Pollan reports on the changing nature of food delivery in
the United States. In his earlier book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” he focused on
the growth of the factory farm and the implications for the long-term health of
US citizens. In this book, I can reduce his core argument down to a sound bite,
but it is a very important sound bite: Cook more by yourself, using natural
products, and have family meals each day. Pollan finds that the average person spends no
more than 27 minutes a day in food preparation, uses corporate products to make
meals, and often does not have family dinners.
Confession: I am marries to a woman who spent many years of
her life as a professional chef. She worked initially in a gourmet grocery and
later owned her own h9igh-end catering business, where she often cooked for
celebrities and politicians in the Chicago area. In fact, she once made a
dinner for the president of McDonald Corporation. And she still cooks, and
loves to cook. So, we don’t go out to dinner (except when we travel), and we
make dinner every day, using the best produce we can find.
But this puts us at odds with the vast majority of Americans
now. I often look at the grocery carts of people checking out at the same time
we are, and I often see pre-made foods in high abundance, and I still see lots
of white bread, sugared pop, and prepared foods. Pollan wants to change this,
and this book is a broadside against the current state of the American food
industry.
In the book, Pollan looks at what he calls Fire, Water, Air
and Earth. In the section devoted to Fire, he discusses barbecue- not the kind
of barbecue you might think about when I say the word, but about how fire
transforms meat, how historically this meant something significant in human
evolution, and how today’s pit masters harness the power of wood to make
something spectacular. In Water, he examines braising food, using boiling water
to create sauces and make the inedible edible. Air is about baking bread; how
yeasts cause flour to rise, to allow air to enter, and to help then create a
variety of bread styles. And in Earth, the focus in on fermentation, of which there
is now an entire movement, one that my wife and I are members of. We were
introduced to fermentation by our son, who was making not just beer, but also
sauerkraut, kimchee, and kombucha. All are fermented products. And all are
pretty easy to make, none more so than sauerkraut.
Here is how easy. To make sauerkraut, shred a couple of
cabbages. We use red cabbage. Put in a clean glass jar, and liberally salt the
cabbage. Place a weight on top- we use a plate with a baggie of water on it.
Cover with a towel, and stick it in your basement. Come back in three weeks.
When you do, and when you look at the jar, you will see all the bubbles of
fermentation taking place. We then put the kraut in smaller storage vessels and
stick them in the fridge. It is ready to eat. And the first time scares you
because you know this is a controlled rotting process- but it’s great.
So, I recommend this book to you, and suggest it provides a
pathway to a better and more sustainable food lifestyle. Well worth the read.
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