As a college student in the 1960s Alice Waters spent a semester in France exploring vineyards, quaint shops and food markets. She was inspired by the tastes and flavors of these wines, beers, breads, meats, fruits, and vegetables and the economies that produced them. So much so that her time abroad was a life altering experience, the impetus for opening her acclaimed and groundbreaking Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse. And this restaurant contributed greatly to a local food movement in the United States that has changed the eating habits of millions and transformed an industry.
It’s a bit of a shock then to visit present day France, the setting of Food Beware, and discover that French food, and the economic systems that produce them, are no longer, by and large, as they had been. Most French agricultural products, as they are in the U.S., are heavily reliant on conventional methods of production: pesticides and other chemicals are prevalent and the soil is dead from overreliance on commercial fertilizers. While the French countryside remains as gorgeous as ever, it is marred by aerial and terrestrial chemical spraying. Cancer rates among children, adults, farmers, and non-farmers, are at unprecedented levels. The temperature is up while sperm counts are down. Small scale farms are disappearing. Fresh water is depleted. Things have changed for the worse in France.
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However the small town of Barjac has its own food maverick, the mayor, who has decreed that the school canteen, which provides 200 to 220 meals per day, will serve only locally produced, organic food. He is doing this for the children. Food Beware’s French tile is “Nos enfants nous accuseront” or “Our Children Will Accuse.” Organic food is more expensive, but the mayor explains that he has consulted his conscience, not his accountant.
The higher cost of organic food affects parents, as well as the town budget. Many families have chosen to adopt this diet at home. They acknowledge the tradeoffs. Those on a very tight budget are eating less, giving up or heavily cutting back on meat, and upping their vegetables. But most feel that quality trumps quantify and that eating organic has made them focus on what they really need to buy and not be distracted by unnecessary purchases at the supermarket. Most seem proud of their sacrifice, not regretful.
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As Barjac’s food experiment hits its stride, greater changes are afoot. The organic grocery store’s sales are up, more local merchants are plying organic wares at the market, such as the biodynamic vintner, and neighboring mayors are consulting with Barjac’s to discuss possibly emulating his decree.
Meanwhile, there’s a lot of talking and doing. Food Beware, weaving the personal and the political, cuts between scenes of serious adults attending a food conference and town hall meetings and fun-loving children caring for their school garden. It contrasts experts linking food production to cancer with students planting seeds, measuring plants, lovingly watering them. At the food conference a panelist advocates that the € 9.5 billion farm subsidy be redirected to institutional catering, creating a new market for organic food which would allow all French canteens to follow Barjac’s lead. With an ancient Roman aqueduct as a backdrop, a teacher presents a lesson about the sanctity of clean water and the necessity of passing that on to the next generation.
The kids tending their organic garden in Food Beware learn valuable lessons. They plant seeds, care for them, and eventually reap a salad harvest. They discuss what foods they like or don’t like – radishes, cauliflower, broccoli, and polenta. They compare and contrast food systems, explore ecology, biology, chemistry.
School gardens, what Alice Waters calls Edible Schoolyards, are transforming public education in the Unites States, as well. Barjac’s little experiment may not work universally, but there is a clear need for healthier school food everywhere and the need for adults, educators, and policy makers around the globe to educate our school children and to help create a world where we should not beware of our food.
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Food Beware: Tuesday, December 10th, 2013
Park Slope Food Coop – 2nd Floor
7:00 p.m. Free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
