Augieland

The Real Food Revival: how to shop for quality, not quantity

Every time I talk about the evils of corn subsidies, feed lots, and farmed fish I feel myself being perceived as some kind of hippy, communist, preacher. I haven’t yet figured out how to address agribusiness and chemical companies’ undermining the health of America in the interest of profits without sounding like a paranoid conspiracy theorist. The idea of GMO’s frustrates me so much I find them hard to discuss, or actually hard to stop discussing.

It is a very confusing time in food in America. While on the one hand we have created a situation where butter and sugar are actually better for the average American than the shortening and corn syrup that are pervasive as the only choices they can make while shopping at Wal-Mart or other such places, on the other we have services like Fresh Direct featuring a locally grown produce section, and Whole Foods is one of the hottest stocks on the market.

I believe there is a difference between real food and its alternatives. Right now it is February in NYC and the organic arugula I tossed into a salad last night leaves so much to be desired when compared to the arugula I buy in the summer at the Union Square Green Market, but both still beat the hell out of the Foxy romaine that is most ubiquitous these days. I have always figured go with the food that tastes best, pay some more for it if you have to, and quality of life will follow. I have just not been good at conveying that message to my friends, family and random people I see in supermarkets buying half cooked, half water, Tyson chicken crud. So now I just give them a copy of The Real Food Revival.

Sherri Brooks Vinton and Ann Clark Espuelas wrote The Real Food Revival claiming not to know a lot about food. I suspect they were being more modest than truthful, but either way they may have been the perfect people for the job. Most people I know claim to want to be consuming better tasting food, however there is an apathy in their approach to procuring it. Most people I talk to believe words like “natural” and “organic” mean actually nothing more than marketing and, as a result, buy what’s cheap and easy, claiming there is too much work involved in finding local and/or organic. The Real Food Revival serves the consumer best as a shopping guide, informing the reader of the current conventions for producing foodstuffs, who is currently producing real food, what words like “natural” and “organic” have to mean by law, and places in your daily life where you can easily make a better choice.

Real food, as defined in the book, is grown naturally and locally and as a result is therefore both more healthful and better tasting. I am a person that sees a valid logic in this claim. Strongly believing in the notion of terroir, it is a natural conclusion for me that food born of the dirt I live closest to, and nurtured with the rain and sunlight that falls in my life, would taste better to me, so maybe they were preaching to the choir when I picked it up, but I see this book as serving a big purpose for anyone who wants to eat better.

The book starts with some very romanticized version of a youth spent nestled in a world of perfect produce with mongers for all foodstuffs stopping by the house to give health reports on the local bovine heard and fish haul and how the turnip buds are setting at the farm this guy somehow had just walked his cart over from. This beautiful world is systematically crushed by the money lust of successful big business that started developing after World War II. Thankfully this does not last long. Really we are living in a world with kiwis, pomegranates and all sorts of things that add to quality of life and are only available as a result of the industrial revolution.

The industrial revolution has also had some real downsides for both food and agriculture, and those of us who want to eat better need to become aware of both what is causing food to be tasteless, and how to find the better versions people living in the richest (both agriculturally, and monetarily) land on earth, should be able to get. Without screaming about resolution by legislation, The Real Food Revival simply tells you how to get what you are looking for.

Sherri Brooks Vinton and Ann Clark Espuelas break each of their chapters down into two sections. In the Industrial Agriculture Snap Shot (IASS) section we learn of the places where the zeal for all things industrial and efficient may have gone a little awry. It is here that things like the decision to stress color and uniformity for features like shipping and stacking which have led to things like perfect, round, light pink, flavorless tomatoes from Florida are discussed. This is where the book runs the risk of getting one-sided and a little preachy, but the authors stay on the safe side of the line (though, like I have said, I am their choir on these topics). I have never had good corn (GMO or otherwise) that wasn’t picked that morning in the late summer. The fact that my wonderful summer corn could be forever lost because pollen from some subsidized corn, genetically modified to grow to be a more expensive fuel substitute for oil in any weather, got carried on the breeze to the farm near me, is something I take very seriously.

But it is in the Reviving Real Food sections where this book seems to do its best work. The authors talk about simple, proactive solutions on many levels -- from buying a basil plant for the window of your house, to just trying to choose snack foods made with real sugar as opposed to high fructose corn syrup. Alternatives are offered for all of the troubles brought up in the IASS section. Alternatives that are applicable to your life no matter what that may be.

At the end of each chapter is a profile of someone in America offering a good “real” alternative to the bigger-is-better school of foodstuff production. Every one is in a legitimate business with a valid business model that they are successful at. It is here the book won me over. Not a group of weirdoes bucking the system, and not a group of charity cases bitching that there is unfair competition, these are all people that saw a market not being served, started serving it, and have reaped the benefits. The kind of people you would like to believe farmed all of America in its infancy before subsidies, and agribusiness, turned them into wage slaves.

I am a strong believer that the solution to what I see as problems in America is to get people to stop supporting markets that allow things to be bad. Hate bad movies? don’t pay ten dollars for them; want more movies like the ones you are seeing? see them in the theater multiple times. 

As far as food goes, there are things like subsidies to overcome in order to be a free market. In this day of the Internet, though, that is as easy to overcome as popping an email to an elected official whenever you are bored saying, “end subsidies or I won’t vote for you again,” and then simply not voting for them or, better, voting against them. People, even farmers, are now realizing subsidies are ultimately doing more harm than good for everyone, everywhere. I think we can make real headway towards eliminating subsidies. Then, if we aren’t buying they won’t be making, and that really is how America works best.

Maybe this book could only be written by people who “know very little about food.” I think, being regular people who spend a significant amount of their energy procuring ingredients in stores, these authors had the insights to figure the way to real solutions and then explain how easy they can be. This book basically serves as shopping guide for people who want more out of their food dollar, as long they are paying for flavor not pounds.

Buy your-self a wine book.

OK, so you have been drinking wine for a while and you have developed what you consider a good appreciation for it. You have a local or two with a good wine list and a staff you enjoy discussing it with. In your vast group of friends are a couple of people that enjoy wine, and when you are out with them you compare your perceptions, furthering your comprehension. Now you want to go out on your own, bring a new thing to the experience. Plus you are not sure any more that your guy isn't making stuff up, to stay ahead of you at this point. What to do? Buy a book.

I don't know if Vino Italiano by David Lynch and Joe Bastianich is as great as I think it is, because it was my first and probably helped me learn more, faster, then any other book, but in my mind it is how all wine books should be written. Vino Italiano never separates wine from food; at each point in the book you are close to a page that will tell you what is eaten with the wine you are learning about. Loving both food and wine equally, and seeing them as almost inseparable, this jibed well with my approach.

The first section is about the basic rules of Italian wine. Although the Italians as a whole seem very willing to change absolute rules very regularly in the interest of marketing, knowing what DOC, DOCG, and IGT are will at least help you start to navigate the aisles. There is a section here that explains the markups involved in importing wine to America and how it gets so out of hand. It doesn't, however, explain how Bastianich's store IWM comes to their markups. Don't fret very much over this section. Regionally, the importance of these laws is very different; Helmet's favorite Italian wines were outside the codification forever and have just recently been folded in.

The next nineteen chapters comprise Section Two, and this is where the book starts to cook. The nineteen chapters are divided into the sections of Italy that make wine (with a couple of regions combined in the interest of efficient writing). Each chapter breaks down into parts: the region, the wines, a quick reference, and the food.

The first part of each chapter, the region, is where Joe and David's great familiarity with the streets of Italy pays off. Really it is just an anecdote about the area, but it does a great job of setting the mood. At one point you are on a wild boar hunt in Tuscany, the next you are eating raw fish in the Marche; in all of them you are meeting the people of the region.

The wines make up the second section of the chapter, and are divided into white, red, sparkling, and sweet. There is a discussion of the significant wines from each area and how they are made. The DOC and DOCG wines are covered, as well as significant IGT wines. When a region has a particularly group of interest, like the Super Whites of Friulli and the Super Tuscans, they get an inset of their own which offers an overview.

The data section that follows serves as a quick guide to the region -- where it is, what DOC's and DOCG's are there, and a breakdown by grape -- and then the first truly unique thing about this book comes into play. The authors make suggestions for flights of three red wines and three whites, from the region that should be obtainable in the States. Sometimes they choose the same type of wine from three different producers, sometimes different types. Either way, the exercise provides a good practical base on which to build your comprehension. The last bit in this section is suggested stops along the way for wine-traveling in Italy.

Finally comes the food, and here lies the true genius of the book. Each chapter concludes with either a recipe from Mario Batali or Lydia Bastianich. The recipes are very easy to make, and are very specific to the area. An appropriate wine is suggested as an accompaniment. The first chapter is Friuli-Venizia Giulia and once you have read the book you have a basic understanding that this is a northern region that makes great white wine and good red, you know the cuisine and wine are heavily influenced by the region's position between three or four major nationality influences, and you know that this is the crossroads that people used to get everywhere in the region. Once you make Lydia's frico and wash it down with a Tocai or a Super White, you feel it all, even if you are in your kitchen in Greenwich Village.

In the final section, the book goes into some of the most in depth indexing I have ever seen. To be honest, it scares and frustrates me.

I took this book one chapter/region at a time. The chapters average about thirty pages apiece, and were easy to read when I wasn’t beating myself up trying to memorize all the IGT's and grapes. When I finished a chapter I would either make the food and buy the wine, or go to a restaurant and do the region. After reading the section on Veneto, I went straight to 'Ino and got a bottle of Prosecco and four little panini that had the meats of the region in them and had a fantastic lunch. Then, inspired by the book, I bought a bottle of Valpolicella at Crossroads, wrapped it in a brown bag, and enjoyed a hot spring day walkabout with Pappa and Apostrofus, sipping all the while.

There are all kinds of wine books. Much like wines, I suspect different ones appeal to different tastes (look at Lambrusco). My feeling is you will know in thirty-five pages if this is the book for you. If it isn't, bring it back and exchange it till one strikes a chord. Heck the American wine world is desperate for the guy that loved the Austrian wine book. We could all use a guy that loves talking about the wine without pretending he is Colonel Klink while pronouncing their names.