The Ink-Pot and the Palette

High energy costs in Europe have always favored local produce--there's an unbroken tradition of farmers' markets in almost every French town and village, and always has been.

avventura1234 and I were just talking about our refrigerators and how one might manange with way less refrigeration. It wasn't at all uncommon when I lived in Europe in the 70s to have no refrigerator in an apartment, and even in the 80s the fridge was tiny. When you can stop at the greengrocer and the boulangerie and the charcuterie on your way home from work, and bring a lovely dinner home in your string bag, you don't need a constantly-running, energy-sucking refrigerator/freezer nearly as much as we do here.

It's more than $6-a-gallon gas, though, that promotes local eating in Europe, because even the big national-chain supermarkets in the UK and France carried much better quality local food than we were used to in the US in those decades. There's a strong cultural belief in both countries that good food is important.

I'm watching a video interview with the "Future of Food" filmmaker on Google video right now and am putting the film itself in my Netflix queue.

Meanwhile, you and S. might also be interested in this interview on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/80868/) with the author of In Defense of Food. "Much of what lines supermarket aisles is not food. It's merely foodlike, and it's making us sick."

No kidding.