What do you consider good food?
I find good food simple and humble, and it sometimes tastes better with good company. The world’s favorite and most reputable dishes arise like a phoenix out of the still-warm coals from the poor peasant cooks of the past. I’m sure you can already think up a few of those dishes.
The principle of peasant food is that it needs to be accessible and inexpensive, and most of the time will be packed with flavor. Cheap ingredients need time and plenty of effort to be cajoled into something edible.
The ingredients that belong to a culinary culture or from a surrounding region are then transformed into a gastronomical signature. At times these dishes are historic and share unspoken stories to so many. Peasant and poor dishes create identity and obvious pride.
Peasant food is imitated and cherished as it always has been. We applaud the chefs who value nose-to-tail or flex their zero-waste ideologies, which sounds arrogant and one would think should be the norm.
Some dishes are imitated in fine dining with a hefty price tag aside from their modest beginnings. Just like a stock rising in value over the years. Which robs it of its dignity and purpose.
Peasant food is slow food, an arm of anti-consumerism. These glorious dishes celebrate local cuisine and community. The sandy and soiled vegetables used in peasant dishes uphold a bright light and shine with their heirloom titles of today, again fetching prices that turn the word humble on its head.
Sarcastically humble vegetables can become a cash crop. Here is where I stop myself short, because of the plenty of farmers who overcame poverty by diversifying their agriculture and exporting these cash crops.
Let us not ignore the socioeconomic barriers around the globe. It can feel as if the more affluent of our society can afford the time and expense to develop the knowledge or sometimes ignorance and judge what is right from wrong and what to grow. Which regional cash crops are worth pursuing, how to grow and evade the pitfalls of poverty. These are only a few political issues that can come from food and its growers.
Whether in the countryside or the city, there are different forms of peasant foods. They are also being glorified in different ways. Let’s drop all snobbery and choose to say; with whatever means available to you — if you enjoy your food, then that is good food to you.
Let’s not overcomplicate what is simple. Simple and humble food is good. Simple and cheap food can also be great. Does it depend on where you are? Is there a big difference between the food in cities and rural society?
Maybe a select few, but from the little I have seen of those in the countryside also shop mostly in mega supermarkets. Those who are more in touch with the farmers or grow their own food are a luxury that city folks and villagers strive for in their food.
I keep hearing the echoes of conversation bouncing back to people wanting to move to the countryside and grow their food or ‘live small’. I am a victim of those conversations. I imagine the necessities one needs in life. A good solid roof, good food (or what good food means to you), some fresh air, and a little patch of grass. The cherry on top would be facing mountains and a river. No big deal, right?
I wouldn’t be screaming out and yearning for caviar (which was a peasant dish, considered a by-catch waste) and champagne. I would be yearning for a roast chicken that walked along me in the mornings, pooping on misty grass. While my family helps me gather our harvest, and I scold my future dog for digging into the carrots or potato plants (which are toxic to dogs.)
It sounds romantic to me, at least. Aren’t those the same images being advertised to us in our supermarkets? We can’t be so naïve to believe those pictures and what they portray, can we?
I almost guarantee that the image of a beautiful field on a pack of cheese is far from what the producer sees. Which would be a stainless steel and hazmat suit environment because of the many loops you need to jump through to make a ‘simple thing’ such as cheese, depending on the country.
It seems purveyors of edible products focus more on marketing and advertisements than the quality of their food. Understandably so, they want to make a living, but at what cost?
In the United States, a SWAT team could arrive at your cheesemaking facility if you don’t adhere to sanitary and political standards. Maybe even labeled as a terrorist for trying to produce a biohazard.
In Europe, especially in France and Italy, traditional and historical methods of making cheese in wooden vats almost and very nearly became a political barrier of impossibility. The thing politicians don’t understand is the benefits of these methods.
The microbes, the microbial biofilm, and the diversity thereof, and in short, the magic of cheesemaking have been under scrutiny several times around the world. The wood vats and shelves that are used in this process exemplify the complexity of biofilms forming on their surface.
With hundreds of species, clones, and strains, it is the perfect habitat for biodiversity. Any other material would be an exodus of good bacteria, it cannot imitate this natural forming community of healthy microbes.
Today, we are forcing the hand of our farmers to grow for the money and not for the health benefits agriculture can provide.
I’m rambling from one point to the next, but the romanticization of peasant food and social media showcasing dishes steal a bit of its soul. It can raise the perception that some of these dishes should cost more.
Perhaps we believe in the quality of ingredients in the dish. The climate of fine dining is in decline. People want familiarity and comfort food. Peasant and country home-style cooking is relatable. People want simplicity.
A city slicker could find comfort in the image of peace and community that comes from a peasant dish. It can ground us into believing that we are like them, just a lot busier and much more stressed. We’ll pay for the time it took to make it, so serve it forth!
Maybe we are putting the value behind the story of a time-consuming peasant dish. Or how the peasant had the possibility of good food even with the meager means available to them. Or put the value behind the tradition. Hopefully, it isn’t the tragedy of the commons, where the depletion of a resource is what raises its value, but we do put value behind one of those stories at least.
We are time-poor after all, unlike the peasants of the past. We also work a lot more than they did.. Hard work and good food, well not always.
Bouillabaisse-ly Yours,
The Greasy Pen.
P.S.
This reminds me of the short story told by John Lane in Timeless Simplicity:
The industrialist was horrified to find the fisherman lying beside his boat, smoking a pipe.
“Why aren’t you fishing?”, said the industrialist.
“Because I have caught enough fish for the day.”
“Why don’t you catch some more?”
“What would I do with them?”
“Earn more money. Then you could have a motor fixed to your boat and go into deeper waters and catch more fish. That would bring you money to buy nylon nets, so more fish, more money. Soon you would have enough to buy two boats even a fleet of boats. Then you could be rich like me.”
“What would I do then?”
“Then you could sit back and enjoy life.”
“What do you think I’m doing now?”