The Joy of Eating

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The system that delivers food to our table is far different from the days when Farmer Brown trucked his sweet corn, pears, and eggs to town. It’s changed radically over the past 25 years as family farms have been displaced by huge operations that de-pend on intensive chemical use, minimum-wage workers, and industrial facilities such as animal confinement buildings. This same period has also seen the rise of the natural food business, offering us healthier and more environmentally sustainable alternatives to practically everything in the supermarket aisles.

"Eating is the most intimate relationship we have with the environment," explains Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Food Safety, which coordinates the Organic & Beyond campaign, and the editor of a compelling new book, Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture (Island Press, 2002). "Three times a day, it’s how we can re-create the world. We can shape a different future for our children, for farmworkers, the landscape, wildlife, villages around the world, and genetic diversity.

"We all want to do the responsible thing," Kimbrell continues. "Who wants to be cruel to animals and poison the soil? But what’s great is that being responsible also means better health and better-tasting food you can enjoy with a greater sense of joy."

The joy of eating! That’s what everyone seeks at mealtime. Soren exudes it every time he tears into a a platter of pancakes. Joy is the much-advertised promise hawked by fast food chains and frozen dinner manufacturers. And it’s the point of the obligatory picnic scene in almost every foreign movie and food magazine: a long table under a canopy of trees, laden with fresh-from-the-garden delights and plentiful wine, surrounded by several generations of smiling people engaged in robust conversation.

Cooking and eating good food are the cornerstones of human civilization, our daily reward for all the hard work and innumerable difficulties of life. I have a favorite story that I’ve heard quoted numerous times. There was once an extensive study of National Merit Scholars to find the common denominator in these bright kids’ upbringing. Turns out it wasn’t household income, private schools, parents’ educational levels, or wealthy neighborhoods. It was families who ate their meals together.

Just as the American farm has been transformed in recent years, so has dinnertime. Joy is out of the picture in many (if not most) households, where time-pressed people wolf down microwaved dinners or swing through drive-up windows. Breaking bread has become refueling, and it’s often a solitary activity since everyone around the house is ruled by a hectic schedule. No wonder we cherish movies like Chocolat, Babette’s Feast, and Like Water for Chocolate, and that corporations pour millions into ads artistically trying to convince us that Velveeta and Kentucky Fried Chicken are pure, unadulterated fun. The joy of eating has, in many ways, become a vicarious thrill.

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