Video Adventure: Cinque Terra

Brief and awkward videoblogging is back!

The Cost of Food

"...[Some farmers are] wary of the talk that suggests a new reality has taken hold in world markets and that the rise of India and China will help him prosper for years to come. 'I've been farming since 1977 and we've heard that before. We were told there'd be a shortage of grain to feed the world, but it's never really happened,' he said. 'It'd be nice to believe that, but they've been wrong before, haven't they?'"
The Globe and Mail, "The World's Hottest Commodities are in your Cereal Bowl" 16 February 2008

I won't pretend that I understand economics, because, well, I don't. But I haven't studied morality either and I can still tell you that the words of this Canadian farmer, disappointed that not enough people are wrestling with starvation to flush his pockets, is more than a just little messed up. During the first eight months of my travels, the cost of wheat on world markets has nearly doubled. Corn, rice, pulses, just about everything is going up in prices. Reasons include a whole bunch of factors, but it all comes down to increased demands caused by ethanol, increased consumption because of growing populations, rising affluence, and decreased supply caused by bad weather, damaged crop lands, and shifting crop patterns. The price of food is one of those issues most Americans don't care about. Modern Americans (a year ago) paid less for their food than anybody has ever anywhere. Prices going up small amounts isn't a great crisis to most Americans, but it is for many people worldwide.

While a bit disturbing, the above quote is a good way to look at the odd struggle I have been trying to work my head around for the past couple of months. It is important to have reasonably low food prices (they need not be rock-bottom or people end up being a nation with a bunch of tubbies) but they also need to be high enough for farmers to be making more than bear-bones incomes. Such a thing is possible, but the messy nature of seasonality, transport, tariffs, and duties all make it difficult for both to be happening at once. While I was in Mexico and India I was reading about and talking to farmers in about their struggles to simply survive. Because of debt cycles, many are unable to afford the food they have grown themselves. The world's poorest can work (and some seem to) 24/7 and still not afford to put enough food on the table. It's an idea I had heard before, but had never really been able to begin to grasp until I began these travels (and will easily admit that I still am nowhere near understanding). For a majority of the world, food is not a given. Coming back to the developed world this spring and working in France, it's been interesting to see how concerns about mass starvation seem to make infrequent appearances as headlines. The current food crisis is more frequently addressed in economic rather than human terms thanks to the luxury of distance. Proposed solutions are to just throw money at starvation rather than address the root causes of the food shortfalls.

It's tough to gauge just where all of this is going. If the French press and what I can gleam of the US press off the internet is any indication, there actually has started to be some discussion that massive starvation is a problem, but self interest of the industrialized seems to quickly take over in most news stories. I wish I had the time and opportunity to read all the news stories which have been popping up about the increase in food pricing recently. This is a huge story, and there's way more than someone could ever address in a couple paragraphs... but if current trends continue the story will get coverage in the middle of the paper and the effects on policy and consumption by the big spenders will be minimal.

More than ever, I am realizing the cost to others of living an easy life and the great peace I am afforded by being able to always find something to eat. I continue to be confused about how to balance the equation.

Cairo Bound

Due to a number of factors, food is getting more expensive by the day. This is creating trouble for folks all over, but has inspired me to change my plans a little bit. Thanks to the incredible flexibility of the Watson I will be spending my final month, from the 12 of May until the 6 of June, in Egypt looking at how grain prices are effecting politics there. I will likely spend most of my time in Cairo. So the question is: do you, faithful reader, know anyone in Egypt? Could they help me? If so, drop me a line.

Pyramids, extreme heat, and food riots, here I come! Until then... relative comfort and cool weather of France and Italy, I love you.

An incredibly brief history of modern French bread

Oh, Bakeries. Oh, French bakeries. So much to learn about them. Where to start?

If you've never walked the streets of France, it's hard to imagine quite how integral the bakery is to French life. It's not an exaggeration to say that there's a bakery on every corner in the cities here. Buying a loaf of bread everyday is routine, having it go stale in six to twelve hours is just accepted as part of life. Waiting twenty minutes for a loaf of bread on a Saturday morning isn't because of rations... it's just because. There's a bakery for every 1,500 people in the country, and more bread is sold in markets, supermarkets, and in hot shops. Bread is served at every meal, it has been the cause for revolution, the a symbol of life itself, and a near and dear symbol for all which is good. Needless to say, the French love bread.

So, starting from this basic idea, I assumed that they would honor bread like a God - instead I found that the temple has begun to crumble. Aside from the question of what makes good bread, there have been lots of fundamental changes to how bread is made recently, and no one knows if they should praise them or criticize them. While a century ago bread was largely made by hand by overworked men in hot basements using traditional recipes, it is being increasingly automated and fine tuned. While examples still exist of handmade baked goods as well as breads which are made entirely by machines, the majority of bread which is made in this country has its origin somewhere in between the two extremes. The advancement of technology has been the major agent of change - the expansion of use of ameliorates, the mechanization of dough mixing and processing, and the milling of wheat - but labor laws, wars, and shifting attitudes have had enormous impacts as well.

The briefest of histories of French bread baking would say this:
The only constant is change, and that includes bread. How the product has changed, we will never know. We can point to particular changes in production, but we will really never know what yesterday's baguette tasted like. We should work to make today better and be willing to accept whatever direction that may take us; that direction will neither be clearly forwards nor backwards.

A slightly less brief history of French bread baking in the twentieth century would say this:
At the start of the twentieth century, there was some mechanization. It came in the form of hand cranked dough mixers, which were in time upgraded to electricity. As one who has kneaded a lot of dough by hand in his life can tell you, this was a good thing. It's nice to know your dough, but when it comes to volume, speed, and delicacy, there are things a machine can do that human hands will never be able to accomplish. With the high cost of labor and the low cost of technology, I haven't heard of anyone who kneads bread by hand in a commercial enterprise in France. Yay for the rise of the machine.

But bread isn't only kneaded by machines. It can be cut, weighed, shaped, and cooked with machines. While some of these machines have been marked improvements - the baguette shaper seems to be unviersally used, it is able to shape a baguette more consistently and with less damage to the dough than a person can - other machines have made bread which is neither beautiful nor tasty. Sometimes yay for the rise of the other machines?

As chemists have gotten further involved in the alchemy of baking, they have begun to meddle. While French bread includes in its essence just wheat flour, salt, water, and yeast, it was soon discovered that other chemicals could be added to manipulate the dough. Ascorbic acid (or vitamin C, as you can call it) was added to make dough friendlier. Preservatives help bread last longer. Flour made from fava beans made dough rise better. Etc, etc. The French, ever vigilant about what they consume, have largely rejected these quick fixes. In fact in 1993, after a spate of people trying to claim that their bread was made the good ol' fashion way when it turned out to be quite not, the government passed a law defining what ingredients could be in a bread which is called "traditional;" wheat flour, salt, water, and yeast. Today, most bakeries will sell two types of baguette, one which is 'normal' (and contains whoknowswhat) and another which is 10% more expensive and is controlled and 'traditional.'

Mills have changed. To make wheat into something you want to eat, you usually grind it. For years and year, the milling system involved farmers taking their grain to a mill, where for a fee the millers would turn it into flour. Bakers would often have farms which they were contractually aligned with so as to have their own little supply of flour. As time went on, millers began buying their own wheat and milling it to have as stock on hand to to sell to bakers. Today, very few bakeries have their own wheat they get ground on demand, but many have particular formulas they request for their specific breads. Some bakeries, as to be noted in a forthcoming post about franchising, are contractually tied to a single mill for their flour supplies.

Outside factors have had varied effects on the look of bread. During the Second World War, when bread was made from whatever could be gotten, it was dense, dark, nasty, and in short supply to boot. The occupation left a bad taste in the mouthes of the French (literally!) so there became a backlash towards whiter, simpler breads. The color of breads here continually astound me in their bleachey pallor - some bakers are daring enough to make breads which are a creamy tan, but nothing is a solid brown.

While bakers used to work 70 hour weeks, French labor laws restricted them to 35 hours, and have recently re-allowed a 40 hour work week. Traditionally many bakeries had a man working in the basement to produce the bread while upstairs his wife would sell it. Today, the job is still relatively split between the sexes, though it seems less frequent that the vendor is necessarily married to the baker there and most bakeries are big enough to have more than just familial employment.

So, here we are. Unlike any other country I have ever been to, France still has a healthy artisanal baking tradition. It still has people who eat this bread. Why? I don't know. How? Through extensive government controls. For how long? That's up to the consumers...

Bake to the Future

Last weekend I had the great fortune to attend "Euro pain 2008" - the international bread (and sugar!) trade fair. My review probably goes without saying, but, it was quite amazing. Four convention halls in Paris's main Expo center all devoted to the making, selling, and research of bread, pastries, cakes, chocolates, and frozen desserts. I got to see the World Cup of Bread, try tasters from the best of the best, and have awkward interactions from people all over the world about their goods.

Putting aside issues of food, I want to say that this was the most international thing which was dubbed 'international' which I have ever been to. Excepting micro countries (and you would think the Pope would have more interest in the marketing of the body of Christ...) and Cuba (if the US treasury department doesn't recognize a county, I don't see why I should.) I saw representatives from literally every country I could think of. All the nations of Europe and the Americas were easily represented. Lots of folks from Africa and the Middle East. All the Stans were there. Even lots of island nations. It was crazy. Trying to strike up a conversation was a big game of linguistic roulette, but possible nonetheless.

So, if this big show is any indicator of where the world is going with bread, the answer comes in two f's: franchising and future-tastic. I'll cover the future here, and franchising in an upcoming look at bakeries of Paris more generally

The future seemed to come in many forms. As demonstrated in the below video, there were robots. This video doesn't quite do it justice, and my amazement was likely increased by the fact that I have been moving trays of dough which are 60lbs+ all day long for the past month, but this was cool nonetheless. These robots were able to sense where the tray racks had been moved to, which trays were empty and full, manipulate dough in minor ways, and load trays directly into and out of the ovens. Though not financially viable on a small scale, with the resources and a number of other creations strung together it would be quite possible to have an artisan bakery... of machines!

The other part of the future featured was the concept of flavoring. There were several companies which work on flavoring in attendance at the show - but the biggest was a company called Philibert Savours. They all provide services which will allow you to flavor your products (surprisingly) using natural flavors through complex techniques of infusions. Infusion is big these days, and not just for teas. Now anything you eat suddenly has the possibility of tasting like something else that you aren't quite eating. Huzzah..?

In the end, the whole thing reinforced my strong held feeling that I will never understand why people are so obsessed with trying to make food look like other foods (lots of breads shaped like animals, buildings, etc), that rises in food prices are only making the sharks in the water more excited, and that I hope I never have to attend conferences like this for business rather than wide-eyed, gawking pleasure. Other than that, it was a beautiful experience.