Food News and Views 1/10/08 Alice Waters

Food and Dining Radio Show – 1.10.08

Linda Gassenheimer (LG)

Fred Tasker (FT)

Alice Waters (AW)

LG: We’re talking about organic ingredients and sustainable agriculture today. Thirty years ago these words were not in our vocabulary. One woman started a food revolution and her name is Alice Waters. She was one of the first to use a local network of farmers to supply the ingredients for her restaurant Chez Panisse. She created a menu each day with whatever was fresh in the market. When I ate at Chez Panisse everything was fresh and good and packed with flavor. She’s going to talk with us today. Welcome Alice Waters. As always we have our panel of experts. Fred, what are we drinking today?

FT: Yes, I’m going to talk about the connection between wine and music.

AW: I think it’s important to talk about food in the context of culture.

 LG: Alice, did you realize that you were starting an American revolution when you opened Chez Panisse?

 AW: I had no idea that it would be anything more than a neighborhood restaurant for my friends. I was cooking for them at home and I thought, “if I have a restaurant they’ll pay.” Of course I opened the restaurant and never saw them again.

 LG: Opening a restaurant with a new concept takes a lot of guts. Where did you get the idea?

AW: I went to France when I was 19 and I had an awakening. I had never experienced food as a part of everyday life and celebrations. I had never seen a Farmers Market with vibrant colors. I fell in love with baguette and oysters on the half shell. The fact that people ate in these small family restaurants made me want to live like that. When I came back I thought, “this is a bigger vision of life.”

 LG: Most people think French food is so complicated but it’s the opposite.

 AW: It used to be the opposite for sure. At least for the one star restaurants it was about fresh ingredients. I think in the three star restaurants it was more elaborate and a richer kind of food.

 LG: We were talking before the show about when I lived in Paris and started a cooperative. I was excited because the vendors taught me how to cook the things they gave me.

 AC: The very famous Chef Alain Ducasse says that 85% of cooking is about finding the right ingredients. If you find that peach that’s really ripe and in season, all you have to do is slice that peach and it’s going to be delicious.

LG: This is exactly the point. When you have delicious, fresh ingredients, just cooking it simply it is going to turn out wonderful

AW: You need to know a few small things like how to make a vinaigrette or mayonnaise and how to sauté or steam a piece of fish. When you learn those things you never have to look them up again and it’s not a struggle to put together a meal because you learn these things by heart.

 LG: That is the key. Have the ingredients available and know a few simple things.

 AW: That’s exactly what I do. I’ll have some salad greens, sauté fish with herbs, and pour a vinaigrette over it.

 LG: Organic and natural are words we hear a lot. It’s hard to know what they mean now. What do they mean anymore?

 AW: I’m looking for people who care about my nourishment and people who are taking care of the land. They don’t use pesticides and they are thinking about the right variety to plant and in the right place. They’re thinking about when to pick it and when to take it to the market. They are connected to the seasons and a kind of purity about what they’re growing. I’m talking about meat, fish and poultry as well as fruit and vegetables. It’s important to know how something is raised, what diet that animal had, where it was slaughtered…all those things.

 LG: We can all ask those questions on every level. It doesn’t mean you can only buy at Farmers Markets. For those of us in South Florida we don’t have Farmers Markets in the summer.

 AW: I think we need year-round Farmers Markets. It is the way to get connected to the farmer. I jut came back from Mexico where I went to the marketplace and I was overwhelmed by the beauty of it. There were small vendors bringing whatever they had. It was all kinds of potatoes and greens and it was a place where everybody shops.

 LG: As I mentioned, what I found in Paris is I could only afford to buy for my cooperative what was in season that day. We shouldn’t be afraid to try all new items and buy in season.

 AW: It’s difficult to do that when we have globalized food in the market. Most comes from Mexico and California. I want to know what’s grown right here and now in South Florida. That’s what I want to eat today.

 LG: Tell us about your initiative called the School Lunch Initiative.

 AW: I think the only way we’re going to come back to our senses and really begin to understand the culture of food is if we have a course in schools that teaches children about this. The idea that we have in Berkley is a curriculum that’s integrated into all the courses. The kids come into geography class but they learn about Indian curry and learn about India.

 LG: How did you start all that? The school day is so packed here and it’s hard to get more things into the school curriculum.

 AW: We’ve always had space for lunch. I think if we took that time slot and really incorporated some of the courses that you might want to learn during lunch time like language, we could make that into a beautiful experience for children. I want children to have a new relationship with food. I want them to be connected to agriculture and traditions around the table.

 LG: How did you get the funding?

 AW: It is an expensive proposition. Chez Panisse Foundation has founded this with a support group in the Bay Area. We’re trying to make a model for what could happen around the US. We jut need an enlightened President who believes that school lunch is important and that children need to understand the consequences of every decision they make about food.

 [break]

LG: We’re talking today with Alice Waters who was one of the first to rely on local farmers dedicated to sustainable agriculture in America. Her new book is called The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution. It’s Dinner In Minutes time now. Since we’re talking about fresh vegetables, today’s dinner in minutes takes only 20 minutes to cook. I call it Greek Minestrone because it has feta cheese and Arborio rice. I also have some zucchini, beans and rice in there. Arborio rice is shorter and plumper and is used to make creamy risotto. See the recipe on my website: www.dinnerinminutes.com.

LG: You mention simple principles for the Delicious Revolution in your book. Tell us about them.

AW: This cookbook would be like any other if it weren’t for the philosophy of food that guides you around how you eat and buy food. It begins with the idea of going to the Farmers Market. Find out who produces locally gown sustainable food.

 LG: What does sustainable mean?

 AW: Sustainable means you are thinking about future generations; you aren’t taking everything from the land, you’re putting back into the land. When we buy vegetables we take all the scraps back up to the farm and put them back into the land. It’s the idea that you’re going to leave it better than the way you found it.

 LG: This kind of farming is great but can we feed our nation with that type of farming?

 AW: They’ve done so many studies that prove you can absolutely raise as much as and more food sustainably than you can with chemical farming. You’re not considering when you’re farming in big agro-businesses how you wear out the soil and destroy the ground water. There are so many consequences when you make the choices to eat that food. I don’t want ground water to be contaminated. I want to give my money to people who are taking care of the land. We don’t pay the real price of food. Fast food nation has made us think food should be fast, cheap and easy. That’s not true. I want to know that what I’m eating is real food.

 LG: I think some of our young people don’t like the flavor of real food anymore.

 AW: That’s why we need a program in the schools that begins at a young age so that they can learn about taste. All of those cultural conditionings that happen in other countries happen naturally because they have a culture of food that’s very important. We don’t have those deep roots and it’s hard for us to really understand the place of food in our culture.

 LG: You’re the Vice President of Slow Food International. What is slow food?

 AW: Slow food is the opposite of fast food. The idea is to bring people to the big philosophy of biodiversity and sustainability through the pleasure of the table.

 LG: And they promote sustainable agriculture?

 AW: Yes, it was started by Carlo Petrini in a protest against fast food coming into the main Piazza in Rome. They protested the idea of industrial food.

 Fred Tasker’s Wine Suggestions:
FT: I was impressed with the Chez Panisse wine list.

 AW: We’ve always bought wine from people that we know. That adds a whole other dimension to how it tastes. When you know the person who made it, it makes it difficult for me not to love the wine. It’s a way to extend that experience of drinking.

Alice, I’m glad you’re here; you’re the perfect person to talk to about this. Your website has a page called The Delicious Revolution in which you speak of a profound disconnect between the human experience that our society values and the way we actually live our lives. You seek to repair this in part by re-connecting people with the food they eat and how and where it’s grown.

There’s a fascinating kind of parallel argument right now lighting up all the California wine blogs run by really serious wine fans. It’s about pairing wine not only with food, but also with music. Does merlot go better with, say, Mozart or Def Leppard?

This may be tongue-in-cheek, but I don’t think so. Winemaker Clark Smith put together a tasting panel and tasted 150 wines while listening to 250 pieces of music, and came up with a philosophy of wine-music pairing.

A delicate wine like pinot noir goes well with Mozart’s elegant Eine Kleine Nachmusik, but a big, tannic cabernet sauvignon doesn’s.

That big cab goes better with heavy metal rock music, like something by Metallica.

 And playing a polka by the North Water Street Tavern Band made a white zinfandel taste better than a $100 cabernet sauvignon. This is why I’m not sure they’re serious. 

In any case, everybody in California is talking about this. And other serious wine fans like retired wine professor Ann Noble are pushing for more research. She wants an experiment in which tasters sip various wines and listen to various pieces of music while undergoing MRIs, so they can see what’s really going on in their brains.

 LG: Well we’ve had a delicious week here. Thank you Alice Waters for joining us. The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution is a wonderful and informative book.