I am, like lots of people, real drawn by books about food and the food industry. There is, at this point, a whole library of titles, from the big scene-setters (Omnivore’s Dilemma, Fast Food Nation) to more recent ones that may or may not hold up (too many to list). Plus there are the older, lesser-known works of magic that seemed to lead the way on this field (name your own, but for my money Manning’s Against the Grain is still among the most interesting books on food in existence), to say absolutely nothing of the less-classifiable ones (where does Catching Fire fit in in all of this?). Anyway: food writing. It’s now a non-stop industry: I’ve read three books in the last six months about the food industry, and I’m sure there’s a dozen I haven’t seen or gotten to.
Today’s dish: Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook. I have a hard time knowing exactly what to say about this book specifically: it’s well-written, features all sorts of alarming detail about the way in which tomatoes are presently grown (in Florida specifically: take my word for it that you’re better off buying conventional tomatoes grown in California rather than the sunshine state) and includes several harrowing chapters about consequences that’ve arisen due to the current system of growing tomatoes (horrifically awful birth defects in the children of field workers, long-term health problems among the workers themselves, and slavery: “He [Douglas Molloy, a US attorney] also says that any American who has eaten a winter tomato, either purchased at a supermarkey or on top of a fast food salad, has eaten a fruit picked by the hand of a slave. ‘That’s not an assumption,’ he told me. ‘That is a fact.’”). And, of course, the book features a rogue throwback grower, someone who’s trying to up[end the current growing paradigm (in this case, that grower is Tim Stark in NY, Tom Beddard in Florida). Tomatoland is, yes, a disturbing and revealing look at modern industrial agriculture, and it’s riveting reading in good and bad ways, and it’s well worth your time.
The problem with the book is a problem, ultimately, of form. The structure of Tomatoland could be plotted alongside dozens of other in-depth looks at industrial food practices, and they’d share overwhelming similarities: start with a focus on the disgusting problems at present, zoom out to look at the people most direly and directly effected by these practices, then find some pure-hearted David putting his shoulder to the industry’s Goliath to focus on at book’s close, someone who’ll leave the reader with a bit of hope that things can change, maybe a bit of enthusiasm and resolve that the time for change is either upon us or coming awfully soon.
It’s worth, for just one moment, considering the story that’s led to tomatoes (or whatever) being industrially grown. In the first half of the last century, agronomists set out to maximize yield in crops. They did this because they were terrible monsters hellbent on making inedible, tasteless food that would eventually make everyone fat and sick with cancer. They developed systems which increased, at ever level, production and productivity. This, of course, led to nothing but awfulness, a spike of world-wide malaise.
Of course’s that not the story: those agronomists wanted to maximize yield so that folks could partake in that most minor of sins, enjoying a tomato (or whatever) out of season, or far from where growing conditions were ideal. Also: maximizing yield meant farmers could reap larger profits from their land, and, as the supply of food increased, the price was driven down, allowing vegetables to be within reach for more people of varying economic means, plus also for those people far from where some foods were easy to grow. That’s of course to say absolutely nothing of the introduction of industry and jobs in places there hadn’t been jobs before. None of which, of course, is a remotely reasonable excuse for how bad things have become.
Look, I get as sickened as the next eater by the nasty things that happen in the production of our food. I don’t eat farm-raised sea food and I buy the bulk of my fruits and vegetables at the farmer’s market. I’m not arguing in favor of the food industry as it’s presently operating. However, how many more one-sided, bad-consequences books can we read about the awfulness of food? At some point, don’t we simply know everything’s bad? Does knowing the various extents of badness help? More to the point: isn’t there a decent argument to be made that simply hating and finding fault with the present system (I’m loath to use the word) problematic as well? What does one tell a ten year old who (rightly) says: well, okay, if fast food’s bad, and tomatoes are bad, and all meat is bad, then it’s all a wash, and who cares anyway? If everything’s bad, what’s the point of choosing?
If there’s some overarching message or theme running beneath these Bad Food Industries books, a mild and benign way of putting it might be to say that things have had unintended consequences. This, of course, is the 20th century’s legacy writ large: the unintented consequences of everyone being able to afford a motor vehicle has been geopolitical instability due to oil-rich nations with scary governments and massive increases in carbon emissions. And so now automotive folks are looking to new fuel forms to dismantle both of those unintended consequences. The unintended consequences of industrial farming are slavery, unimaginably nasty health issues, and food that tastes like used sponges. We’ve now got, over and over, books which detail, down to the last maliciousness, the awfulness of these consequences.
What would be amazing, though, and what’s necessary to have a grown-up conversation about food in this country, would be books which attempted to frame a larger narrative than the simple, reactionary This-Is-Bad style dominant at present. It takes no imaginative work and maybe fourteen seconds to conceive of the good that’s come from gas-powered cars and industrial farming (for the former: endless new industries, geographic mobility [which goes a long way toward sustaining a middle class], cool vacation pictures; for the latter, salad in midwinter). Does the initial good outweigh the present bad? Not remotely. However, by presenting a complete story, instead of one which simply enumerates the awfulness of things, authors could help the present and future generation(s) of industrialists and inventors see the larger cause-and-effect picture. Such books might help frame a discussion about the unintended consequences of our 20th century pursuits in the context of met and unmet goals. As is, books like Tomatoland—as great as it is (and it’s a really great book, and worth reading, and features neat info about different tomato varieties and how it became classes as a vegetable, everything)—seem, strangely, to mimic their subject matters, offering too little taste and substance and uniqueness and trading instead on the easily digestible This Sucks refrain. It’s time for new, more complete stories of how we got here, so we can better understand and deal with the consequences of our actions.