Authentic food is not what you think it is

Jruzer

I just finished this article by Megan McArdle. It's a good read and touches on several topics of frequent interest on MFP.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-24/-authentic-food-is-not-what-you-think-it-is

A few highlights:

We live, the lore says, in a fallen state, victims of Big Agriculture and a food industry that has rendered everything bland, fatty and sweet. By tapping the traditions of centuries past -- or other, poorer places -- we can regain the paradise that our grandparents unaccountably abandoned. And who could be against wanting a more authentic, genuine food experience? I’m so glad you asked. In fact, authenticity is an illusion, and a highly overrated one.

The fact is that you wouldn’t want to eat like a European peasant of yesteryear, or a Chinese peasant, either. Sure, peasants ate well when the garden was producing and the harvest was ripe. A lot of the year, they ate pretty meager, dull fare.

These facts help explain the great paradox at the heart of the authenticity obsession: If those authentic old foods were so great, how come our ancestors were so eager to switch to processed foods? The culprit most often identified is the power-mad food scientists of yesteryear, who convinced the housewives of previous generations to give up the good stuff in favor of tasteless packaged foods. The people who write these theories have apparently not spent much time observing today’s food scientists in their tireless quest to get people to stop eating the junk they like to eat now. If they had, they might have asked why yesterday’s food scientists had so much more power to alter dietary habits. And after they asked that question, they might have come to the conclusion that our ancestors switched because they liked the new foods better than whatever they were eating before.

annacole94

you don't even need to go back hundreds of years. I can introduce you to my parents, who grew up pre-electricity (and thus, freezer or refrigerator) and lived on small farms in northern Saskatchewan, Canada.

It wasn't glamorous. I grew up mostly on their traditional diet: potatoes (home grown and kept year round), vegetables (home grown, and we were lucky enough to have them frozen), and meat (home grown or wild, home butchered). Home-milked milk. Home grown eggs.

It was probably good for me, but yes, it was pretty boring.

Macy9336

I think it's a horrible article and unfairly demonises the valid concerns based on scientific evidence that some "new and improved" foods are actually not better than the original, and in some cases much much worse than the original. To glorify "food scientists" as if everything they have touched has turned to gold and they have a perfect track record simply because a segment of the population is eating said food is illogical. Half the time people don't even know what is in their food. A fair number of people don't care what is in their food. Yeah fair point that some advocates of authentic food are OTT, but to demonise the whole concept of authentic foods as anti technology, and anti progress, is really a low blow. The whole article utilises cheap persuasive techniques such as emotional appeals. Yeech.

annacole94

You want to live pre-food scientist? All our modern ability to feed the population is based on crops that have been bred into being. There is zero chance we'd all get to eat without modern monstrosities like "wheat".

Jruzer

Macy9336 wrote: »

I think it's a horrible article and unfairly demonises the valid concerns based on scientific evidence that some "new and improved" foods are actually not better than the original, and in some cases much much worse than the original. To glorify "food scientists" as if everything they have touched has turned to gold and they have a perfect track record simply because a segment of the population is eating said food is illogical. Half the time people don't even know what is in their food. A fair number of people don't care what is in their food. Yeah fair point that some advocates of authentic food are OTT, but to demonise the whole concept of authentic foods as anti technology, and anti progress, is really a low blow. The whole article utilises cheap persuasive techniques such as emotional appeals. Yeech.

I don't think you read the same article that I did, @Macy9336. It sounds like you read an article about how processed foods are great.

- I didn't see any discussion about "valid concerns based on scientific concerns that some 'new and improved' foods are actually not better than the original", let alone any demonizing. Could you give examples?

- Further, where is there any discussion of "the concept of authentic foods as anti technology, and anti progress"? The whole point of the column was that the whole concept of "authenticity" in modern cuisine is a flawed concept. Her point is that what we think is "authentic" is usually not what we think it is. Examples included spicy Szechuan cuisine relying on new world hot peppers, thus being only a few hundred years old at the most, and the invention of ciabatta in the 1980s.

- This is obviously an opinion column, and the writer is expected to use persuasive techniques. But I don't see any examples of emotional appeals - quite the opposite. Again, could you provide examples?

It seems like you are keying off of the section I quoted, rather than the main points that the writer was addressing. And even in the section I quoted, she made it obvious that modern food scientists are trying to persuade people to eat fewer heavily processed foods.

Need2Exerc1se

Why would they eat meager dull fare? Root vegetables, gourds, winter squashes all keep for months. Animals are there for the hunting year round. Herbs and spices are easily dried for use year round and some grow all year even in snow. Chickens lay eggs year round. We've been able to ferment, dry and can foods for many generations.

Sure, it's not the smorgasbord that the height of harvest season is but you'd have to go pretty far back in history before people were forced to eat dull fare in the non-harvest seasons. Yesteryear is a pretty vague term so maybe they are talking tens of thousands of years?

fitmom4lifemfp

I am quite happy with my food choices today. No way would I want to go back, even to my grandparent's time. No thanks.

Macy9336

1) Food scientists. Food scientists generally work for food companies like Kraft or McDonalds. They do not tirelessly try and stop people from eating junk food they engineer food. Their role is to create new or improve existing products that taste good, have nice texture, and create a pleasurable experience or even addictive qualities so the consumer will become a repeat customer thus making the new product profitable. Health impacts are secondary if assessed at all. Nutritionists tirelessly campaign to get people to eat healthy. The author is misrepresenting criticism of food scientists by confusing them with nutritionists. Look up what a food science degree is...it's not nutrition...

2) Her contention that authenticity in modern cuisine is an illusion simply because a few people mistake certain dishes to be authentic when they aren't really makes no sense at all. Authenticity of food/dishes is researched by anthropologists and historians who go to great lengths to recreate what ancient peoples ate using the same species of vegetables/grains/meats/spices/cooking technologies that were actually used. They even set up gardens and farms where foodstuffs are grown/reared using ancient methods. For years there have been events..formal dinner parties even...where you could experience a Roman banquet, or a renaissance feast. Lots of chefs will also attend these as they are interested in reviving old recipes or perhaps understanding how a modern cooking method affects the outcome and taste of a recipe. These chefs then go back and will add "authentic" meals to their menus which many people are interested in trying. Her comments were very dismissive and showed little understanding of the existence of an entire field of study and why some people are genuinely interested in authentic foods.

3) The article is riddled with emotional appeals which are evidenced by tone and use of emotive words throughout. In the sections you quoted alone I counted fourteen emotional appeal. In the article, pretty much every other sentence on average contains an emotional appeal. I have no complaint about an opinion piece expressing an opinion or even using an emotional appeal here and there, I just wanted to point out that the author predominantly used emotional appeals as her primary technique, that she used It more frequently than usual, and that there was no presentation of any facts to back up her opinion. Most opinion pieces usually make an effort to share information in a balanced fashion and then present an opinion. This piece fell short on demonstrating that the authors opinion was based on anything other than emotion....which made it very unconvincing and came across to me as a rant (thus my complaint she appeared to be demonising the things she has an opinion against).

stealthq

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

Why would they eat meager dull fare? Root vegetables, gourds, winter squashes all keep for months. Animals are there for the hunting year round. Herbs and spices are easily dried for use year round and some grow all year even in snow. Chickens lay eggs year round. We've been able to ferment, dry and can foods for many generations.

Sure, it's not the smorgasbord that the height of harvest season is but you'd have to go pretty far back in history before people were forced to eat dull fare in the non-harvest seasons. Yesteryear is a pretty vague term so maybe they are talking tens of thousands of years?

I assumed that the reference to 'peasants' meant hundreds of years.

To be honest, it really would have mattered which culture's 'authentic foods' we're talking about and your own personal tastes.

Also, some cultures had access to more vegetables, fruits, herbs and spices than others. And let's be blunt. Some cultures clearly did not find the culinary arts all that important. Others did - I'm thinking particularly about things like 'the doctrine of the five flavors'.

Edit: clarity

French_Peasant

I think peasantry proper (as non-nobility who are bound to the land or make their income from the land) goes into the 1800s; it's a very malleable term and can incorporate anything from serfs and slaves to very wealthy bourgeois smallholders. My specialty is the medieval era. Wealthier peasants would have had a very nice, varied, and delicious diet, while impoverished peasants would have had a horrific diet and likely would have been starving to death slowly (and quickly in famine years).

cross2bear

The way our food choices have changed over the years is a lot less about the actual food, and more about lifestyle, in my opinion, as well as access, education and of course technology. I live in southern Ontario Canada - when I was a kid, greenhouse tomatoes (those rock hard, barely red billiard ball things) were the only option in grocery stores in the off season. Now we can get comparatively better tomatoes by importing from Mexico in the middle of a cold dark winter, thanks to improved transportation, storage and genetic engineering - and by that I mean selective breeding for hardier crops, not injected with stuff. Massively more women in the work place created a demand for convenience foods. Remember the tv dinners from the 50's compared with the selections that are available now? At the time we were eating them (as a treat on a special night) we thought they were the cats pyjamas - wouldnt touch them with a 10 foot pole now. I never ate asparagus as a kid - wasnt on moms rotation of acceptable vegetables. Now, even she scarfs them down all year round, if she is willing to pay the price!

Our food supply is so complicated and diverse now that it is almost impossible to have a discussion on eating in a certain fashion without taking into account all the socio economic factors that go into our choices.

French_Peasant

cross2bear wrote: »

The way our food choices have changed over the years is a lot less about the actual food, and more about lifestyle, in my opinion, as well as access, education and of course technology. I live in southern Ontario Canada - when I was a kid, greenhouse tomatoes (those rock hard, barely red billiard ball things) were the only option in grocery stores in the off season. Now we can get comparatively better tomatoes by importing from Mexico in the middle of a cold dark winter, thanks to improved transportation, storage and genetic engineering - and by that I mean selective breeding for hardier crops, not injected with stuff. Massively more women in the work place created a demand for convenience foods. Remember the tv dinners from the 50's compared with the selections that are available now? At the time we were eating them (as a treat on a special night) we thought they were the cats pyjamas - wouldnt touch them with a 10 foot pole now. I never ate asparagus as a kid - wasnt on moms rotation of acceptable vegetables. Now, even she scarfs them down all year round, if she is willing to pay the price!

Our food supply is so complicated and diverse now that it is almost impossible to have a discussion on eating in a certain fashion without taking into account all the socio economic factors that go into our choices.

I think you have hit the nail on the head. Nowadays, the higher your socioeconomic status (including wealth, but also class and education), the more your food resembles that of a prosperous peasant: high quality whole foods.

Case in point: a proper charcuterie platter. You can spend an insane amount of money on sausages and cheeses that are freakin' delicious (far better than anything dreamed up by a "food scientist") but this is what the peasantry ate in the wintertime, along with a variety of dried fruits, nuts, jams, jellies, boxes of honeycomb dripping with honey, beers and wines, vinegars, pickled items, smoked and pickled and salted fish, fresh and preserved cuts of meat from the fall slaughter, and even fresh leeks, cabbages, apples, onions, radishes, brussels sprouts, carrots, parsnips, radishes, etc. from the ground or using a storage technique called a "clamp" which is basically a buried pile of food nestled in straw. You could even have fresh herbs and greens by using greenhouse, cold frame and hotbed technology going back to the ancient Romans. If you can master the ancient, primitive technology of sauteeing, roasting, and sauce-making, you can even make a nasty turnip taste delicious.

My SIL is Polish, and the things she and her family (her mom and sister are here as well) make are very much ancient peasant foods, and absolutely, insanely delicious. She also has a lot of cultural pride (as well as resources and a hard core work ethic) and would be utterly disgusted at replacing diverse Polish sausages from specialty shops in Chicago with Slim Jims, or fine cheese with Kraft Process Cheese Product. Her food ethic would probably be nickle and dimed away if they were in a situation where she had to work, however, and it would erode further with the subsequent generations.

Now, if we look at the most desperate classes, would I choose the medieval option (cabbages and thin gruel and possibly occasional cannibalism) over the modern option (hot dogs, baloney, white bread, Cheetos and Ding-Dongs)? Heck no! I'd go for the Ding-Dongs every time.