Fast food/organic food: reflexive tastes and the making of 'yuppie chow'
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Social & Cultural Geography, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2003
Fast food/organic food: reflexive tastes and the
making of ‘yuppie chow’
Julie Guthman
Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Organic food consumption is one of several new trends in eating read as active opposition
to industrialized food provision. While fast food consumption is characterized by compul-
sive gluttony, manifest in fat bodies, alternative consumption practices are seen to be
driven by conscious reflexivity, such that consumers monitor, reflect upon and adapt their
personal conduct in light of its perceived consequences. The purpose of this paper is
two-fold. One is to examine the evolution of organic food from what Belasco called the
‘counter-cuisine’ to what organic growers call ‘yuppie chow’, to show how organic salad
mix was the carrier of major changes in the organic system of provision, thereby calling
into question the notion that organic food is necessarily an antidote to industrialized food.
The other is to problematize the facile dichotomies between fast and slow, reflexive and
compulsive, fat and thin, and, hence, good and bad eaters, to show where there is slippage
and instability in these categories, in addition to a troubling politics of class and gender.
To these ends, I showcase the changing provision of a particular organic commodity (salad
mix, or mesclun) in California.
Key words: organic food, organic agriculture, consumption, reflexivity, agriculture-
California, eating disorders.
Introduction (from the introduction to Fast Food Nation,
Schlosser 2001: 10)
Hundreds of millions of people buy fast food every
The Slow Food movement is different from ecologi-
day without giving it much thought, unaware of the
cal movements and from gastronomy movements.
subtle and not so subtle ramifications of their pur-
Gastronomical movements don’t defend the small
chases. They rarely consider where this food came
producers and their products, and ecological move-
from, how it was made, what it is doing to the
ments fight the battles, but can’t cook. You have to
community around them. They just grab their tray
have both at the same time. (spoken by Carlo Petrini,
off the counter, find a table, take a seat, unwrap the
founder of the Slow Food movement at a ‘convivium’
paper, and dig in … They should know what really
held at Berkeley’s Chez Panisse; Brennan 1999)
lurks behind those sesame-seed buns. As the old
saying goes: You are what you eat. The recently published Fast Food Nation
ISSN 1464-9365 print/ISSN 1470-1197 online/03/010045–14 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/146493603200004930646 Julie Guthman (Schlosser 2001) is an exposé of an industrial- and Martens 2000: 199; also DuPuis 2000). In ized food system in extremis. Deliberately contrast to the fast food eater, the reflexive building on the legacy of Upton Sinclair’s The consumer pays attention to how food is made, Jungle, Schlosser seeks to enrage people’s and that knowledge shapes his or her ‘taste’ hearts as well as their stomachs by describing toward healthier food. That this consumer has both the social and the public health/environ- a ‘healthier’ body is only implied. mental costs of a food sector gone awry. Presumably the end point of the broadest set Hence, not only does he recount the epidemiol- of alternative practices, organic food consump- ogy of E. coli 0157:H7, he drives home the tion, is treated in this literature as reflexive point that the rise of fast food was inextricable eating par excellence. To be sure, growth in from the de-skilling, racializing and youthening organic production has been strongly corre- of restaurant and food-processing work, mak- lated with increased consumer knowledge ing such work mindless at best and extraordi- about mass-produced food, at times coming as narily hazardous at worst.1 Curiously, though, ‘food scares’ but also with compelling evidence the desire for fast food is treated as somewhat of some of the public health, environmental of a given. Indeed, Schlosser treats taste as a and moral risks involved with chemical-based purely biological phenomenon, unmediated by crop production and intensified livestock man- cultural and economic factors, claiming at sev- agement. Yet, a look at the growth in organic eral junctures that fast food simply tastes good. food in geographic and historical context As but one consequence, he says, the USA has shows that the explosion in organic food pro- the highest rate of obesity in the industrialized duction and consumption was not entirely world (Schlosser 2001: 240). The success of fast innocent of some of the very factors that were foods, he insinuates, depends on compulsive implicated in the growth of fast food. Indeed, gluttony and unrefined taste, both of which are the simultaneity of growth with the so-called manifest in fat bodies. McDonaldization of America raises the ques- Juxtaposed to fast food is what Bell and tion of whether the arrival of organic foods Valentine (1997) call ethical eating, a counter- truly represented a paradigmatic shift or was trend (cf. Hollander, this issue) that includes the just the other side of the same coin. vegetarianism, organic food, Fair Trade coffee, The moral positioning of organic food in direct farmer-to-consumer marketing, and, binary opposition to fast food is equally prob- most directly, the Slow Food movement. Social lematic in this literature. For, if fast food is critics (including Schlosser himself), academics about common tastes, mass production and (e.g. Friedmann 1993; Miele and Murdoch massive bodies, to construct an inverse of forthcoming; Morgan and Murdoch 2000; refined (or reflexive) taste, craft production and Whatmore and Thorne 1997), diehard natural crafted bodies raises some class and gender food consumers, and ‘foodies’ (e.g. Kraus 1991; issues that, at the very least, complicate the McManus and Rickard 2000; Unterman 1998), new politics of consumption. In regards to most of all, read these trends as active oppo- class, this dichotomy not only suggests that sition to industrialized food provision. In this ‘good’ food is out of the economic and cultural view, consumption practices are driven by a reach of non-elites, it fails to bring to scrutiny conscious reflexivity, such that people monitor, the labour conditions under which such food is reflect upon and adapt their personal conduct produced. In regards to gender, it not only in light of its perceived consequences (Warde effaces the links between convenience food and
Fast food/organic food 47
women’s massive participation in the paid tiple geographic and philosophical origins (see,
workforce, it contributes to the pervasive social e.g., Harwood 1990; Peters 1979), California
nagging about body norms. was always important to its formation (Guth-
The purpose of this paper is, thus, two-fold. man 1998, forthcoming). Tropes of nature and
One is to examine the evolution of organic health were central to the California mythology
food from what Belasco (1989) called the (see, e.g., Baur 1959; Shrepfer 1983; Starr 1985),
‘counter-cuisine’ to what organic growers call and the 1960s’ counter-culture, with its strong-
‘yuppie chow’ to suggest that the success of the hold in the San Francisco Bay Area, drew on
organic industry was largely wrapped up with these tropes, in addition to the oppositional
gentrification—and the class differentiation politics of the so-called New Left. Many of the
that necessarily entailed. The other is to prob- key institutions and figures of the movement
lematize the facile dichotomies between fast were also California-based. For example, Alan
and slow, reflexive and compulsive, fat and Chadwick, a British-born Shakespearean actor,
thin, and, hence, good and bad eaters, to show began the first university-run research and
where there is slippage and instability in these extension service devoted solely to organics at
categories, in addition to this troubling politics the University of California at Santa Cruz in
of class and gender. To these ends, I will 1967. The decidedly counter-cultural milieu of
showcase the provision of a particular com- this programme set the idiomatic tone for
modity (organic salad mix, or mesclun) in a organic farming for a long time to come, as
particular place: California.2 many farmers were apprenticed in this pro-
In important respects, salad mix gave a gramme. In addition, the first organic
jump-start to the California organic sector, certification programme in the USA, California
which then became what is likely the largest in Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), started in
the world in terms of crop value.3 Therefore, Santa Cruz in 1973, then a rag-tag group of
the production complex around salad mix set a fifty or so self-proclaimed hippie farmers. The
crucial standard in the evolution of the organic annual ‘gathering’ of ecological farmers—now
sector. Introduced by restaurateurs in the early a major industry conference—made its home in
1980s, salad mix also helped establish organic Asilomar, California. The Capay Valley, a
food as precious, a ‘niche’ product not necess- small offshoot of the Sacramento Valley,
arily representing a critique of industrial food. became an important enclave of subscription
So successful was organic salad mix as a high- farms, where consumers buy in for a weekly
end commodity that it induced major changes box of produce. There are other examples.
in the system of provision in the decade that Most of the organic farmers involved in these
followed. The growing disconnect between formative institutions counter-posed their
new forms of provision and the meanings vision to fast, industrial food in some respect
organic farming originally embodied surely or another.
calls into question the positioning of organic Nevertheless, organic agriculture arrived in a
farming and organic food as antidote to indus- post-1970s’, post-counter-cultural climate, in
trialized agriculture and fast food. some ways contradicting the simple-living,
tread-lightly message that some would argue is
Making and remaking salad mix4 central to the organic critique. Indeed, this
emergence was contingent on bridging the
While the organic farming movement has mul- counter-cultural associations of organic food48 Julie Guthman with a new class of eaters, a contingency that Levenstein (1988) calls ‘culinary babbitry’. To was similarly dependent on where it occurred: the contrary, the Bay Area remained a haven of the San Francisco Bay Area—a curious mélange good food sense amid the downward spiral of itself of a high-wage economy with a liberal-to- dietary expectations and food quality that radical political climate (Walker 1990)—and a occurred in the middle third of the twentieth history of trend-setting in food. century. As anecdotal evidence, a survey of From the heady days of the Gold Rush, the twelve Berkeley families, nine headed by pro- Bay Area was historically a high-wage economy fessors, was taken in 1927. The surveyors noted (for whites), a centre for industries requiring that, ‘the Berkeley diet emphasized fresh veg- high-skilled labour. The crucial juncture, for etables and fruits, especially the leafy and citrus the purposes of this argument, was the explo- varieties, milk products, and eggs, in contrast sive success of high-tech electronics in Silicon to the average urban diet which substituted the Valley and finance in San Francisco during the cheaper cereals and potatoes and spent rela- 1980s (Walker 1990). Riding the waves of tively more for meat. The extraordinary financial crises and de-regulation that charac- amount of fresh fruits and vegetables were terized the neo-liberal transition, many mini- especially noteworthy’ (Luck and Woodruff fortunes were made in stock and real estate 1931; cited in Levenstein 1993). Proximity to speculation, supplementing the already above- the wine country of Napa and Sonoma coun- average wages of the professional working ties, as well as prevalent truck gardens, con- classes. No doubt, much of this wealth was a tributed to relatively urbane food tastes. by-product of some of the same processes that It was a young woman from Berkeley who made McDonald’s the most financially success- forged the unlikely connection between this ful restaurant chain in the world (e.g. tax roll early culinary history, the 1960s’ counter-cul- backs, falling real wages). To be sure, the rapid ture, and the nouveau riche of the 1980s. As a growth in financial markets starting in the mid- young adult, Alice Waters went to France and 1980s involved a sharpening of class divisions, became enamoured with French rustic cooking. so that a decade later, wealth in the USA was She returned to Berkeley to open a café in 1971 the most concentrated it had been since the where she served simple meals to her friends. 1920s (Henwood 1998: 66). Yet, as Walker Within a few years of opening, she had pion- notes, the Bay Area had long been a centre of eered the California version of nouvelle cuisine. personal innovation and indulgence, and cul- Feeling that the best food was made from fresh, tural non-conformity, as well. It was a local local and seasonal ingredients, she bought most social pundit, Alice Kahn, who coined the of her produce from local farms. Warren word ‘yuppie’ to connote the emerging group Weber, of Star Route Farms in Bolinas, one of of young urban professionals who ‘combin[ed] the original self-professed hippie farmers, fierce upward mobility and strong consumerism began to sell cut organic baby greens to Waters with some remarkably progressive cultural and in 1981, using the French term mesclun. A political interventions’ (Walker 1990: 22).5 handful of others soon joined in, some calling From the Gold Rush, San Francisco had also it spring mix. All were garden-variety organic been a restaurant town, an early draw for farmers—relatively small scale, independent immigrating French chefs. Unlike most of the and ideologically motivated—and, in Weber’s rest of the USA, moreover, San Francisco did words, ‘employed the time-honored organic not shun haute cuisine in the era of what techniques of cover-cropping and composting’.
Fast food/organic food 49 So when Waters modified the noun mesclun ganic produce and to discard (or separate) with the word ‘organic’ on the menu in what produce that did not conform to restaurant came to be an upscale restaurant, she started an standards. In turn, organic shed the image of association that she was only part conscious of. the twisted stunted carrot showing up at the Not only did Waters inspire a rash of imi- local food-co-op to the splendid display of tation, and quite instrumentally contribute to mesclun on a chef’s dish. the diffusion of organic consumption, she also, The specificity of the farm–restaurant con- and in this way, unintentionally, institutional- nection reinforced another attribute of organic ized a certain set of meanings for organic. salad mix: that it was necessarily expensive. Within a decade after opening, Chez Panisse Restaurants were willing to pay top dollar for had become a world-renowned culinary insti- the finest, freshest and eye-pleasing mix. Sev- tution. Waters continued to buy local seasonal eral growers interviewed harkened back to the produce and highlight its organic origins. Many rumours than had once circulated about restau- Bay Area chefs trained with Waters and went rants paying $35 per pound for mesclun. One on to open their own restaurants and become grower spoke of short-lived Kona Kai farms, ‘celebrity chefs’ in their own right. Many also situated on a small urban lot in Berkeley, made it a practice to form personal relation- whose owner had once boasted to have made ships with local farmers to ensure availability the equivalent of $100,000 per acre in one year of the highest quality ingredients. Following selling salad mix and herbs to nearby restau- Waters’ lead, they wanted organic ingredients, rants. Complaining that the data were ‘heavily although, crucially, only salad mix was regu- extrapolated’ and based on ‘counter-cultural larly featured as organic. To draw emphasis to economics’, this grower confirmed that it had the farm–restaurant connection, some featured been widely circulated. So whether these prices the name of the farm on the menu, Star Route were real or illusory, such talk contributed to Farms having received the most notoriety this the notion that organic salad mix was a pre- way. cious commodity. Upscale supermarkets picked By the late 1980s, organic salad mix was on up on this discourse, selling their salad mix as the menu of many upscale restaurants and ‘custom-made’ and pricing it upwards of $12 certainly at those at the cutting edge. Green- per pound (as observed by the author). leaf, a local Bay Area distributor, and Terra Although organic produce more generally Sonoma, a consortium of small growers with had long been sold in health food stores, co-op- personal connections to the restaurant business, eratives and selected greengrocers, the taste for made entire businesses out of selling speciality organic salad mix was mostly diffused through and organic produce directly to restaurants. restaurants, as are many exotic tastes (Warde Because restaurateurs were extraordinarily and Martens 2000). But sales of organic salad picky about what they would buy, they en- mix exploded when producers started to forced a high appearance standard on growers infiltrate more mainstream retail establish- so not to compromise their own reputations. ments. The domestication of salad mix began The need for ‘quality’ became a major push for when two graduates of the University of Cali- technical solutions to organic farming (and fornia at Santa Cruz, Myra and Drew Good- processing), at the same time it required an man, who had been selling their own organic extraordinary amount of care. Growers were berries and lettuce to area restaurants like Chez pushed to be delicate in their handling of or- Panisse, came up with the idea of bagging their
50 Julie Guthman lettuce mixes. Adopting the name of Earth- (TKO), introduced a system of contracting bound Farms, from 1986 to 1989 they were the with other growers for the different compo- only company selling washed, spun dried and nents of salad mix. Eventually, other salad mix re-sealable bagged salad mixes to supermar- marketers followed suit. Consequently, another kets. Thereafter, others became involved in set of growers were brought into organic pro- retail sales, some imitating the one-meal bags duction, this time because they were asked to, designed by Earthbound and others selling cus- as marketers preferred the ‘professionalism’ tom mixes in bulk to upscale supermarkets. and ‘reliability’ of conventional growers. The Aldicarb and Alar pesticide scares of 1986 Koons, along with other key growers, also and 1988, respectively, created a surge of improved post-harvest processes (washing, spin growth in the California organic sector at drying and bagging), a key value-adding strat- large, with certified organic acres quadrupling egy but one that raised the cost of capitaliza- in two years (Schilling 1995). Ultimately this tion and, hence, barriers to entry. cause of growth was outlasted by the expan- Meanwhile, salad mix production began to sionary activity around salad mix (Klonsky and stray from agro-ecological principles. Compo- Tourte 1995), suggesting that food safety was nent contracting effectively encouraged mono- not the only impetus towards organic con- cultural production, at the same time it did not sumption, at least in this particular period. A preclude suppliers from growing conventional leader in one major organic industry organiza- crops on their other fields. Because baby salad tion was later to quip, ‘Salad mix has done greens are picked young, they had never more to reduce pesticide use in California than wanted for pesticides. Fertility needs, however, all the organizing around pesticide reform’.6 were increasingly met with forms of soluble Meanwhile, the equation of organic with nitrogen such as Chilean nitrate, an allowed high value brought a rash of new growers into but contentious substance within the organic the sector. In the aftermath of the 1980s’ farm farming community, known to destroy soil mi- crisis, many growers were looking for higher cro-organisms and contribute to ground water value cropping or marketing strategies, which pollution (Conway and Pretty 1991). Because occasionally led them to organic production. In baby greens could be grown quickly, growers California, commercial development pressure could manage several crops per year, contribut- on farmland made organic farming especially ing to the logic of intensification that has char- attractive, a way to reap more crop value per acterized California’s salad-growing regions. acre in escalating land markets. Many growers Component production could also move simultaneously moved from commodity crops around the state (as well as into Mexico and (such as cotton or sugar beets) into fresh veg- Arizona), taking advantage of seasonal climatic etables. In the long run, these new entrants did variation, and allowing salad mix to be pro- a huge disservice to extant growers, who were duced year-round. At the same time, vacuum eventually faced with unprecedented price com- packing increased storage life and allowed petition (see Guthman forthcoming). salad mix to be shipped all over the country The gradual distancing of salad mix from its and into Canada. earlier movement roots was to have profound And what were working conditions like? implications for the way it was produced. Growers in the organic industry continued to Todd Koons, a former chef at Chez Panisse rely on the ‘time-honoured’ exploitation of who started his own brand of mixed greens racialized and marginalized immigrant workers
Fast food/organic food 51 as documented in accounts of the California mix. Major multinationals such as Dole lettuce industry (Friedland, Barton and Thomas entered the retail salad mix market in force. 1981; Thomas 1985). Many were hired through Meanwhile, Earthbound Farms continued to labour contractors, a system that keeps wages grow at a rate of at least 50 per cent a year low through structural over-supply and until 1995, when a series of mergers began. attempts to remove grower responsibility for Having more capital than organic market ensuring that workers are documented (Martin potential, Earthbound and its new partners 1989). To ensure ‘care’ in weeding, some grow- joined forces to create Natural Selection Foods. ers encouraged use of the short-handled hoe, a Thereafter, they became involved in a series of practice that would have been banned in Cali- partnerships with major conventional vegetable fornia were it not for the last minute lobbying growers, including Growers’ Vegetable of the organic and ornamental flower industries Express, and Tanimura and Antle. They con- (CCOF 1995). As for the harvest, with hardier tinued to grow geographically, with at least components (e.g. radicchio), labour could be 1,600 acres in production in Baja California partially mechanized, meaning that a conveyor where they grow off-season lettuce and toma- belt was placed in the field, ensuring that each toes; they continued to grow in market share head was cut and packed at a brisk clip; more by buying out or contracting with some of their delicate components were often hand cut with erstwhile competitors. By 2001, they had 7,000 stoop labour. acres in organic production; 2,000 more in TKO itself was to go bankrupt in 1996, transition; and were in contract with dozens of attributed to rapid expansion and mismanage- other large acre growers. Natural Selection had ment, but the future of salad mix was altered become the biggest supplier of speciality let- for good. Over the course of five years, organic tuces and the largest grower of organic produce salad mix had gone from a speciality com- in North America (www.ebfarm.com). modity selling for over $12 per pound at retail, In short, salad mix was the medium of some to just a commodity at $4 per pound. dramatic shifts in the politics of organic pro- Extremely low prices squeezed many of the duction. With rampant growth in demand, the high-end ‘niche’ growers out of the market, production of organic salad mix became many of whom diversified with other, newly increasingly industrialized, with scaled-up exoticized crops. A later crackdown on food growers out-competing some of the earlier safety, after sixty-one illnesses were linked to movement growers. Many of the practices they bags of salad mix found to be tainted with E. incorporated, while in keeping with organic coli H157:H7 (Food Chemical News 1998), regulations, were not in keeping with organic forced others to get big (for returns to scale on idioms. The association of organic salad mix more frequent inspections and more elaborate with ‘yuppieness’ imparted even more political washing equipment) or get out. As a conse- ambiguity to organic salad mix, here in the quence, salad mix became the province of some sphere of consumption. of the largest grower–shippers in the state of California. Salinas-based Missionero and Earthbound took up the slack of TKO, buying Eating salad mix up its land and taking on the growers it had cultivated, and developed a significant clientele In the early days of the organic movement, the of ‘white table cloth chains’ as well as bagged shared meanings of organic food suppliers and
52 Julie Guthman eaters made for a reasonably coherent move- this aesthetic has changed over time (cf. ment politics. Salad mix was arguably one of Korsmeyer 1999). So, for instance, eighteenth- the factors that de-stabilized that coherence, as century nouvelle cuisine helped usher the aes- certain consumers began to see it as a speciality thetic shift to the visual, in particular ‘the item, rather than a systemic alternative to singularization of presentation’ (Ferguson 1998: industrialized food. Yet, it is not simply its 606) that characterizes the so-called simplicity earlier cost structure that made salad mix of extremely labour-intensive kitchen art (Men- seemingly inaccessible to all but the privileged, nell 1986). a so-called niche product (cf. Allen and Sachs Until the 1960s, dining out in the USA 1993; DeLind 1993). Eating organic salad mix (except for the famed lunch counter or coffee was in some sense performative of an elite shop) was largely the purview of the privileged, sensibility, albeit a rather unusual one. Organic or the middle class enjoying a special occasion salad mix was strongly coupled with—indeed (Kuh 2001). Food habits gradually began to helped to animate—the figure of the ‘yuppie’, change in the late 1960s, with the expansion of the San Francisco Bay version of which was not chain restaurants, ethnic restaurants (operated wholly devoid of social conscience, having by new migrants) and middle-class travel to grown up in the tumultuous late 1960s and Europe, creating new interest in fine food early 1970s, but not shorn of gentrified aspira- (Levenstein 1993). In its frequency, restaurant tions either. Thanks to the Alice Waters eating became much more democratized (Men- diaspora, and the introduction of ingredient- nell 1986). Consequently, as Warde and based menus, this new group of eaters obtained Martens (2000) show for the UK, where to go a keener interest in the constituent ingredients and what to eat became the key indicators of of food and how they were put together, in lieu class. And while dining out was never a con- of the haute cuisine pretension of named dishes scious strategy for social display, the middle (Kuh 2001). In that way among others, they class were much more experimental and prone helped usher in broader entitlement to luxuri- to evaluate the meals they enjoy in aesthetic ous eating. At the same time, they developed terms. Brought to California from France by their own conceits about taste, and brought Alice Waters, new nouvelle cuisine or ‘Califor- with them heightened concern with body image nia cuisine’ helped launch this trend in food that in important respects mapped on to the experimentation, which evolved into a culinary idea of reflexive eating. eclecticism involving ‘dizzying dives into novel Historians of food have shown how the combinations of exotic ingredients’ (Levenstein making of taste has been inextricably tied to 1993: 24). Northern California’s young nou- the conditions and social processes that gave veau riche were the primary consumers of this rise to inequitable distributions of food and new cuisine, indeed were in some sense defined variations in diet, so that varying levels and by it, as reflected in much of the local humour practices of food consumption have been of the time.7 shaped by social ranking and identity (Burnett Historians of food have also noted that as 1966; Mennell 1986; Toussaint-Samat 1994). In taste has become a performance of class, gen- that way, taste has come to play a role in der and nationality, the body has become a defining social ranking and identity (Bourdieu potent symbol of such difference, a way in 1984). In particular, taste as an aesthetic has which one’s taste is displayed (Bourdieu 1984: become a sign of privilege, albeit the nature of 190). For example, gastronomes—public
Fast food/organic food 53 arbiters of good taste—began to express con- excess weight shifted from the language of cern about body weight as an affliction of aesthetics to that of health (Levenstein 1993). gourmets in the early nineteenth century, con- As Levenstein argues, these new ideas about tributing to the trend within haute cuisine diet fit in well with the moral asceticism of the towards simpler, lighter food and fewer courses times, given newly found awareness of inter- (Mennell 1986: 37). Indeed, gastronomie was national poverty (e.g. Biafra, the ‘other’ Amer- morally positioned as a model of discipline, ica) and the climate of scarcity that pervaded control and moderation, counterpoised to the during the early 1970s’ energy crisis. Beginning ‘unreflective’ and excessive eating of the gour- in the late 1970s, body fat came to be relent- mand (Ferguson 1998: 608–609, emphasis lessly villainized in the popular media, to the mine). During the Victorian era, the bourgeoisie point that ‘food replaced sex as a source of emulated the aristocratic ideal of a graceful and guilt’ (Levenstein 1993: 212). slender body, disdainful of the need to display Yet, it was more than health concerns (if wealth and power ostentatiously. Women, in notions of health can even be disassociated particular, were admonished to eat with deli- from other cultural constructs) that triggered a cacy, to take in as little as possible, and to shift to near-impossible body ideals in the display no desire, clearly reflecting extant mores 1980s. Not only were the success-driven young about sexuality and establishing an early link urbanites helping to shape food tastes, they between anorectic self-denial and privilege were also helping to define body ideals in ways (Bordo 1993: 191). This is but one example by that tended toward unprecedented self- which good taste (and reflexivity) became surveillance. Indeed, it is arguable that ideolo- wrapped up in self-surveillance. gies of success were directly implicated in the Beginning in the 1960s, the links between new body ideal of muscular thinness. For exam- body norms and taste found a new articulation, ple, some of the psychological roots of anorexia when breakthroughs in nutritional science com- nervosa—an extreme form of self-surveil- bined with social changes to spur new concern lance—are over-achievement, the notion that over food intake, particularly in the USA. It is autonomy, will, and discipline can lead to suc- not only that fresh vegetables came to be rou- cess, even the idea that toleration of pain is a tinely available on a mass-market basis, as did sign of strength (Bordo 1993: 178; also Couni- chicken, tofu and other so-called healthy foods han 1999). In a striking piece, Price draws (some of which were incorporated into fast further parallels between new body norms and food menus in not so healthy ways). New the political economy of the 1980s, juxtaposing understandings of heart disease, diabetes, can- the discourse of the tight, thin, sleek body to be cer, and so forth, coupled with a round of made through diet and exercise with that of journalistic muck-raking, raised questions structural adjustment, e.g. ‘tightening their regarding the quality of the processed foods belts’, ‘cutting the fat’, ‘shaping up’ ‘bloated’ that dominated the early post-war era (Leven- economies (2000: 92). This discourse was begin- stein 1988). What Belasco (1989) called the ning to circulate at the same time that, accord- counter-cuisine, which emerged out the coun- ing to Schlosser (2001), fast, cheap, convenience ter-culture, emphasized the health-giving food was becoming the cornerstone of most properties of relatively unprocessed food. With working-class American diets and rates of obe- nutritional ideas increasingly emphasizing what sity were beginning to soar, particularly among should not be eaten, exhortations regarding poorer people.
54 Julie Guthman So it was also in this context that nouvelle food. As local food critic and restaurateur, cuisine offered such a ‘spectacular challenge’ to Patricia Unterman (2000) was later to say, traditional restaurant cooking, with its empha- ‘when you choose to buy and eat organic and sis on fresh ingredients, minimum preparation sustainably raised produce, a little of this and an awareness of health considerations karma rubs off on you, which makes every- (Beardsworth and Keil 1997). When the exhor- thing taste better. A lot of this local, organic tations of the new cuisine spilled over into stuff does taste better’. Eating organic salad North America, it is not coincidental that it mix connoted a political action in its own was embraced by a new class of over-achievers. right, legitimizing a practice that few could For a new generation of well-heeled American afford. But the subtle conflation of aesthetic eaters, nouvelle cuisine was the perfect vehicle reflexivity (that of the gastronome) with politi- to mediate the deeply felt contradictions of cal reflexivity added an extra ingredient of food intake and simultaneously enjoy their new desire. It is surely telling that organic farmers class position. It was expensive by nature of its themselves began to refer to salad mix as ‘yup- use of the finest ingredients and labour inten- pie chow’. siveness, a perfect combination for those whose One of the ironies of this connotation is that moral sensibilities increasingly privileged it necessarily limited market size to those who environmental concerns over social ones. Sim- identified themselves in these terms. Con- plicity of ingredients fit well with the asceticism sciously attempting to appeal to mass market yuppies grew up with, quite different from the tastes in order to expand the market, the major stodgy haute cuisine of the old riche, at the producers in the USA, including Natural Selec- same time that inventiveness satisfied the crav- tion, started marketing non-organic salad mix ing for difference. And as food came to be under several other brand names, especially presented as art—a sensual visual experience— because prices no longer warranted the riga- it made it possible for the body-obsessed to marole of organic certification. Occasionally enjoy the dining out experience without admit- packaged with a packet of salad dressing, ting to the literally visceral sensual experience. bagged salad mix was increasingly marketed as In some sense, it made it possible to not be too a convenience food. Pavich Family Farms, rich or too thin, the phrase made famous by a another major organic producer introduced New York socialite during the yuppie emerg- organic iceberg lettuce, another way of de- ence (Levenstein 1993). coupling the notion of organic from yuppie. Considered this way, salad mix undoubtedly Curiously, only upscale restaurants continued provided some interesting comfort. As nouvelle to consistently modify the menu item of salad cuisine in extremis in its simplicity, perhaps it greens with the adjective ‘organic’, suggesting moderated the ambivalence of the new class some persistence in the relationships between position. Short of the ability to taste without reflexivity, distinction and eating out. swallowing (suggesting wine spit jars and aro- Although only one organic commodity matherapy lotions as the ultimate pleasures), among many, salad mix nevertheless has borne salad, with its paucity of calories, was a good some important changes in the politics of option for mediating body anxiety. The organic consumption. Diffused through restau- clincher, though, was organic food’s idiomatic rateurs, it was an elite commodity from the associations with health and environmental onset, playing into yuppie sensibilities, includ- soundness, perhaps even opposition to fast ing the desire to control one’s body shape.
Fast food/organic food 55
Then produced in relatively more ecologically many of those who eat organic food came into
sensitive ways, it is now produced largely by their wealth from the some of the very pro-
mass production methods, albeit reaching a cesses that enabled the fast food industry’s
broader group of consumers, many who simply growth surely tightens the relationship between
want food grown without pesticides. Yet, when yuppie eaters and their fast food counterparts.
no longer labelled as organic, it loses all oppo- The uncomfortable parallel between the
sitional meaning. In short, the meaning and growth of organic food, particularly salad mix,
character of salad mix has become quite frac- and the contraction of particularly female body
tured, suggesting no easy oppositions to fast, ideals provides more food for thought. Remi-
mass-produced food. niscent of the opposition of gastronomy and
gluttony, fast food has comes to represent
indulgent satiety, organic food a guiltless aes-
Organic oppositions? thetic. Yet, the suggestion that yuppie eaters
have more control does not square with the
Organic salad mix has come a long way from psychopathology of anorexia nervosa that in
the aesthetic of the slow food gastronome, even some cases arises when sufferers cannot control
further from the holey lettuce found at the local their desire to control (Fraad, Resnick and
health food co-op. So it is striking that fast Wolff 1994). More broadly, the conflation of
food and organic/slow food continue to be good taste and a slim body obtains a moral
posed as binary, even organic assemblages, if valence not in keeping with growing recogni-
you will, of taste, body type, social conscious- tion that such body ideals often insist on neur-
ness, class, mode of production, and so forth. otic self-surveillance, bulimia and/or occasional
Sometimes termed tendency and counter-ten- plastic surgery for those who can afford it
dency, sometimes hegemony and resistance, (Price 2000). Not only is body anxiety a ques-
one of the problems with these oppositions is tionable indicator of reflexivity, there is a good
they impart a good deal of subjectivity on to deal of slippage in eating patterns. Surely there
the organic or slow food eater while the fast are those who will eat a Jack N the Box
food eater is treated as mindless dupe. To be hamburger one day and a salad of mesclun the
sure, Schlosser (also Ritzer 1993) makes the next. Fast food is often pitched to healthy
point that fast food is not an acquired taste; eaters (e.g. Subway’s advertising campaign
heavy doses of salt, fat, sugar—the stuff that suggesting you can lose weight and cut fat by
rides easily on the tongue, along with the fac- eating fast food) and slow food is often made
tory-made olfactory stimuli—gives it instant tasty by slavish uses of salt and butter. And
appeal, unreflexive appeal. In contrast, the dis- while anorexia is more a stigma of the privi-
cerning, organic food eater is imputed with leged, there is no easy mapping of body types
much more individual agency, including the on to taste or lifestyle, as Schlosser so
putative freedom to refuse food altogether. But flippantly posits.
who has the freedom to carve out what Ritzer Most importantly, to posit one assemblage
calls these non-rationalized niches? At the very as unwaveringly good and the other as alto-
least, a binary framing should highlight the gether bad de-politicizes a potentially powerful
way in which privileged eating is intrinsically politics of consumption. Little is it considered
tied to impoverished eating; that what allows that organic production depends on the same
an aesthetic of food is disparity. The fact that systems of marginalized labour as does fast56 Julie Guthman
food. Or that organic salad mix led the way in 1997 and 1998 (Guthman 2000). The latter study
convenience packaging, and is often grown out included over 150 semi-structured interviews with both
all-organic and mixed (i.e. both conventional and
of place and out of season. Or that fast food
organic) growers in several regions of California.
serves women who work outside the home who Approximately 20 per cent of these growers had at one
are then blamed for depending on it to manage time been involved in the production of organic salad
family and work. Or that slow food presumes mix. The research was supported by grants from the
a tremendous amount of unpaid feminized National Science Foundation (SBR-9711262) and the
Association of American Geographers.
labour. Restaurants serve up their own contra-
5 The author recognizes that in most places yuppie has
dictions. How else to explain the haute res- come to refer to those who are wealthy, self-absorbed
taurant that serves organic mesclun and foie and without social conscience.
gras? The well-paid artisan cook working in 6 In actuality, pesticide use in California increased dramat-
tandem with the illegal immigrant bus boy? If ically in the 1990s (Liebman 1997).
the political importance of organic food/slow 7 For example, Alice Kahn used to feature two yuppie
characters named Dirk and Bree in her weekly column
food is attention to the labour processes and
for Berkeley’s East Bay Express. As Bree’s name suggests,
ecologies by which food is produced, it is they were often the butt of food jokes. The San Fran-
imperative to make sure that these valorized cisco Mime Troupe’s (misnamed given its tradition of
alternatives reflect alternative values. oral political satire) show of 1988, Ripped Van Winkle,
presents another example. Waking up from a deep sleep
begun in the 1960s, the main character experiences a
series of surprises in the new yuppie world of San
Acknowledgements Francisco. One of these was a menu being read by an
upscale restaurant waiter with elaborate descriptions of
This paper has been greatly improved thanks to the daily offerings.
the comments of Susanne Freidberg, Gail Hol-
lander, Cindi Kurz, and for anonymous review-
ers. Its final form remains the author’s
References
responsibility.
Allen, P. and Sachs, C. (1993) Sustainable agriculture in the
United States: engagements, silences, and possibilities for
Notes transformation, in Allen, P. (ed.) Food for the Future.
New York: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 139–167.
1 In an opposite logic to Fordism, the low-wage service Baur, J.E. (1959) The Health Seekers of Southern Califor-
economy, emboldened by fast food, made workers nia, 1870–1900. San Marino: Huntington Library.
dependent on unfathomably cheap food and all of its Beardsworth, A. and Keil, T. (1997) Sociology on the
consequences, including the food scares that could bring Menu. London: Routledge.
the entire edifice down. Belasco, W.J. (1989) Appetite for Change. New York:
2 Need I remind the reader that California was also the Pantheon.
birthplace of the fast food industry? Bell, D. and Valentine, G. (1997) Consuming Geographies:
3 Today California holds more organic farms than any We Are Where We Eat. London: Routledge.
other state in the USA (extrapolated from Klonsky and Bordo, S. (1993) Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western
Tourte 1998), is second to Idaho in the amount of Culture, and the Body. Berkeley: University of California
certified organic cropland, and grows 47 per cent of the Press.
certified organic vegetables and 66 per cent of certified Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: a Social Critique of the
fruit in the USA (Economic Research Service 2000). Judgment of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard University
4 Data in this section are drawn from a preliminary study Press.
done in 1995 (see Buck, Getz and Guthman 1997) and Brennan, G. (1999) ‘Slow Food’ followers target fast-food
the author’s dissertation research, which took place in nation, The San Francisco Chronicle, 2 June.Fast food/organic food 57 Buck, D., Getz, C. and Guthman, J. (1997) From farm to Hollander, G.M. (2003) Re-naturalizing sugar: narratives table: the organic vegetable commodity chain of north- of place, production and consumption, Social & Cultural ern California, Sociologia Ruralis 37: 3–20. Geography 4(1): 57–72. Burnett, J. (1966) Plenty and Want. London: Nelson. Klonsky, K. and Tourte, L. (1995) Statistical Review of CCOF (1995) CCOF influences defeat of bill to ban hand California’s Organic Agriculture 1992–1993. Davis: Uni- weeding, California Certified Organic Farmers Statewide versity of California Cooperative Extension. Newsletter, XII, Summer 1995: 9. Klonsky, K. and Tourte, L. (1998) Organic agricultural Conway, G.R. and Pretty, J.N. (1991) Unwelcome Harvest: production in the United States: debates and directions, Agriculture and Pollution. London: Earthscan Publica- American Journal of Agricultural Economics 80: 1119– tions. 1124. Counihan, C.M. (1999) The Anthropology of Food and Korsmeyer, C. (1999) Making Sense of Taste: Food and Body: Gender, Meaning, and Power. New York: Rout- Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ledge. Kraus, S. (1991) Working the land with a sense of com- DeLind, L.B. (1993) Market niches, ‘cul de sacs’, and social munity, San Francisco Chronicle, 2 Oct. context: alternative systems of food production, Culture Kuh, P. (2001) The Last Days of Haute Cuisine: The and Agriculture 1993: 7–12. Coming of Age of American Restaurants. New York: DuPuis, M. (2000) Not in my body: rBGH and the rise of Penguin. organic milk, Agriculture and Human Values 17: 285– Levenstein, H.A. (1988) Revolution at the Table: The 295. Transformation of the American Diet. New York: Economic Research Service (2000) U.S. Organic Agricul- Oxford University Press. ture. United States Department of Agriculture, Levenstein, H.A. (1993) Paradox of Plenty: A Social His- ⬍ www.ers.usda.gov/whatsnew/issues/organic ⬎ . tory of Eating in Modern America. New York: Oxford Ferguson, P.P. (1998) A cultural field in the making: gas- University Press. tronomy in 19th-century France, American Journal of Liebman, J. (1997) Rising Toxic Tide: Pesticide Use in Sociology 104: 597–641. California 1991–1995. San Francisco: Californians for Food Chemical News (1998) California gourmet salad pro- Pesticide Reform. cessor charged with food safety violation, Food Chemi- Luck, M.T. and Woodruff, S. (1931) The Food of Twelve cal News, 19 January. Families of the Professional Class. Berkeley: University Fraad, H., Resnick, S. and Wolff, R. (1994) Bringing it All of California Press. Back Home: Class, Gender and Power in the Modern Martin, P.L. (1989) The California Farm Labor Market. Household. London: Pluto Press. Working Paper No. 4. Davis: California Institute for Friedland, W.H., Barton, A.E. and Thomas, R.J. (1981) Rural Studies. Manufacturing Green Gold. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- McManus, F. and Rickard, W. (eds) (2000) Cooking Fresh versity Press. from the Bay Area. Hopewell: Eating Fresh Publications. Friedmann, H. (1993) After Midas’s feast: alternative food Mennell, S. (1986) All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste regimes for the future, in Allen, P. (ed.) Food for the in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Future. New York: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 213–233. Present. New York: Basil Blackwell. Guthman, J. (1998) Regulating meaning, appropriating Miele, M. and Murdoch, J. (forthcoming) Fast food/slow nature: the codification of California organic agriculture, food: differentiating and standardising cultures of food, Antipode 30: 135–154. in Almas, R. and Lawrence, G. (eds) Globalisation, Guthman, J. (2000) Agrarian dreams? The paradox of localisation and sustainable livelihoods. Aldershot: Ash- organic farming in California, PhD dissertation, Depart- gate. ment of Geography, University of California, Berkeley. Morgan, K. and Murdoch, J. (2000) Organic vs. conven- Guthman, J. (forthcoming) Agrarian Dreams? The Paradox tional agriculture: knowledge, power and innovation in of Organic Farming in California. Berkeley: University of the food chain, Geoforum 31: 159–173. California Press. Peters, S. (1979) The land in trust: a social history of the Harwood, R.A. (1990) A history of sustainable agriculture, organic farming movement, PhD dissertation, Sociology, in Edwards, C. (ed.) Sustainable Agricultural Systems. McGill University, Montreal. Ankeny: Soil and Water Conservation Society, pp. 3–19. Price, P.L. (2000) No pain, no gain: bordering the hungry Henwood, D. (1998) Wall Street: How it Works and for new world order, Environment and Planning D: Society Whom. London: Verso. and Space 18: 91–110.
58 Julie Guthman
Ritzer, G. (1993) The McDonaldization of Society. Thou- démontrer comment des mélanges de laitues
sand Oaks: Pine Forge Press. biologiques ont entraı̂né des changements majeurs
Schilling, E. (1995) Organic agriculture grows up, Califor- dans le système d’approvisionnement de produits
nia Journal, May: 21–25. biologiques, et d’interroger la notion que les
Schlosser, E. (2001) Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of produits biologiques sont nécessairement un antidote
the American Meal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. à la nourriture manufacturée. Le second but de cet
Shrepfer, S. (1983) The Fight to Save the Redwoods. article est de réfléchir sur la dichotomie qui existe
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. entre les notions de vite et lent, réflexion et compul-
Sinclair, U. (1906) The Jungle. New York: Doubleday, Page sion, gras et mince—et, par conséquent, de ‘bons’ et
& Co. ‘mauvais’ mangeurs—afin de démontrer les glisse-
Starr, K. (1985) Inventing the Dream: California Through ments et instabilités qui existent entre ces catégories,
the Progressive Era. Oxford: Oxford University Press. de même que les concepts problématiques de classe
Thomas, R.J. (1985) Citizenship, Gender, and Work. et de sexe qu’ils véhiculent. Afin de démontrer ces
Berkeley: University of California Press. points, j’analyse les changements survenus dans les
Toussaint-Samat, M. (1994) History of Food. Cambridge: mesures d’approvisionnement d’une commodité
Blackwell. biologique—le ‘mesclun’ ou salade mélangée—en
Unterman, P. (1998) Faith healing, San Francisco Exam- Californie.
iner, 19 April.
Mots-clefs: nourriture biologique, agriculture
Unterman, P. (2000) Fresh off the farm, San Francisco
biologique, consommation, réflexivité, agriculture-
Examiner, 20 Aug.
Californie, troubles de l’alimentation.
Walker, R. (1990) The playground of US capitalism? The
political economy of the San Francisco Bay Area, in
Davis, M., Hiatt, S., Kennedy, M., Ruddick, S. and Comida rápida/comida orgánica: gustos reflexivos y
Sprinker, M. (eds) Fire in the Hearth. London: Verso, la creación de la ‘comida yuppy’
pp. 3–82.
Warde, A. and Martens, L. (2000) Eating Out: Social El consumo de la comida orgánica es una de las
Differentiation, Consumption, and Pleasure. Cambridge: varias nuevas tendencias en el consumo de alimentos
Cambridge University Press. que se puede interpretar como oposición activa al
Whatmore, S. and Thorne, L. (1997) Nourishing networks: aprovisionamiento industrializado de alimentos.
alternative geographies of food, in Goodman, D. and Mientras que la comida rápida se caracteriza por
Watts, M.J. (eds) Globalising Food: Agrarian Questions glotonerı́a compulsiva, evidente en los cuerpos gor-
and Global Restructuring. London: Routledge, pp. 287– dos, prácticas de consumo alternativas parecen ser
304. motivadas por reflexión deliberada en el sentido de
que los consumidores hacen monitoreo, piensan en,
y luego adaptan su conducta personal en luz de las
Abstract translations percibidas consecuencias. Este papel tiene dos obje-
tivos. El uno es examinar la evolución de comida
Bouffe-éclair/bouffe biologique: goûts réflexifs et la orgánica de lo que Belasco llamaba la ‘contra cocina’
production de ‘bouffe yuppie’ a lo que los productores de comida orgánica llaman
comida yuppy’. Ası́ se demuestra como la ensalada
La consommation de produits biologiques n’est
orgánica (en bolso) llevó a cambios importantes en
qu’un des nombreux courants dans le domaine ali-
el sistema orgánico de aprovisionamiento y, por
mentaire perçus comme une forme d’opposition à la
consiguiente, se empezó a cuestionar la noción de
production industrielle d’aliments. Alors que la
que la comida orgánica es un antı́doto a la comida
restauration rapide est caractérisée par des habitudes
industrializada. El otro objetivo es problematizar las
compulsives résultant en des corps gras, les pratiques
dicotomı́as entre rápida y lenta, reflexiva y compul-
de consommation alternatives sont vues comme
siva, gordo y delgado y, por consiguiente, buenos y
étant motivées par une attitude de réflexion con-
malos consumidores, para demostrar que estas cate-
sciente de la part des consommateurs qui étudient
gorı́as son inestables y que engendran una polı́tica
leurs habitudes alimentaires et les adaptent à la
problemática de clase y género. Con este fin exhibo
lumières des conséquences anticipées. Cet article
la cambiante provisión de un producto orgánico en
comporte deux buts principaux. Le premier est de
particular (salad mix, o mesclun) en California.
retracer l’évolution de la nourriture biologique à
partir de ce que Belasco nomme ‘contre-cuisine’ Palabras claves: comida orgánica, agricultura orgán-
jusqu’à ce que les producteurs biologiques qualifient ica, consumo, reflexión, agricultura-California,
quant à eux de ‘bouffe yuppie’. L’intention est de problemas alimenticios.You can also read
