Not a Foodie

I've recently picked up a few books that revolve around food. Considering I work on a farm and that my life has begun to revolve around food as well, I figured it'd be appropriate. The first book, Cooking for Mr. Latte is written by Amanda Hesser, a food writer for the New York Times. The second novel, Julie and Julia: 365 days...blah blah blah title by Julie Powell, who lives in New York City and I'd like to imagine reads the New York Times. Both authors seemed to share a love of food, cooking, and interest in Julia Child, but their idea of food was distinctly different.

Not far into Cooking for Mr. Latte I could easily see Hesser's vision of food. The author writes:

I should have established a set of guidelines long ago. That all potential boyfriends have to be willing to travel to the far reaches of a city to seek out that dark little bar that makes the best fried oysters: that they must like going to restaurants, expensive restaurants. And when they're at one, they should happily linger over the petit fours and savor a good Cognac. If they itch to leave as soon as the deserts are cleared, they've missed the point.

While I like food, I'm relatively easy to please. I want fresh local food. My ideal restaurant would serve...fresh, local food. Hesser does say she prefers seasonal food, but, as a food writer, she's far more caught up in the details of each dish than I would be. I mean really, I wouldn't even know what flabby fois gras would taste like. I just can't identify with the author. Not only has she met and maintained a friendship with Julia Child, she was a chef in Paris. I'm bound to look a food a different way.

In a description of a foodie outing she writes:

When I go out to a restaurant, I do not like feeling as if I'm at a buffet. I like to construct my meal thoughtfully and then eat it. I don't want to pass plates and I don't want someone plopping a slab of his skate in my lamb jus. It's disrespectful to the chef, who tries to create dishes that entertain your palate from the first bite to the last. And it's greedy. If you must taste other things on the menu, come back another time.

I find myself drawn to the characters in Julie and Julia far more. The author is a secretary who doesn't want to be a secretary. She's not a super chef or a food snob, just someone who wants to do something unique and special, and she likes to cook and is good at it. (And there's one of our differences, I like to cook, but I'm hardly good at it).

Powell writes:

Wealthy Victorians served Strawberries Romanoff in December; now we demonstrate our superiority by serving our dewy organic berries only during the two week period when they can be picked ripe off the vine at the boutique farm down the road from our Hamptons bungalow. People speak of gleaning he green markets for the freshest this, the thinnest that, the greenest or firmest, or softest whatever, as if what they're doing is a selfless act of consummate care and good taste, rather than the privileged activity of someone who doesn't have to work for a living

But Julia Child isn't about that. Julia Child wants you that's right YOU, the one living in the tract house in sprawling suburbia with a dead-end middle-management job and nothing but a Stop and Shop for miles around - to know how to make good pastry, and also how to make those canned green beans taste all right. She wants you to remember that you are human, and as such are entitled to the most basic of human rights, the right to eat well and enjoy life.

And that blows heirloom tomatoes and first-press Umbrian olive oil out of the f***ing water.

And while completely agree, I completely disagree. I do believe our first responsibility is to eat well. What we eat, and how we eat, is one of the simplest things to alter in our lives and leads to a huge, healthy reward.

But I believe in eating in season, or preparing in season foods for storage for out of season cooking. I don't agree that middle class life should allow us to transport food from around the world so we can make fancy dishes all times of the year. But I do agree that learning to cook, really learning to COOK, transcends any food ideology.

And so I'm debating getting a Julia Child cookbook and work my way through some (not all) of the recipes. I'd like to learn how to make a good sauce, how to saute, how to do any number of things I'm sure I've never even heard of before. But when I do it, I'll be sure to use my local foods that are in season.