Appreciate this and all the other pieces linked in here. I’m a cook at a nice restaurant in a big US city, and I think about this a lot - “this” being the politics of food, and the way almost everyone tends to act like it’s pure magical unifying force. Food is an essential material need, in the same way water and shelter is. Yeah, I think tech bros on their Soylent grind are fucking weird, but sometimes food really is just fuel. Sometimes it’s a lever you work in order to make someone else do what you want. Winning a siege almost always boils down to cutting off someone’s water and food. Disrupt their supply lines! This is millennia old military strategy. Food is magic, because so many people haven’t actually gone hungry, and so don’t realize that it is also power. One of the world’s most solvable problems is making sure everyone eats, and it remains because its main problems are deeply unsexy supply chains, prudence/redistribution, and getting people to care when they themselves are comfortable.
One reason I’m a cook is because I do believe in food - it feels good to me, to have the direct output of my work every day being people getting fed. That’s morally sound. Until I complicate it with the fact that in order to pay rent I usually take a job that only feeds certain people, those with money to burn and an interest in the novel. Or I see the ecological cost - the animal and plant life wasted every day as processing byproduct or gluttonous over-ordering or old mise from dishes not moving fast enough. I’m lucky enough to work in a spot where there’s a focus on supporting local farmers, fishers, etc, but I’ve worked in more remote places with less access that required hauling truckloads of things grown very far away to us, most days of the week. One spot does collabs with nonprofits that delivers meals to people in need, and their main fundraiser each year is a gala of elaborate food, nothing like what they deliver, that people pay through the nose for in order to, I assume, hobnob?? Flaunt their wealth/generosity?? Flex their access to dozens of chefs cooking something special, just for them?? Because of course you can’t just donate your money without asking someone to dance for it first. The way food moves through the world is the same way any extension of power does.
I’ll cut myself off there, touched a bit of a nerve (lol). Again, really enjoyed this and the other bits linked - many interconnected thoughts put intelligently and well.
Another thing. Ottolenghi served in the IDF for three years. That was a choice of a coward. Hummus isn't going to stop the genocide. Courage or Israelis refusing to serve is the gesture we need not IG Posts.
I have spent all my free time since the summer of 2022 in Ukraine, on the ground with a small nonprofit which helps to bake bread and deliver it to frontline communities. We’ve been to countless towns and villages that have been left in ruins, littered with mines, under constant shelling. We raise funds in the west for equipment or fuel or generators and then take it directly to the people and food businesses who need it most. It is possible to give direct support on the ground, or to give targeted financial help to verified and effective local volunteers.
Appreciate this and all the other pieces linked in here. I’m a cook at a nice restaurant in a big US city, and I think about this a lot - “this” being the politics of food, and the way almost everyone tends to act like it’s pure magical unifying force. Food is an essential material need, in the same way water and shelter is. Yeah, I think tech bros on their Soylent grind are fucking weird, but sometimes food really is just fuel. Sometimes it’s a lever you work in order to make someone else do what you want. Winning a siege almost always boils down to cutting off someone’s water and food. Disrupt their supply lines! This is millennia old military strategy. Food is magic, because so many people haven’t actually gone hungry, and so don’t realize that it is also power. One of the world’s most solvable problems is making sure everyone eats, and it remains because its main problems are deeply unsexy supply chains, prudence/redistribution, and getting people to care when they themselves are comfortable.
One reason I’m a cook is because I do believe in food - it feels good to me, to have the direct output of my work every day being people getting fed. That’s morally sound. Until I complicate it with the fact that in order to pay rent I usually take a job that only feeds certain people, those with money to burn and an interest in the novel. Or I see the ecological cost - the animal and plant life wasted every day as processing byproduct or gluttonous over-ordering or old mise from dishes not moving fast enough. I’m lucky enough to work in a spot where there’s a focus on supporting local farmers, fishers, etc, but I’ve worked in more remote places with less access that required hauling truckloads of things grown very far away to us, most days of the week. One spot does collabs with nonprofits that delivers meals to people in need, and their main fundraiser each year is a gala of elaborate food, nothing like what they deliver, that people pay through the nose for in order to, I assume, hobnob?? Flaunt their wealth/generosity?? Flex their access to dozens of chefs cooking something special, just for them?? Because of course you can’t just donate your money without asking someone to dance for it first. The way food moves through the world is the same way any extension of power does.
I’ll cut myself off there, touched a bit of a nerve (lol). Again, really enjoyed this and the other bits linked - many interconnected thoughts put intelligently and well.
Another thing. Ottolenghi served in the IDF for three years. That was a choice of a coward. Hummus isn't going to stop the genocide. Courage or Israelis refusing to serve is the gesture we need not IG Posts.
I have spent all my free time since the summer of 2022 in Ukraine, on the ground with a small nonprofit which helps to bake bread and deliver it to frontline communities. We’ve been to countless towns and villages that have been left in ruins, littered with mines, under constant shelling. We raise funds in the west for equipment or fuel or generators and then take it directly to the people and food businesses who need it most. It is possible to give direct support on the ground, or to give targeted financial help to verified and effective local volunteers.
I'd like to donate, do you have a link?
Oh thank you, just saw this - the link is broken at the moment but we are fixing it!
Ottolenghi's family are settlers from Italy.