am not actually a saucier's apprentice, I am a baker's apprentice, but I thought maybe if you read that with an English accent it would read like Sorcerer's Apprentice, so it would be a clever pun. Did it work? Yeah. That works. I think)

Nine months out

My third quarterly report:

Dearest Watson Foundation,

My final two months in India were a welcome transition from my first two. Moving to the South gave me an interesting perspective on how large changes in region have on the character of the country and gave me a much greater appreciation for the diversity of agricultural practices and dietary habits and how they are both shifting. I will be the first to admit that India is not on the shortlist of places I want to spend the rest of my life, but I recognize I learned a lot through the ups and downs I went through there and am glad to have decided to stay on and visit the organizations and places I had planned to.

My first stop in the South was Kerala. For better or for worse, the state is India's most developed. Kerala boasts both rates of literacy and diabetes which rival or exceed the West. With the help of one saintly contact I was able to meet with a smattering of organizations which are working on a wide range of projects up and down the coast. I spent three weeks in Kerala, two talking with a number of organizations which have begun to help with nutrition education and preserving traditional farming practices in the region. Keralans historically consumed a local variety of rice which has recently been given up in favor of imported grains. Higher prices for spices, urban encroachment on rural areas, and the development of a postbox economy are only strengthening this trend. Studying how North Indian, Chinese, and Western diet have all begun to adapt and replace traditional foods was a fascinating endeavor. These changes are an ongoing and clear example of what happens to a culture’s diet during development. The people I met there presented a fascinating range of responses to the problems such changes create.

On a personal level, health issues continued to distract from my project at times. Though the stomach illnesses which I had faced during my first two months in India subsided after I entered the South, other problems came up to fill the space. While in Kumily, checking out the spice and tea plantations which provide much of the agricultural income of the state, I had an unfortunate run with a dog - and subsequently a series of run ins with a number of needles to protect against rabies. While heading to breakfast one morning, two street dogs were fighting and/or fornicating on the street. A shop owner picked up some stones and began tossing them at the mutts to try to get them away from his store. One of them escaped the barrage by cowering near me and when I gingerly put my foot out to keep the dog away from my person, it clamped on. The bite was relatively superficial, but broke the skin. I was quickly able to find a hospital with the vaccine and get cleaned up, but both in the sluggishness the shot provides as a side effect, and the fact that the course of shots runs over two months, it has been a bit of a drag. Additionally, getting to France, an itch which had begun in my final days of India became enough for me to get it checked out. A French dermatologist diagnosed me with a fungal infection and possibly a case of mites. Both of them seem to have been killed off by a two week regime of pills, aerosols, and caustic lotions, but I have become paranoid about even the slightest twitch. All in all, I am thankful that I came away with no lasting ailments. Seeing such visible health problems which exist in many parts of India, my maladies seem quite minor.

Crossing to the East Coast and the state of Tamil Nadu I finally stumbled upon the ‘middle path’ of Indian development. I sometimes think of my time in India as having been a crash course in the perils of development. As I learned more about the human cost of mistakes made by those trying to help, I became frustrated by the two sides which seem to hold the most sway. The pro-capitalist contingent denies that anything is wrong with the speed and effects of change on developing countries. The back-to-the land movement attacks any change as cultural genocide. Talking with the MS Swaminathan Foundation I finally found someone who was willing to look at issues seemingly without an outside agenda. They don’t come off as preachy, admit the mistakes of the past, and are willing to look at dynamic solutions for a better future. Rather than viewing problems as development vs. conservation, the foundation is tempting to tackle both. It brought good closure for my time in India to study the work the MS Swaminathan Foundation is doing. The MS Swaminathan Foundation finally gave me a sense that progress not only can be made, but is being made.

I spent my final week in India in Mumbai. The city was a welcome change from time I spent in other Indian cities like Delhi and Chennai and itt was also an interesting peek into how fast India is developing. Everything and anything exists in Mumbai - from the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich. There I really internalized the Sisyphean nature of learning about India – any fact you learn to be true, with enough time, you will also learn that the opposite is true. Despite the hectic nature of the city, Mumbai is doing well in preserving its local food culture through a variety of means, but also adapting to changing market demands. I left India just as confused as I entered it, which I guess is a fitting reaction; any notion that I had figured out India would have been an oversimplifying what the country truly is.

My entrance to France has been wonderful and strange transition. I think in many ways I buckled down in India. I reconnected with the mantra that people learn the most from uncomfortable situations, so being comfortable in France - even enjoying myself - I almost feel like I am cheating. I have to remind myself that it's okay to be not just learning, but having a good time too. Eating, talking with people, and exploring have all become so much easier since landing in Europe.

I have found that coming to a place which is so much more similar to my home than any other country I have visited; it is sometimes hard to remember just how different it is too. Trying to understand how a more socialized government like France’s works (and trying to explain to the French how individualistic America is), but also trying to poke my toes into the complexities of the European Union has been fascinating. Attending the national Agricultural Salon I was able to make contact with a wide variety of branches of the government, labor organizations, and farmers and I have begun to understand a bit more about how they manage to preserve local traditions in the face of large growth.

As a more hands-on (or stomach-on?) mission, I have been spending a lot of time touring the boulangeries of Paris and making small talk with the folks behind the counter trying to get a handle on what and why they make what they make. The laws surrounding baking and milling are so much more complicated and exacting here than they are in the US and the products show for it. Once you know what you are looking for, consistency and quality are fairly well assured thanks to the strong controls put in by the government.

This past week I have begun really getting my hands dirty with an apprenticeship at one of the boulangeries in Paris which is working to preserve traditional means of baking. Already in the first couple of days in the back room I have begun to feel the relief of cooking something which is so much more familiar than the other breads I have been studying on my trip. I am really happy to be gaining practical skills, to have settled in a cooking community, and to actually have a solid place to be for a little while.

Being in France has also put an interesting cap on the transition of languages for me. In Mexico I was trying desperately to learn Spanish, but rather than being disappointed in my failings, I was constantly finding myself proud and surprised by how well I was doing with the small amount of Spanish I had studied. In India, despite my attempts at learning some basic Hindi, I eventually resigned myself to asking help of others and accepted often needing to find those who spoke English to be able to make it through. In France I feel as if I should be able to make it through with the amount of French I know. For the first time in my journey I am working almost entirely in a foreign tongue and I had forgotten how exhausting it can be. Trying to read the newspaper and having a conversation or two can wipe me out. My French is just on the cuff of being good enough, but improving already. Despite the occasional instance where I am confounded by a miscommunication or long for an easy conversation in English with a native English speaker, it has been wonderful to flex my language muscles.

I am really excited for the final leg of my journey. I feel like my project has followed a wonderful arc and is heading towards a good conclusion. As I finish up my time in France and likely drift southwards towards Italy, despite all the meals and miles covered, the excitement of travel still remains.

Sincerely,
nathan leamy

Seeds in the News

Anyone who isn't living on some remote arctic island should have heard about the big news in seed banking this past week - and heck, considering the story, even those confined to desolate arctic islands should have heard about it. The story is that the Global Seed Vault has finally begun accepting donations. Housed in big ol' bunkers on an island that Norway lays claim to up near the North Pole, this seed vault hopes to serve as a backup for the untold number of seed banks which exist world wide. The news itself is likely only exciting to those who like seed banks (cough, cough) but the implications of the creation should interest anyone who eats plant derived foods.

Seed banks are generally created because there is fear that a species or variety of a species is in danger of extinction. Seed banks come in all sizes: some are small collections by private enthusiasts, some are government or non-profit enterprises which hold thousands and thousand of samples. While private collections rarely have enough samples to be preserving those crops which are right on the brink of extinction, they often are the ones keeping heirloom or rare breeds actively grown. Governments and non-profits are where the real genetic gold mines are. Trouble is that of exclusive rights and potential risks. Organizations get to decide who can look in their vaults, and with all of your seeds in one basket, if one of these storehouses goes under, it could mean literally thousands of species going extinct instantaneously. When Baghdad was wrecked, the seed banks there went down with all the chaos. Precious ancient grains were taken from their storage containers and left on the ground to rot during looting. Implication 1: Global Seed Vault; good, proving back up.

Sad matter is that we are in such desperate need of this, and all of our other seed banks. While not quite as glamorous as the extinction of Chinese River Dolphins or kittens, the loss of plants should be noted. Some were damn tasty. Others possess miraculous qualities we can scarcely begin to understand. Many others have yet unrealized resistance to disease or troubles which we may very well need one day. But it will be too late, because everyone wanted to eat boring ol' Fuji apples and russet potatoes and there was no market for a diverse range of crops. Implication 2: Global Seed Vault; saddening in its great need, a sign of the coming apocalypse.

The basic idea of the Global Seed Vault is that everyone to throw in some seeds, we can all share, get some more seeds floating about, and all well be at least a tiny bit better. But, our friends over at GRAIN point out that this supposed savior, is not all the glory we might hope it to be. In fact, as a general rule, organizations will only be able to retrieve their own seed and there will be no storage of duplicates. With early organizations putting in a lion's share of the seed, later joiners will be unable to even place (and in turn, retrieve) seed which is rare - only seed which is completely unique. Implication 3: Global Seed Vault; even saddeninger poor bureaucratic choices may doom your usefulness.

And in the end, seeds don't last forever, even when frozen at twenty below on silly ol' islands. Given a couple of decades, all of these seeds are dead. Seeds need to be kept grown to be kept lively. Implication 4: Global Seed Vault; saddest, ultimately you are doomed by limitations outside of your own control.