Will the real "Rural-Urban Divide" please stand up?
plus cheese-making in Kashmir
This week, I’ve been hard at work prepping for a major interview for an additional fellowship for a Ph.D. program. As part of that work, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the “why” of what I do: why do I study food, and why does it matter?
This is not my first fellowship rodeo, so I have ample notes from over the past six years trying to coalesce my answer to “why food.” Going back over these notes this week, I was struck by how much the answer has changed over the years: sophomore year I said something about food embedding issues of class, race, and gender in every bite; senior year I probably talked about food as a biopolitical tool of the state; and now I am going to talk about the relationship between food systems and the climate crisis. That is not to say that all my previous answers weren’t true; it’s just that my interests have shape-shifted and adapted and expanded over the years.
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about a story a friend told me of why her professor began to study South Asia as an undergraduate: for this professor, it is such a diverse region in all senses of the word that she felt like she could never be bored studying it. I think the same holds true for me for food. No matter what aspect of history I end up studying, no matter whether I end up branding myself as a historian of science or environmental historian or a British imperial historian or a historian of South Asia, I will always come back to food, as it is capacious enough to encode all of these facets and more. I feel immensely lucky to have found this intellectual home even before I embark on my doctoral degree. Now, I just need to find a pithy and poignant way to condense down all of my feelings surrounding food and my drive to spend 6-7 years continuing to study it into a compelling sound bite.
People often pedal the “rural-urban divide” as a means to explain voting patterns, economic habits, understandings of race, and more. Careful scholars have begun to heavily critique this alleged divide, showing how it “furthers myths about race and poverty—concealing effective policy solutions.” But if many people now recognize how this putative divide is “not only inaccurate, but harmful to our nation’s collective political and economic future,” why are we so willing to uphold such a divide within our food systems?
This willingness to uphold the “rural-urban divide” in discussions of food systems is illustrated well by a recent New York Times video series entitled “We’re Cooked.” As the subtitle notes, “Our food system is broken. But you get three chances to help fix it—and save the planet— every day.” Highlighting the deep intersections between food systems and the climate crisis is no doubt critical. But, as a recent op-ed in Civil Eats argued, it’s not enough. “The core messages [of the NYT video series] fall back on a framing of agriculture that furthers an already deep rural-urban divide when it comes to how we can transform damaging food systems.” The op-ed continues, “Primarily addressing urban consumers, the videos give the microphone to environmental lawyers, academics, an animal rights organizer and—in the final episode—clean-cut entrepreneurs promising their own brand of factory-produced protein in the form of crickets and other insects.”
There are many voices elided in this framing of food systems: as Civil Eats shows, “Absent from the series are the rural voices from North Carolina to Iowa to California who oppose factory farms because of the water and air pollution they face every day,” as well as environmental justice leaders based in rural areas. By ignoring these voices— as well as the concrete solutions many of these leaders have offered— the NYT privileges urban voices and techno-optimist solutions, implicitly claiming that eating crickets is the only way out of the climate crisis. And, the series does little work explaining what historical decisions led us to this point— and the processes by which “the government has historically left farmers without protection from unfair contracts and retaliation by corporations; allowed the four large poultry firms to consolidate, eliminating effective competition; failed to aggressively enforce environmental laws; and provided federal backing for large loans that often trap poultry farmers in unescapable debt.”
If we want a better food system, we cannot solve it only by catering to urban consumers, nor can we solve it through strict adherence to techno-optimism. Rather, as the op-ed writers show, “We need a new vision for the farm bill that acknowledges the escalating climate crisis and advances critical solutions while acknowledging that all of us—urban consumers as well as farmers, rural communities—will all be affected.”
Other food-related pieces occupying my mind:
Lily Kelting is perhaps one of my favorite food writers of late. She recently wrote a piece on breakfast curries in colonial India that pushed my own thinking on curry powder further, and I loved this piece for Vittles she wrote on the “perils and promise of bean-to-bar chocolate.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about this article on cheese-making in Kashmir, and the broader cheese-making culture in South Asia. There has been pretty ample coverage too of Namrata Sundaresan’s cheese-making operation in Chennai. (Full disclosure: I took an online cheese-tasting class through UVM with Namrata, and she is a wonderful classmate and even better cheesemaker!)
As a former longtime vegan, sometimes I want to scream that vegan food is still not ethical if produced via labor abuses. I was disheartened to learn about the worker violations occurring at Amy’s Kitchens factories, a popular vegetarian brand.
Last week, Jake and I went to Queen’s English in Columbia Heights. The food was, as always, excellent (run, don’t walk, to get the lobster egg custard). But the wine was maybe even better. We got a Spanish red wine from the Bierzo region, Castro Ventosa “El Castro de Valtuille” Mencia Joven. For two people who are not particularly partial to red wine, we couldn’t get enough of this.
It is a full-bodied, rich wine that tastes like cherry, plum, and pepper without any cloying fruitiness (or, for that matter, bitterness). It is easy on the palate, but has enough smokiness to be a little interesting, and at times I got hints of vanilla that lingered. This was the perfect wine with which to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
Here is a brief update on some of the food-related work I’ve been engaging in lately:
Still too much! Currently, I am working on interviewing professionals in the wine industry about hybridizing grapes in the face of the growing climate crisis for an article with Civil Eats. I have some exciting interviews coming up this week, and I can’t wait to share what I learn with you all.
My JStor Daily “Plant of the Month” piece on hops is almost done. As part of that, I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between craft beer and whiteness. I appreciated this article by Beth Demmon on the industry’s push for racial justice.
I, along with my colleagues Jack and Amanda, am working on a peer-reviewed journal article for a special issue of Global Food History on the colonial histories of many popular condiments. Amanda wrote up a short blog post on the history of ketchup in this vein, if you are interested.
That’s all for now, folks. I hope you have a wonderful week. Mine will be filled with a lot of interview prep, as well as running around to various coffee shop patios in DC to speak with some wine industry professionals. I have also been influenced by Sam Sifton to make this recipe this week. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Love, Julia