The Omnivore's Dilemma - Michael Pollan [210]
This is not the way I want to eat every day. I like to be able to open a can of stock and I like to talk about politics, or the movies, at the dinner table sometimes instead of food. But imagine for a moment if we once again knew, strictly as a matter of course, these few unremarkable things: What it is we’re eating. Where it came from. How it found its way to our table. And what, in a true accounting, it really cost. We could then talk about some other things at dinner. For we would no longer need any reminding that however we choose to feed ourselves, we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and what we’re eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I HAD A LOT OF HELP in the kitchen with this one.
First to Gerry Marzorati, my longtime friend and editor at the New York Times Magazine, who first suggested five years ago that I spend some time writing about food for the magazine. Unbeknownst to either of us, he was pointing me down the path that led to this book.
I am especially grateful to the farmers and the foragers I write about here. George Naylor in Iowa, Joel Salatin in Virginia, and Angelo Garro in California were my food-chain Virgils, helping me to follow the food from earth to plate and to navigate the omnivore’s dilemma. All three gave unstintingly of their time, their wisdom, and their always excellent company. Thanks, too, to the hunters and gatherers who graciously welcomed so rank an amateur on their expeditions: Anthony Tassinello, Bob Baily, Bob Carrou, Richard Hylton, Jean-Pierre Moulle, Sue Moore, and David Evans.
In educating myself on food and agriculture, I’ve incurred a great many debts. Among my most generous and influential teachers have been: Joan Gussow, Marion Nestle, Fred Kirschenmann, Alice Waters, Todd Dawson, Paul Rozin, Wes Jackson, and Wendell Berry. Thanks also, for information and insight, to Bob Scowcroft, Allan Nation, Kelly Brownell, Ricardo Salvador, Carlo Petrini, Jo Robinson, David Arora, Ignacio Chapela, Miguel Altieri, Peter Hoffman, Dan Barber, Drew and Myra Goodman, Bill Niman, Gene Kahn, and Eliot Coleman.
Many people supported the writing of this book in other ways. In California, Michael Schwarz generously read the manuscript and offered timely encouragement and helpful suggestions, reminding me what a good editor he was before he forsook print for television. In Berkeley, the faculty, staff, and students of the Graduate School of Journalism, and in particular Dean Orville Schell, have created a stimulating and supportive community in which to do this work. Mark Danner, an old friend and once again a colleague, has, as ever, provided a valuable sounding board. The students in my food chain class have taught me more than they probably realize about these issues over the past few years. Mesa Refuge, in Point Reyes Station, provided the perfect setting in which to write and research a key chapter. And the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has supported my research in crucial ways.
I’m especially grateful to Chad Heeter, for his dogged research and fact-checking, not to mention his willingness to accompany me on a futile quest to gather salt in San Francisco Bay. Nathanael Johnson, Felicia Mello, and Elena Conis nailed down several elusive facts just when it looked like they might get away. My assistant, Jaime Gross, contributed to this project in many ways, but I’m particularly grateful for her superb research and fact-checking.
In New York, I’m grateful for the excellent work and good cheer of Liza Darnton, Kate Griggs, Rachel Burd, Sarah Hutson, and Tracy Locke at the Penguin Press, my new publishing home. Thanks to Liz Farrell at ICM. At the New York Times Magazine,