Dinner Table in 2020

Five students recently took our Seminar on Food and read the book "In Defense of Food." They wrote short interesting essays - pieces that provide interesting insights into how they view their future.

Dinner Table in 2020

***The future is bleak…Don’t be misled by the colors***

In the past, food was colorful – greens and reds and oranges and blues and browns. Today, food is even more colorful, artificial coloring brightening up the natural colors, making food today seem strange and alien to the people of yesterday. Too much food is artificial, and natural food has fallen out of style. Moving in the direction of the future, it is entirely likely that food as we know it will cease to exist.

From being a rich and involved social activity, to becoming a solitary endeavor for sustenance, food and eating have steadily become less important to culture as a whole. Instead of enjoying feasts of a variety of food with all sorts of different tastes and textures, the table laid out in all its splendor, surrounded by friends and loved ones, people will have kitchens stocked with box after box of packaged bars that they can grab and eat on the move. It is a very plain and lonely outlook for the future of food, but one the world is headed towards. No longer will there be prep time or clean up time for meals, no long conversations in the dining room with the pleasure of both food and company, no delight in discovering new and different foods.

Natural color and community are what characterized the food of the past. Processed food has overtaken the food industry in recent decades and it is likely to keep heading in that direction. Ten years from now, that trend is only going to continue. While perhaps we cannot stop the loss of natural food variety, we can still fight the loss of culture in reference to food. I can make no promises on what kind of food I will be eating in ten years, but I will still be making the effort to never dine alone, to always spend quality time with the people I love over meals that we will hopefully still find enjoyable in the future.

***But there are other possibilities***

In ten years I can’t imagine that kitchens will be that much different than what they are today. Of course there will be changes like there are every decade but in terms of life changing improvements I don’t think we’ll see too much change. I anticipate that there will be two extremes in the food industry. There will be the all organic, local farms, grassroots movement with food. But there will also be a growth in the production of industrialized food. This will be the preserved, chemical and nutrient enhanced food that is promoted as better and healthier but in reality is not. People will have to make individual choices as to whether they want real food or industrialized food in their kitchens.

As for me, I have no idea what I’ll be doing in ten years but I would hope that I will be making use of the knowledge I gained from Eater’s Manifesto. There was a lot from this book that resonated with me. I will remember the importance of keeping things simple. Why eat a packaged food item with dozens of ingredients and added nutrients when those same nutrients plus even more is available in a simple fruit or vegetable. In many ways the book seemed way too simple and logical to be true. In today’s culture, I am used to reading nutrition labels with ingredients that I cannot pronounce, and attempting to follow all of these “healthy” dietary guidelines that change from week to week. In 10 years I will make sure that my kitchen is a reflection of what food has been for the generations that came before me and what food is to people all over the world. Food should not be a reflection of the food industry’s great ideas to make money but rather it should be nourishment for our bodies that we need but also that we can enjoy.

***It will come down to choice***

After sitting through an orchestra concert this afternoon, realizing my newfound love of the cello, I opened my mind to the possibility of taking a year after college to catch up on some of the aspects of life that I have been wanting to address, but couldn’t find the time. And as I know this will be pricey, one of these goals is to begin cooking my own meals.

This simple change with the allowance of spare time would effectively increase the healthiness of my diet, according to Michael Pollan. In accordance with my plan I would spend more time shopping farmers’ markets and local businesses. It is incredible how the allowance of more time opens up these possibilities that would lead to a healthier lifestyle.

Similarly, as a vegetarian I already have an interest in nutrition, as I must make up the proteins that I would normally receive from meats. Taking a year to myself I would spend a lot of time reading the books I am forced to put to the side making way for an endless amount of textbooks. Several of these, such as Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer will increase my awareness of nutrition.

In the distant future I see myself in Academia, as a college professor of art. It is probably unrealistic to think I will have more time to spend cooking meals in such a position, as I will most likely need a second source of income. On the other hand, if I am lucky enough to have a family I intend to make my children’s lives as creative as I can, including decorations on all of their favorite meals. I would also hope to give them the best nutrition I can supply them, and I think it would be more of a priority to consider the factors toward better health offered by Pollan when people other than myself are affected.

Already I have begun to make minor changes in my food health. Aside from making sure I have a daily supply of protein, I have attempted to cook more meals and buy organic foods whenever possible, especially if the skin is thin and easily penetrated by pesticides. In the coming summers I will make a bigger effort to support local foods, and I will know to take scientific findings in the area of nutritionism with a grain of salt.

***Encouragement and examples help***

I fear I am fast becoming one of those young adults who likes the idea of a great kitchen but does not have the motivation to make use of it. I think there are two ways the path I am currently on, cooking and kitchen-wise, could go in the next ten years: (1) my desire to be a family person will take over and I will live on a small sustainable farm like the one on which I grew up, cooking mostly with food from my own production and supplementing with other locally grown food and staples from a local co-op, or (2) I will get caught up in school for the rest of my life and eat American-Chinese take-out alone with my books every night[1]. I am not sure which option I would prefer, actually, though I lean more toward the former, as it is a more holistic lifestyle- embracing the spiritual, political, and physical aspects of life.

My brother lives a very holistic food life with his two small children, encouraging me that this is possible. I imagine my kitchen will be much like his- refrigerator more full than the cupboards, more fresh food than non-perishable staples. Eating as a family has always been a value when I am with family or close friends, I hope to continue this tradition, taking 45 minutes to eat and be together each day. I heard a piece on National Public Radio the other day, an interview with Maya Angelou[2] about a new cookbook she recently had published, “Good Food, All Day Long”, in which Ms Angelou told the following story:

“I had a young woman who came to work for me a few weeks ago, and we had sandwiches. So she had sandwich, and I had one. And I sat at the kitchen table, and she stood at the counter. So I said oh, no. Please come and sit down.

She said: No, Ma'am. I feel most comfortable standing here. And I realized in that second that we have raised a generation of young people who have eaten their main meals at counters. Not to sit down at the table is to lose something that is essential to community, essential to family.”

I think this story may be the final inspiration I need to be intentional about creating a kitchen, 10 years from now, that is filled with good food, community, and home, rather than American-Chinese food on the run.

***Vision 2020***

2020: In this utopian future, I’m working for a small publisher in Bloomington, Indiana. I have a small, old house on the edge of downtown and a large, wiry-haired grey dog.

Southern Indiana boasts an impressive amount of seasonal farmer’s markets, so during the warm seasons I’d shop local at least on the weekends. Pollan points out that if you shop in-season, you have to explore with recipes and foods you may have not considered trying before—it’ll be fun to try new combinations and dishes.

Another thing from the book that I found very interesting was the idea of a “flexitarian” diet, where meat is consumed less than once a day. In fact, this philosophy spawned my newest experiment, a completely meat-free December. But in 2020, I hope to be only eating meat two or three times a week—this seems overall best for the environment and for myself.

Of course, having a job means I won’t have all the time I’d like to cook. However, I can try to cook things in bulk and store leftovers in the freezer for the next few weeks. I can also try to make conscious choices with packaged goods or take-out. Of course, I will still have to take breaks for my processed weaknesses. I can recognize that Taco Bell might be a terrible life choice, but I will never be able to end my love affair.

Overall, I hope my kitchen has a lot of fresh produce and weird spices to experiment with. I hope there are lots of dog-eared cookbooks on the shelves. I hope I make time to actually have fun with cooking, and to actually sit down and enjoy meals. I hope that some of the lessons I’ve learned from reading this book will translate easily to my future life, and contribute to a healthy, happy lifelong relationship to food.

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[1] Note, said take-out will likely not actually be American-Chinese, as most of this is made with fish oil, a product I choose not to consume, I just use this example for literary effect.

[2] If you have not heard this, I highly recommend it: http://www.npr.org/2010/12/16/132080094/maya-angelous-cooking-advice-ignore-the-rules. One of my favorite poets, I am equally thrilled with Angelou’s philosophy of food- eat and be happy, treats are okay.