Food as culture: The devaluing of convenience

Food is a funny thing. The ways we eat and the foods we eat tell us a lot about cultures. Not only do these things differ between cultures, but they also give us insights into who belongs to various groups within a given culture. Units on food and nutrition are always popular among my undergraduate classes, and there are certainly times I've wondered why I didn't pursue a career path that had more to do with food. After all, I have always been fascinated by what is considered food, rules about eating, etc. I've written a bit on the question of what constitutes foods in different cultures previously; but what I'm really interested in right now has to do with what we can learn about a culture by thinking about how foods are made and how food, as a priority, fits in with broader cultural systems of meaning. And how shifts in eating may be reflections of or responses to larger cultural shifts.

*****

My summer of 2013 was pretty exquisite. In addition to my standard summers' fare of road trips to stunning canyons and cliff faces, 2013 was sprinkled with an abundance of work-related and for-pleasure travel in the US and Europe, something I was quite exuberant about...except for one thing - my panic about the potential challenge of finding gluten free foods while on many of these trips. I've never been the bravest eater when it comes to meats, but other than that, I've always been willing and able to try just about any food at least once. Since I quit eating gluten due to a sensitivity (I've never been diagnosed with anything but was sick for years until I gave it up), though, I've had to become a much more tentative eater. Unfortunately, this has made one of my other favorite pastimes (besides eating), travel, far more stressful.

Last summer, it was a several day stop-off in Paris to visit with my father that worried me the most. Every time I've visited France in the past decade, I've felt awful the entire time, and in recent years it had been getting progressively worse. I had initially assumed that this had much to do with the abundance of butter and heavy creams present in French cuisine. Thus, since eating loads of French food in Paris has both considerable cultural and personal (my father LOVES French food!) significance and happens constantly, I had for years dreaded these visits. This trip, my first (to France) since figuring out my gluten sensitivity, promised to be no different, and I started stressing about it as soon as I bought my ticket.

See, the thing is, while when I travel with my husband or on my own, I know that I can easily seek out restaurants that will either have "natural" gluten free options (e.g., Thai food is super easy for me to eat) or that are readily accommodating (e.g., have labeled menus), these things are just not options when dining with my dad. He opts for heavy European (especially French) food whenever eating out and, when in France, especially enjoys his traditional meals in brasseries and higher end, but older school restaurants. And, of course, his breakfasts come from the bakery on his block. From pretty much all perspectives, I really admire this about my dad. I love that he is so excited about French food and about food in general...but with my (non-voluntary) diet restrictions I was worried.

But something totally unexpected happened on this trip. The first night that we went out to eat, we simply explained my limitations to the server and asked if the particular sauce that came on the fish I'd ordered would be safe. He looked at us almost in confusion..."I don't know why this sauce would have flour in it, but I'll ask the chef." (In my head, I thought, flour is hidden in everything!) This happened numerous times and each time I was safe - no hidden flour, no hidden gluten, and when galettes were made from buckwheat, they were made from just that, with no wheat flour added. As it turned out, eating gluten free in Paris was easy so long as I skipped the obvious - no baguette, no croissant, no pastry, so the only tragic thing about being gluten free in Paris was not having the time to check out any of the city's gluten free patisseries or restaurants (this is the one I really wanted to visit!).

As my dad and I reflected on the ease with which I was able to avoid gluten, he recalled a related experience he'd had with his wife. A pescetarian, S is careful to avoid soups in many restaurants because of the likelihood that they use chicken or beef stock. In the US, she always asks and about 50% of the time veggie soup is made with veggie stock but the rest of the time it's got some sort of animal base to that broth (maybe this is worse because of their Texas residence?). Anyway, apparently whenever she asks this same question in Paris - "Excuse me, but is this veggie soup made with chicken/beef stock?" - she gets a similar response to the one I received when asking about flour/gluten, only perhaps even more startled..."Of course not! Why on earth would we make vegetable soup with meat stock? That would make it a different soup!"

Hmm...they are, of course, correct. It would change the character and the flavor and the texture of the food, things that, in French cuisine, are of the utmost import. French cuisine remains, for the most part, embedded in an ethic of slow, from scratch, and deliberate. That is, unless the flour is adding something beyond thickness (i.e., a roux), it doesn't go in.

All of this really got me thinking about the American diet and eating gluten free and how this journey in eating has made me more aware of some peculiarities of food in this country and how they've been shifting in recent years. When I cook at home, it's remarkably easy to cook gluten free. I have loads of options - some leaving out grain altogether, some choosing to eat gluten free grains, some choosing gluten free versions of traditionally wheat-based products - when I cook for myself, and find that, most often, I prefer to leave the grain out or eat something like rice or quinoa. When I make soups and sauces, I have no need for flour and on the very rare occasion that I need to thicken something, I use cornstarch. I admittedly do tend to avoid cooking the types of foods that require a roux or similar, but I never cooked that way anyway so I haven't noticed the difference.

It's going out (especially outside of the bubble that Fort Collins can be) or trying to eat processed foods (not something I do very often, fortunately) that can be tricky. Because the hard thing about avoiding gluten in the American diet isn't in avoiding pasta or bread, it's that gluten has a tendency to make its way into everything. It's a short-cut, both for time and money it seems. Apparently, some folks even bind hamburgers with flour. Sometimes, in American versions of Indian or Thai restaurants, curries are thickened with it (not something I found in Thailand or Malaysia, where curries tended to be thin or thickened with rice flour). It just shows up in everything. And this seems to be a trend in American eating that I find remarkably telling.

Like much of life in the US, in recent decades, it seems that our food is often based on convenience and cost rather than flavor or authenticity or quality or freshness of ingredients. Through an anthropological lens, the value placed upon convenience in our society is of considerable importance. The need for convenient food is something that is an indicator of the so-called Protestant work ethic. As in, "I work 80 hours a week, so I need food that is easy." The emphasis on cheap production is a reflection of a society that places great value on profit motive, but also one that sees considerable wealth disparities. Whereas, in France, it is perfectly acceptable to take hours mid-day to eat a meal, in the US, we too often eat lunch at our desks and pride ourselves on it. In a country that has a history of placing much greater value on consumption of goods rather than experiences, the art of dining and the value of food are of little relevance (to many).

Part of why this stands out so clearly to me right now is that, lately, it seems like things may be shifting. Yes, we Americans still seem to be especially prone to fad diets with little sense of cultural food identity (at least compared to many other places), and yes, we still often choose convenience over quality; but, the multitude of varying philosophies about food and lifestyle that abound these days are rooted in ethics of going back to whole foods, cooking from scratch, and connecting to the source(s) of one's food. It seems that, increasingly, regardless of the particular diet fad one has directed his/her attention toward - that is, whether one eats vegan and only buys from the farmer's market or is paleo and only gets foods direct from farmers and ranchers - there is an increasingly mainstream movement toward knowing what that food is, knowing not only how to prepare it, but maybe even how to raise it.

And, of course, this all makes me wonder whether perhaps there are changes afoot. Are people trading hours at a desk for hours in a garden, tracking elk, or behind a stove, shifting the relative cultural value of work and that of food? I hope so. As, if given the choice, it seems to me that convenience is overrated.

Culture, food, and the edible animal

Anthropologists spend a lot of time and energy thinking about the foods and food-related rituals and meanings of cultures the world over. In Mary Douglas' influential "Abominations of Leviticus", she explored the religion-based categorization of foods as edible and inedible. Marvin Harris' "The Riddle of the Sacred Cow" examines the Hindu prohibition against eating cows from a materialist perspective, arguing the myriad ways cows are more valuable to the society alive than as food. These canonic anthropological texts are decades old, but what has recently emerged as "Europe's Horse Meat Scandal" has once again highlighted the role of culture in defining what constitutes an edible animal, not just among anthropologists, but in popular media. And, of course, as an anthropologist and a horse girl, I just had to write about it.

I grew up riding horses. I love them. Love them. I have devoted years of my life to riding and caring for these magical creatures, working with them, and trying to rehab/rehome/and otherwise save them. I do not eat them though I try very hard to understand, and be ok with the fact, that others do.

           

So, several years ago, shortly after visiting some family friends in Switzerland, my father had the irrepressible need to share what he found to be a very funny experience. At dinner one evening, he asked the family's 9 year old daughter, "Do you like horses?"to which she responded, "Mmm, yum" while rubbing her belly. As my father tells it, he about fell out of his chair laughing as he pictured my response had I been there.

My father has spent a decent portion of his young adult and adult life living in France and has himself eaten horse so he did not find this statement or the behavior shocking, though given the context of his personal life (me!), he was certainly surprised in a "young girls like to ride horses not eat them!" kind of way. As much as I prefer to be culturally respectful when I travel, I cannot see myself voluntarily eating a horse (though there is some speculation that I have unknowingly done so at some point...) and when I've lived in places where horse meat was common, I've always found it moderately upsetting.

But here's the thing. I'm an anthropologist. It's my job to think about how culture has shaped the way we (people, so this includes me!) think about and define everything, including what we eat. So, intellectually, I get it. I understand why other cultures eat horse meat and I find it rather surprising when the Huffington Post tags articles on the topic with comments like "Gross!". I'm not a vegan - or even a vegetarian these days - but I do believe the critique that once we have made the decision to kill a living creature for our own sustenance, does it really matter which animal we kill? is worth while. Because this is where culture comes in. It is culture that defines which animals are edible and which ones are not. For example, this is why Americans are notoriously squeamish about foods that may be perfectly ordinary in other places - think escargot (snails) or crustaceans with their heads on and eyes intact. Whether based on religion, material/economic importance, or historical sentiment, culture guides the foods we should and should not consume.

Yet here's the thing that gets me every time. I know all of this and it still doesn't matter. I won't eat horse any more readily than I would eat dog, and while I know there is some personal sentiment involved, I don't think it's just about my personal attachment to these animals. After all, I can't imagine myself eating cat either, although I don't much care for cats in general and have never had a close relationship with one. In parts of South America, people eat guinea pigs. I have never had a guinea pig as a pet, but to me they simply don't constitute food. I don't find the prospect of eating bugs emotionally upsetting but I do find it stomach turning.

Part of what is so interesting about the European "horse meat scandal" is the fact that horse's role in Europe and Canada is quite similar to its role in the US. In all these places horses are used in work, and primarily for recreational purposes - whether as pets or sport horses. However, perhaps - and I'm no expert on this so I'm certainly open to alternative suggestions - the meaning of the horse still differs slightly in these varied contexts. The horse, in American culture, holds a special, almost mythical place that I'm not sure it holds in European or even Canadian societies. In the US, the horse dominates our lore about the Native American (becoming an integral part of both "noble savage" and "dominating white man" discourses). The horse is a vehicle for hero stories on race tracks and in movies about race tracks (the fact that these animals' realities rarely reach mythic standards is a totally separate issue). The horse represents the American West. Our relationship with horses comes to represent our relationship with nature and as such, the relationship between nature and culture (see Elizabeth Atwood Lawrence's Rodeo: An Anthropologist Looks at the Wild and the Tame). Thus, in addition to my personal relationship with the animal, all of these cultural factors shape a broader, shared cultural meaning of the horse that I draw upon when deciding how I feel about its consumption. As an anthropologist, I can intellectualize my culture all I want, but I cannot completely remove myself from it.

You are what you eat: Food & Identity

If you grew up in the US, the expression "you are what you eat" probably has specific connotations for you, most of which relate to the physical and health related "consequences" or "benefits" of following a certain diet. Namely, if you eat cupcakes and french fries, you are likely pudgy if not downright obese; if you eat salads and grilled (insert lean protein here), you are svelte and (thus) "desirable". I am certain I heard the expression as well as other wonders like "a moment at the lips, a lifetime on the hips" from my grandmother or my father when I made the grievous error of becoming chubby in my pre-pre-teens. But as I grow older I am learning that my home country and I have a much more complex relationship with food than this basic interpretation of the common phrase "you are what you eat" would suggest.

The idea that food (and consumption more generally) is closely linked to cultural and psychological constructs such as identity is nothing new or novel on my part (in fact, an entire chapter of my dissertation centers around the idea that being a user of a particular type of drug is an identity option). However, the extent to which Americans seem to seek out a unique identity through consumption, including food choices and diet, has become especially interesting to me lately. It all started a couple of years ago when, on my very American 70 mile commute to class I was listening to Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma. Early in the book, Pollan introduces what he sees as a phenomenon unique to the US - an obsession, not with a national cuisine, but with diets, with ways of eating, many (but not all) of which are passing fads. He goes on to argue that diets would not be so successful in countries with a stronger national food identity - in France, for example, the Atkins diet would never take root because what type of French person would give up croissants or a proper baguette? But, he argues, in the US, because of the fact that we lack a food identity, such diets thrive (perhaps one could test this by looking at their prevalence in regions of the country with strong regional food identities, though it seems difficult to separate other regional differences from cuisine...).

For example, though I'm not a "dieter" per se, throughout my life, I have moved through various dietary categories, spending significant time as a vegan (a little over a year), vegetarian (many years on and off, beginning in my early teens), pescetarian (the past six years until recently), and struggling-to-be-responsible/conscientious-omnivore (the latest). A number of things happened in the past six months or so that drove me to this latest, which means I have begun to eat certain (i.e., 100% grass fed/pasture raised, local-when-possible) non-fish meats for the first time in almost a decade. And funny enough, although my body has dealt wonderfully with the transition, my mind and my heart have found it to be a bumpier road.

First, much of my identity over the past many years has related to my status as a vege- or pesce-tarian. Many (and for a while the majority) of my friends had similar eating habits. It often made travel (especially if I wanted to be a "good anthropologist" and experience local foods) difficult, and actually, this was what originally brought me back to fish after years without any meat. But it was a part of who I was, and although I didn't think of myself as an animal rights vegetarian (I do after all wear leather), since starting to eat poultry and grazing animals again I have begun to feel a certain type of guilt.

I have though long and hard (perhaps excessively) about this decision and it was ultimately my desire (stated so eloquently by Ted Kerasote in his book Blood Ties) to do as little harm as possible with my diet that actually led me back to meat. I began to rethink what I meant by harm (which I had once only conceptualized in terms of the specific animals I would or would not eat) and, living in the wide open spaces (grazing lands) of the American West, consuming ethically and humanely raised local animal products began to seem more responsible than stuffing my body with processed soy, which had become one of my only major protein sources.

So, intellectually, I feel ok about my newfound consumption patterns. But emotionally, I'm not quite there yet. I don't know if I am truly mourning the creatures I am about to eat when I tearfully thank them during preparation (this really does keep happening, especially with whole poultry), or if I am mourning the person I was for so many years. I don't know if I am feeling guilty and full of self-loathing or if I am truly appreciating the fact that I am taking a life to feed myself. And why is that life less valuable than my own or my dog's? In my brain, I know it's culture that has taught me what animals are acceptable to eat or not (after all, in some countries, my dog could be the meal), but that doesn't mean I haven't internalized it.

I'm still grappling with this and quite possibly will be for some time, as it seems harder and harder to feel truly good about anything I eat. Perhaps this is in itself a reflection of the state of a culture, of the idea that American society has come to a point where we have so little core cultural identity, we are so divided, that all of our choices, especially those relative to consumption patterns, become markers of various subgroups.