Monday, August 06, 2012

Food Revolution

If you've lived or visited San Francisco you will certainly have heard of Alice Waters, owner/proprietor of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley. This article about a paradigm shift in how Americans relate to their food shows a video of AW talking about how she came to revolutionize food in America, this video SPEAKS to me! For one, my present interest in farming stems from my love of food. Like her, my trip to Paris changed the way I viewed food forever. I didn't start out with a philosophical stand, I simply wanted the basic ingredients I used to cook to have optimal flavor. I started to wonder why it didn't in the first place. Why did a tomato in France taste different from the ones in the US or the Philippines? Or a yellow pepper, chicken, or chanterelle mushroom for that matter? That simple desire to have access to flavorful produce led to a hotbed of political, industrial, social, and philosophical quagmires that left me no choice but to be a radical revolutionary! Yet, am I? For one thing, eating for one's wellbeing is not a new phenomenon. Eating for health is where great cuisines stem from and in many parts of the world continues to be.