| TASTE |
| A world
of food |
| 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 |
| |
| 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." |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| 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." |
| |
| That's putting it mildly. If
the food media spotlight falls irrepressibly
on extremes, Foodland makes a target-rich
environment. |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| "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. |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| "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. |
| |
| "If people would eat really
high-quality food, they would eat less of
it," Gordon says. "It would be more satisfying."
|
| |
| 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. |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| "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." |
| |
| 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." |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| "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." |
| |
| 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
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