Conservatives, Liberals, Slow Food Elite
Just in case you had any doubts, I'm not a "Conservative", and I'm not a "Republican". I'd be an Independent if I could vote in both primaries. So what? What's in a label anyway?
That's what I would like to know, especially after reading John Swenkler's article in The American Conservative magazine. I don't understand the point of the article unless it's to lay the soothing blanket of conservatism on the Sustainable Accessible Clean Slow Fair Local (SASCFL) food movement. Please let me know if I've left out anything, I really need another vowel to make that anacronym work.
Swenkler is coming at this subject like some born-again foodie, as if he just heard about the benefits of sitting down at a table, or getting his $25 dollars worth of farm fresh produce. Then again, maybe this is news to the regular American Conservative audience.
The whole Slow Food elitism arguement just makes my head spin. How exactly do the righteous potluck folks expect that holding tight to their purse strings will spread the word about eating real food? What's wrong with some 'elitists' going to a $100 a head benefit dinner, as long as there really is some tangible benefit? I'm referring to the Slow Food Nation event that was recently held in San Francisco, and which
reopened that whole flapdoodle about Carlo Petrini looking down his nose at wealthy Californians who buy $3.00 peaches.
What is encouraging is that people from all over, with very different priorities are thinking more about what they put into their mouths, how it gets there and the effect on the planet. Everyone's getting into the act, even David Pogue in one of his weekely newsletters for the NY Times,ponders the paper v. plastic bag dilemma. The solution of course is bring your own bag, and I try, I really do, but I forget a lot of the time, but at least I'm trying.
Or wine in boxes, that was the subject of a recent NY Times editorial where the author extolled the benefits of boxed wine. Personally I'm a fan of the Italian method: go to the vineyard, fill up a few 5 liter containers and bring them home and bottle the wine in re-uesable wine bottles. Can you imagine what the US wine producers would do if we could buy wine in bulk?? If the idea of someone in NY mail-ordering wine from California gives them apoplexy, bulk wine would just send them over the edge.
These are complex problems, with no easy solutions, but at least we are talking about them, and that's a good thing. I'll even let a Conservative come to dinner so we can chat.