The Ink-Pot and the Palette

Michael Pollan talks a lot about food traditions, and the lack thereof in American culture. French women eat as their parents ate and do well because their food traditions are long, rich, well-established and proven to maintain wellbeing.

French food traditions are encoded into meal customs, portion sizes, food-labeling practices, and law. The French, collectively, agree to protect their farmland, value local sourcing (look at wine and cheese appellation law--you can't call it champagne unless it comes from Champagne). Employees and schoolchildren get two hours for lunch--enough time to go home and eat a hot, homecooked meal. Dinner is little short of a sacred ritual. There is no such thing as artificial cheese-food (at least, I didn't see any on the grocery store shelves last time I was there in 2003).

So in France, eating as your parents ate is an excellent plan, and a fundamental basis of life. In our world, unless your parents were immigrants, eating as they ate is a total crapshoot. Americans have no traditional bread or cereal, no traditional oil or fat, no traditional fermented drink (okay, maybe bourbon whiskey), no traditional and very few food preserving traditions. We threw away what was native to the continent when we got here, then systematically adulterated and corrupted what we brought with us.

In my own case, my family on both sides came to this New World and forgot their English and Scottish and Norse traditions literally centuries ago. The most traditional thing I can remember eating in my life (not counting Thanksgiving dinner, which is arguably the exception) is...

*thinks...*

*thinks some more...*

um...I'm drawing a big blank. Cookies, maybe? Pie? Baked potatoes with butter?

Donuts! Donuts! Donuts are, apparently, a great American food tradition. The French who visit here think rather highly of donuts. And a good donut is a fine thing.

Wow, I do go on! You always get me thinking.