Of all the conferences I have been to, I have never been to a conference with a focus on food. Not knowing what to expect, I was mostly irrationally excited to see some of my local food heros (Evan Kleinman!) and others who I know nothing about (D’Artangan Scorza).
I arrived about an hour and a half early after inaccurately estimating my travel time on LA Metro. Sooo, after checking out the Levitating Mass (which isn’t as big as I thought it would be), I happened to wander into the museum right when the pre-conference Good Food art tour was making their way to the galleries. Despite what you may assume, the Programs Director did not show us only still life paintings of food. She showed us a lot of various styles of serving ware and the histories behind these objects. A German pitcher from the Crusades, highly detailed wine cisterns, British serving tiers from Britain. As someone who usually breezes through these portions of art galleries, I will try to take a closer look from now on. I also learned that European art program directors really like Downton Abbey. A lot.
The British used this fancy silver tiered serving contraption to eliminate the need for human servers to attend to guests for all of their food courses.
Although all of the pieces we looked at came from nobility and families of wealth, they showed how food was included in everyday life, and in these cases, one’s social status. The displaying and serving of food on these fancy, intricate art pieces allowed people to show off their wealth. This really drives home the point that good food is, and has always been, more accessible to the wealthy. That brings me to what I believe is the take-home message of the conference: real good, local food is food that comes from and supports the local community.
Jim Slama, founder of Familyfarmed.org, which organizes Good Food events throughout the country, addressed this question: Why is there still so little local, organic food? He answered with five reasons for why we aren’t seeing more local food.
- Processing Plants: most urban centers do not have enough processing plants that support organic processing.
- Need for Farmers: there are not enough local farmers to grow food near large cities (especially young farmers).
- Lack of Aggregation Hubs: there are few places to aggregate and distribute food
- Limited Access: most locally produced food is bought by the more affluent (e.g., at Whole Foods and at restaurants)
- Food Safety: there are a lot of food safety practices and regulations that must be understood by farmers
To these I would add lack of policy promoting and supporting local, organic food, which was also addressed at the conference. Paula Daniels, the Food Policy Advisor to Mayor Villaraigosa, talked about the advances the L.A. City Council has recently taken by approving a resolution that requires the City to purchase a percentage of its food from local, responsible sources. The daughter of Will Allen (who was unable to make it due to illness) Skyped to the audience from halfway across the country and ended her discussion by emphasizing the need to promote policy that supports urban agriculture practices. In fact, the four focus areas of her organization, the Community Food Center, in Milwaukee, are grow, bloom, thrive, and food policy.
Although there is still a lack of local food, each one of the speakers at this conference is doing their part in trying to grow, distribute, finance, and promote local food for EVERYONE in a community. Mel Glasser and the folks at Food Forward glean (my new favorite word) fruit from backyard trees or unused orchards and donate it to pantries and other organizations. They are also starting to collect other left-over produce from farmers’ markets at the end of the day. D’Artangan Scorza, apart from having the most awesome name ever, returned to his hometown, Inglewood, to start up 100 Seeds of Change, a program of the Social Justice Learning Institute. This school and garden nutrition program has numerous initiatives for food policy, community health events, and school gardens. They recently started a CSA program and helped start a farmers market in Inglewood.
There were so many good things being said at this conference by people who were actually doing things. It was hard not to be motivated.
The day ended with a discussion of GMOs and Proposition 37, which is likely not going to pass. The overwhelming majority support Prop 37, of course. (You can read our former posts on Prop 37, if so desired.) The one lone “opposer” on the panel was not opposed to Prop 37 but said there are a few instances where GMOs can improve livelihood, such as growing modified rice with Vitamin A in areas where deficiencies are prevalent. I feel like he was added to the panel for the sake of having at least one argument in the discussions.
What can you do to support local food? Volunteer at organizations like Food Forward (which I am now going to start doing!) or a local community garden. Oftentimes, community gardens have “work days” posted on their websites. And, of course, buy local! One of the farmers from a “local” farm in Kern County (which he jokingly referred to as the Greater L.A. Area) had some good last words: “Shop at farmers’ markets.” This is the best way you can go straight to the source, buy you food, and interact with the people that grow it. How much easier can it get than that?
Currant Table 