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[Don Bowen <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

At 4/28/2007, you wrote:

> True enough, but we don't have to go back nearly that far to draw a line
> where eating far distant foods was a luxury and and option and not an 
> necessity.
> That is, here abouts in the 50's and 60's far flung foods, mainly out of
> season foods, were available, but they were a rare treat.

Many people fail to realize just how recent much of what we take for 
granted was not available.  I grew up in the 50s on a farm.  We ate what 
the farm produced when in season, canned and froze what we could.  There 
were no fresh vegetables flown in from Chile in the winter, if there were 
they were much too expensive.  There were canneries, diaries, bakeries all 
within that 100 mile circle and this was in the rural midwest.  But cheap 
oil and the Interstate system made long distance transportation of the 
cheapest commodities possible.  Then businesses realized that it was 
cheaper to buy up the competition than enter a new market then they 
realized that one huge plant was cheaper per item to operate than several 
smaller so started closing plants.  Now look where we are.



Don Bowen              Awl Knotted Up                       KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com
My travel journal
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html

I am omnivagant.  
> From genegerue AT ruralize.com  Sun Apr 29 10:16:39 2007
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From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 07:16:37 -0700
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Subject: Re: [Homestead] Are you a locavore?
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On Apr 28, 2007, at 7:10 AM, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:

[James, I found this post in my spam filter file. Probably, I  
suspect, because you changed your e-mail address. Don't know about  
the rest of this tribe, but this spam filter is smarter than I am in  
that it rejects all strangers.]

> . . . Somone (may or may not have observed) "100 years ago everyone  
> was a locavore." . . . . True enough, but we don't have to go back  
> nearly that far to draw a line where eating far distant foods was a  
> luxury and and option and not an necessity. . . .Sometime between  
> then and now all the food for the common masses moved farther and  
> farther away.  Now there are no bakeries, no slaughter houses,  
> almost no dairies, and eggs come from several hundred miles away.   
> Heck, even our cornbread and beans are from more than 100 miles  
> away. . . . I would suggest a view of our eating history not just  
> as local diet vs imported diet as much as when we became utterly  
> dependent on the imported diet.

Seems to me that for nearly everyone food purchase decisions are  
purely economic, e.g., if I can pay the price I will continue to eat  
wild Alaskan salmon and drink Colorado beer and Columbian coffee,  
knowing full well that environmental degradation results from the  
energy used to bring those items to me. The health and pleasure  
benefits outweigh my concern for Gaia. Today.

Food production facilities are run not on what is good for the  
planet, but what is good for the bottom line. Local slaughterhouses,  
dairies, bakeries, processing plants, and restaurants cannot exist  
but for elite and discrete consumer groups. In few areas of the  
country--California, Florida--is food production parallel to consumer  
demands. Chez Panisse, the Berkeley restaurant founded and run by  
Alice Waters, is an example. Here are some telling quotes from the CP  
web site:

"The menu changes every night, designed to be appropriate to the  
season and composed to show off the finest ingredients obtainable  
including meat, fish, and poultry. . . .

"Alice and Chez Panisse have become convinced that the best-tasting  
food is organically grown and harvested in ways that are ecologically  
sound, by people who are taking care of the land for future  
generations. The quest for such ingredients has largely determined  
the restaurant's cuisine. Chez Panisse has tried for years to make  
diners here partake of the immediacy and excitement of vegetables  
just out of the garden, fruit right off the branch, and fish straight  
out of the sea. In doing so, Chez Panisse has stitched together a  
patchwork of over sixty nearby suppliers, whose concerns, like the  
restaurant's, are environmental harmony and optimal flavor."

A glance at the menu--http://www.chezpanisse.com/pgcafemenu.html-- 
tells us that dinner for two, even without wine, will cost about a  
hundred dollars.