by Ethan Johnson
February 7, 2007

I found an interesting article over at Common Dreams that asks, Who Stole the Soul? In short, the author decries the existence of mass-produced foodstuffs, and encourages the consumption of foods that are native to one's "bioregion."

Up until recently I've defined "soul food" narrowly as the traditional Southern fare born out of slavery and forced frugality. But the more food I grow for myself and my family, the more food I buy from local farmers and fishers, and the more recipes I create with the food of my bioregion, the more I understand soul food as food that nourishes the body, mind, and spirit, preserves the landscape, and embraces the connection between culture and diet. In contrast, the more time I spend outside of my food utopia at Forest Farm the more I wonder, what the hell has happened to food in America? Who stole the soul from our food?

Well, I'll tell you. The culprits are many:

• Whoever invented mass production
• Whoever invented freezing/refrigeration
• Whoever drove the Earth's human population up over 6 billion
• Whoever invented shipping (local, domestic, and international)
• Whoever invented electricity
• Whoever invented cities
• Whoever invented business

Just track those people down, bring them all to justice, and the world will be immeasurably better.

Now, I am being somewhat flip about this because while I agree with the sentiments expressed in the article, we're a long way away from living nomadic lives, living in teepees, and using every part of the buffalo. Not that such an existence is impossible for one person, or a relative few, but collectively speaking, well, it is. If for no other reason that a fair amount of people are unwilling to give up some or all of the things on my bulleted list above.

My other thought is, consider iconic monuments or places like Mount Rushmore, Stonehenge, and the Grand Canyon. Several symbolic materials exist to relay what these things look like, but to fully experience (and appreciate) them, one must actually physically travel to those places. Not so with say, Normandy Butter or Maine Lobster. If you have the will and the cash, you can get nearly any foodstuff shipped to you worldwide. Overnight, even. Same day, assuming Sonic Air is still an option (usually used for organ transplants).

I get the impression that the author is hung up to some extent on terroir, which may be defined here as "a sense of place." Normandy Butter is an excellent example. Having been to restaurants (sadly, not locally) that insist on serving foods procured from local farms, I applaud those efforts and hope more places follow suit. But truthfully, thanks to various innovations throughout modern history, going "all local" isn't realistic anymore. Not for everyone. One way that I imagine this would be to pretend that every state in the US became its own sovereign nation, and had to make do with whatever was native to their land. Some places would fare better than others. California would be piss drunk, that's for sure.

Finally, I empathize with the author's greater point in that collectively, we often opt for that which is easy, rather than that which is sensible. We could grow our own foods to some extent, but that takes time (and space). This is outsourced to farmers, and more likely massive food conglomerates like Del Monte and Archer Daniels Midland. We could make more of an effort to "eat local", but the convenience of flown-in foods from all over the world, and the associated price tag often trump good intentions. A 79-cent can of tomatoes means I could be eating tomatoes right now, not when the vine finally produces some. I find that I am rather ambivalent about the recent loss of orange crops in California because rightly or wrongly, I presume that someone is growing oranges somewhere.

And yes, we should vote with our feet, and our wallets. The author is not kidding when he calls agricultural workers modern-day serfs, peasants and slaves. It's not going to get any better until we decide to make it so. Flipness aside, we may not be able to return to ancient roots, but we can actively improve our present with an eye to the future. Food for thought, indeed. <EM>