I know that this title is going to bring some folks here lookin’ for a fight, so before you start sharpening your pitchforks and hurling your organic, fair-trade rotten tomatoes, let’s be clear…
I love the farm-to-table concept.
I love my local farmer’s markets, and I take every opportunity to support my local artisan food purveyors; in part, because I believe it’s the healthy and more socially responsible choice, but also because the food just tastes better!
However, my love and support for the idea of farm-to-table do not negate that, in practice, the system is flawed.
Maybe a more fitting title would be "Farm to Table…the missing ingredient" because the farm-to-table model leaves out a critical step…creating a gap that is not just important, but imperative to fill, for the system to work.
Functionally, the equation is actually “farm-to-KITCHEN-to-table” The kitchen is the bridge (or, unfortunately, more often the gap) between the farm and the table.
What good is fresh, organic, sustainable, fair-trade food, if the end-user (the home cook) doesn’t know what it is, or what to do with it, and so won’t buy it?
Side note: my definition of “cooking” is turning raw, unprocessed ingredients into a finished meal with a minimum of pre-made additions.
Part of the issue, I believe, is that foodies, farmers, and people who cook are often amazed at the extent to which other people don’t cook. When my wife, who did not grow up cooking, says to me, “I’m afraid to cook meat”, my eyes tend to glaze over…but she’s not alone. In fact, she’s not even in the minority!
Don’t believe me? Test it.
Take a friend with you (and no cherry-pickin’ one of your foodie friends!) to the large grocery store or farmer’s market and see how many vegetables they can name without looking at the label. Then, if you need further convincing, ask them how’d they prepare the ones they did recognize.
This isn’t just about foodies loving good food, or hippies wanting to save the planet…this gap affects our country’s health, ecology, finances…the list goes on.
HEALTH
Fresh, unprocessed, (what we at hautemealz.com like to call “real”) food is better for us, and better for the environment. Everyone knows this.
The number one most effective method of battling the proliferation of processed foods, obesity, diabetes, celiac disease, GMOs, corporate farming, yadda yadda yadda…is to shop, cook, and eat with as few steps as possible between the dirt and the plate. True healthcare begins in the kitchen, not the gym. Most of us know this.
It takes 10 minutes to grill a pork chop and some fresh veggies. Some of us know this.
However, just knowing the truth is only the first step in slowing our society’s descent into further slavery to the boxed, processed, artificially preserved, instant, easy-to-prepare corporate food masters.
We must increase that knowledge and spread it around. Knowledge is power, and we’ve turned much of the power over to the fast-food corporations. If we don’t know how to cook, believe me, they’ll be more than happy to continue to make our lives “easier” by doing the “hard part”.
Why am I picturing Morlocks and Eloi?
These companies, btw, buy from the agri-conglomerates (or own them outright) many of them in other countries, and NOT from your local, small, organic, fair trade farms…perpetuating the spiral.
Which leads us to…
FINANCES
Where does a pervasive lack of basic cooking skills lead, from an economic standpoint?
Well, at the residential level, it leads to a reliance on instant, processed, or packaged foods or eating in restaurants, which isn’t financially sustainable for the average family, unless it spirals down to, as it often does, the local drive though dollar menu.
Even then, we’re spending more than we think. The average cost of a “cheap” drive-thru meal here in Oregon, runs between $3-$4 per person. For a family of four “lite-eaters”, we’re looking at $12-$16 dollars. This is 20-30% more then we spend at our house, cooking quick, simple, healthy meals, often with enough left-overs for lunch the next day.
“Value Menu”…really?
Oh, and we don’t toss a big bag full of cardboard, paper, and plastic in the trash afterward, either.
On a “broader” scale (pun intended) the nation’s health care tab stood at $2.7 trillion in 2011, the latest year available.
I don’t think I need to say anything more about that.
EDUCATION
This is the crux of this article. Laws, labeling, testing, etc., can all be good things, but they will never, ever, replace the ability of the educated consumer to “vote with their checkbooks” by knowing what to buy, and how to prepare it for their families.
We’re moving into a third and fourth generation of people raised without a grasp of basic cooking skills or confidence in the kitchen.
In her article, “Bring Back Home Economics in Schools!” (Cooking Light, 2012) Hillary Dowdle refers to herself and her generation as “the ‘lost girls and boys’, saying, “Public health experts, nutritionists, and educators are beginning to realize that the lack of basic life skills, like cooking, presents a serious problem: Americans are growing up ignorant about the whats, whys, and hows of eating healthy.”
Basically, if no one cooked at home, today’s young people’s options are to (a) get a job in a “real food” restaurant kitchen (plan 2-3 years, minimum, before you actually cook anything), or spend thousands (or tens of thousands) on culinary school…which is a pretty deep commitment for someone who just wants to feed their kids a healthy dinner.
Where do most folks end up? Right back on the processed foods aisle, or in the drive-thru.
“(Food) is devalued generally in our education system . . . it’s more than just learning how to cook. It’s about food literacy, which means teaching children what foods to eat and why, how to understand food labeling information and how and why we need to prepare and cook food safely.” says Griffith University School of Education and Professional Studies Dean, Donna Pendergast.
This leads me to a personal soapbox…
In an article titled, “Compulsory home economics essential to fight childhood obesity“, the home economics advocate blog, HomeEcConnect, states: “We are losing basic survival skills. Home Economics is essential for learning about the basics of growing, transporting, purchasing, preparing, nutritional values, cooking, presenting, enjoying, cleaning up and storage of food. ‘Food literacy” is about learning food skills as a holistic concept.”
Dr. Arya Sharma (Director of the Canadian Obesity Network) says “time to bring back home economics” because “the art of basic food preparation and meal planning may be a very real part of the obesity solution”.
Our kid’s need to learn to cook good food. Period.
Budgets are tight, and school days are long, we know. Frankly, I don’t mind a computer doing my math or my science, but I don’t want one cooking my food. If we’re going to cut something from the curriculum, let’s not make it the one thing that is at the core of our survival and well-being as a species, shall we?
If my daughter’s lack of proficiency in trigonometry means she might live longer than her parents…I’m okay with that.
Speaking of which, my daughter started learning to cook at three, now, at five, she is an adept omelet, salad, and sandwich maker, a savvy produce shopper, and could give Chef Gordon Ramsey a run for “kitchen tyrant.” She loves to cook and is more adventurous and open in her eating than most adults I know.
But not every child has the (sometimes) good fortune of having a father who’s a chef, whose father was a chef, whose father was a chef.
What do we do? We bridge the gap!
Here are four things you can do to bridge the gap:
- Learn to cook, and to cook healthier
- Teach your kids, your grandkids, or any kids to do the sam
- Become a regular customer of your local farmer’s market and independent food purveyor
- Fight for mandatory food science classes in our public schools, and volunteer at an after-school program. (Those are your tax dollars, you should have a say in how they’re spent!)
Become an advocate for people knowing their way around the kitchen, and you help bridge the gap between farm and table.
Let’s cook!
– Chef Perry
Perry P. Perkins is a writer and professional blogger. As a 3rd generation chef, he has been published in magazines from Guideposts and Writer’s Digest to Bass Master and Bible Advocate. Perry’s work has been included in 16 Chicken Soup anthologies, and he writes a monthly column, Renaissance Dad, for Vancouver Family Magazine. He lives with his wife and daughter in Western Washington State.
Samples of Perry’s work can be found at www.chefperryperkins.com and www.perryperkinsbooks.com
