Omnivorous.

I’m partway through reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma:  A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan.  Commenter, old friend and recipeblogger Christy recommended it to me some time ago, and my friend Kim lent me her copy after I mentioned that I was on a loooooong waiting list at the local library for it.  (I’m trying hard to develop the habit of borrowing books from the library before deciding to have Amazon ship them to me.)  It’s pretty good so far. 

Pollan’s schtick is to follow four different meals from production through processing to dinner.  One thing I like about it is that he has made a distinction between two extremes of so-called "organic" food — the industrial, and the "beyond organic" movement that’s trying to stay true to its roots, probably as a niche.   I for one am glad for industrial organic, as it’s opened up the only way I see two goals to be accomplished:  (1) agricultural chemical pollution to decrease significantly world wide and (2) to bring quality produce within the economic reach of the world’s urban non-rich.  Without industrial organic, I can’t see how "organic" would ever be anything but a niche reserved for the privileged few who are able to pay a premium price for it.  Your Prius may be able to drive out to the co-op farm, but the city bus ain’t going there.

One thing caught my eye right away.  In the introduction, Pollan laments that we have a "national eating disorder" centered around the fact that we don’t know the answer to the question "What should we have for dinner?"  He goes on to discuss reasons for this, including our lack of a national traditional cuisine, but I think the most telling sentence is near the end, when he writes that eating "is a political act."  Well, hell, I thought, that’s why we don’t know what to eat in a nutshell.  We don’t know what to think!  If eating is political when choices are nearly unlimited, then the answer to "what should we eat" is bound to be as diverse and confusing as our philosophies and our religion.  If we’re looking for a "national cuisine," maybe we should be looking for a "national philosophy" first.   The U. S. is diverse politically, but I don’t think we’re devoid of a national philosophy.  I’m not sure what kind of national set of food choices corresponds to it, or (until I see it) whether I would want to have it for dinner, but the food-as-politics identification strikes me as the answer to Pollan’s question.

(I read a couple of chapters this morning while I ate my omelette, consisting of direct-from-the-farm brown eggs from pastured chickens, European-style Plugra brand imported butter, conventionally grown garlic from Cub Foods, conventionally grown plastic wrapped Green Giant brand button mushrooms from Super Target, bagged shredded grocery store cheddar cheese, imported salt harvested from the French Mediterranean coast and purchased in Fairfield, OH from Jungle Jim’s Food Emporium — where else would I find French sea salt so inexpensively?  I get some every time I visit Ohio — and fresh-ground black pepper that, like almost all spices sold in the U. S., was probably irradiated on its way here.   Oh, also I had a glass of store-brand tomato juice from a plastic jug.  And some black coffee which was three-quarters Cameron’s Intense French Roast and one-quarter shade-grown dark-roast decaf.  Now you know everything you need to know about me.)