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| TASTE |
| A world of food
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| Experts gather in Baltimore to sort
out what's coming next on America's plate. |
| By Arthur Hirsch Sun Staff Originally
published April 21, 2004 |
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| This moment in food history rewards attention
to the most nondescript joint in the strip mall, if
only for the possibility of discovering some unsung
maestro cooking a sublime Szechuan chili chicken or
fried dried fish. Ask Tyler Cowen about this and other
aspects of the contemporary human forage and he'll offer
a considered opinion: "It's a great time to be living
and eating." |
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| An economist by profession and restaurant
maven by avocation, Cowen comes to the Baltimore Convention
Center this week for the annual conference of the International
Association of Culinary Professionals. His conference
keynote address scheduled tomorrow morning focuses on
globalization, one of several phenomena heard in the
Tower of Babel that is Foodland USA, 2004. |
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| About 1,400 food emissaries from around
the United States and the world are expected in town
this week as the 26th annual IACP conference unfolds
in speeches, workshops, tastings, food tours -- four
days of eating in an eating year at least as abundant
and noisy as any. Asked for a snapshot of the current
food moment, IACP President Martha Johnston says: "Diversity
and varied interests ... come to mind." |
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| That's putting it mildly. If the food
media spotlight falls irrepressibly on extremes, Foodland
makes a target-rich environment. |
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| Perhaps it only seems that at any given
moment much of America is either wolfing McDonald's
fries while driving and using the cellphone, or flying
to Tuscany for the ultimate pesto experience. |
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| Growing numbers of artisan bakers pursue
the transcendent loaf, as the burgeoning low-carb crowd
runs from bread as if it were anthrax. And, of course,
Fad Diet Nation apparently keeps getting heavier. |
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| This year's conference theme, "Culinary
Trade Winds," implies Cowen's topic of globalization.
Trade winds are famously one-directional, however, and
as the exotic has its constituency in Foodland, so does
the relentlessly local. There's a hybrid word bouncing
around: glocalization. |
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| Cowen -- an economics professor at George
Mason University -- sides with free-market advocates
in food and everything else. Yes, the intensified trade
called globalization means more McDonald's popping up
all over the planet -- and Cowen is no fan of McDonald's.
But he reckons it's worth the swap for the expanding
menu that's blossoming from intercontinental cross-pollination
in flavors and cooking techniques. |
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| He just got back from Paris and, frankly,
while he found the restaurant quality predictably excellent,
he also detected stagnation. Bound to tradition - however
venerable it may be - the French perhaps lose a step
in the innovation department, says Cowen. "There's a
certain predictability," says Cowen. |
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| "There's less of the fusion element. ...
Part of it is attitude. The French feel they don't need
to look other places." Not unlike musicians, American
chefs are known to borrow a lick from here and there.
Hence, California fuses its abundant produce with Asian
seasonings. And there's nouvelle, with its risotto cakes,
wasabi aioli, blue tortillas, lemon grass, chipotle
vinaigrette. |
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| Cowen lives in the suburbs of Washington,
long a daily festival of ethnic eating. Along with Bolivian,
Ethiopian and Eritrean restaurants, Cowen recalls an
unremarkably named China Star in a little Fairfax, Va.,
strip mall you wouldn't look at twice but for word-of-mouth.
The chef is evidently the real thing from the Szechuan
province, Cowen says, and has superb beef with tomato,
chili chicken and fried dried fish to show it. |
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| Such cosmopolitan venues as Washington
and Manhattan don't have a monopoly on the benefits
of intensified global trade, as cooking teacher and
writer Barbara Gulino can tell you. The Cape Elizabeth,
Maine, resident is expected in Baltimore this week to
present an orientation session at the conference. Thanks
to the Portland Spice and Trading Co., she says she
has a choice of imported oils and seasonings she might
otherwise be able to buy only on the Internet or by
traveling to her home town of New York City. "I don't
think there's been a time when we've had more choices,"
says Gulino. |
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| If Mainers are more aware of imports,
their state has joined others in its resurgence of interest
in local products. In October at the Fore Street restaurant
in Portland, Gulino helped organize a dinner offering
items strictly from the 207 area code: Maine celery
root bisque, Sheepscot River trout, lamb raised on an
island in Penobscot Bay, Capriana cheese and an apple
tart. |
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| In other words, the Slow Food movement
yet lives, notwithstanding reliable sources telling
how more people than ever take meals in moving cars.
It's been 15 years since an Italian wine writer first
raised the "Slow" banner, advocating the virtues of
food made by small farms and artisans, vs. mass production,
and urging people to take time for the rituals that
have surrounded eating for centuries. |
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| Slow Food advocates in New York are promoting
a musical food show called Say Cheese at a Manhattan
theater later this month featuring a singer/chef, Jackie
Gordon, who takes a break from show preparations to
appear at the conference here. The 90-minute show offers
eight cheeses, four wines and Gordon, who talks about
the cheese and sings cheese-related songs. "I've Got
You Under My Skin," for instance, is paired with the
Brillat-Savarin, a cheese with an inedible skin. |
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| "I'm out there dancing as fast as I can,"
trying to spread the Slow Food message, says Gordon.
She figures one reason Americans are overweight is they're
not paying enough attention to what they eat or how
or how much. She likes the phrase "tasting mindfully,"
as opposed to eating while driving, brushing one's hair,
etc. |
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| "If people would eat really high-quality
food, they would eat less of it," Gordon says. "It would
be more satisfying." |
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| That's one theory among others. Research
suggests the Slow Food movement is gaining little ground
among consumers, whose behavior seems motivated chiefly
by the desire to save time and money. So says Harry
Balzer, vice president of the NPD Group, which has been
keeping track of American eating since 1980 with daily
food diaries completed by 5,000 people a year. |
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| Balzer, scheduled to deliver an IACP conference
presentation this week, says three-quarters of Americans
are still sitting down to dinner at home on any given
night. At the same time, he says, the drift is toward
more takeout restaurant meals, more frozen dinners,
more food bought ready-to-eat in the supermarket and
a tendency to prepare dinner at home with fewer dishes
and fewer fresh ingredients. And, definitely more meals
taken in cars. In other words, the advent of the Food
Network, to say nothing of reportedly strong sales of
premium kitchen gear, does not necessarily mean Americans
are cooking more. Perhaps we just like to watch. |
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| Watching the food diaries all these years
tells Balzer this much: The food "trend" - which he
defines as a significant and sustained shift in eating
behavior - is a more rare thing than media reports suggest.
The latest blip on the food scene is more likely a reflection
of something old, enduring and very American: the pursuit
of novelty. |
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| "We look at new things and think it's
a trend. It's not. It's us being us," says Balzer. "We
are often confused." |
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| Indeed, asked to characterize this food
moment, Patti Londre, a Los Angeles food publicist,
offers the word "confusion." Faced with a barrage of
nutrition research, product health claims, fad diets
and alarmist media reporting of the latest food scare,
consumers appear to be suffering severe food information
overload. "From our perspective, food is confusing,"
says Londre, scheduled to take part in a panel at the
conference tomorrow on food industry public relations.
"It isn't food anymore. It isn't fuel. It's a puzzle." |
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| Of course, food scholar Marion Nestle
of New York University has said nutritionists' advice
- more plant-based food, fewer animal fats and refined
sweets - has changed little in 50 years. She argues
the food industry and its marketeers muddy the water
with sales pitches. Sociologist/food scholar Alice Julier
of Smith College says she's not sure if Foodland is
characterized by more abundance or just the absence
of clear authorities on how to make choices. |
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| "There's sort of a continual argument
going on," says Julier, who will not be attending the
conference. "There's a pastiche of voices speaking to
what's good and what's not." |
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| In the din is the voice of Tyler Cowen.
He knows the complexity of it all, yet a brief conversation
with him suggests that on one level, at least, it's
simple: Try the China Star, order the Szechuan chili
chicken. Copyright © 2004, The Baltimore Sun |
