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Back in the classroom: anthropology and décroissance

Returning from stage is always a bit of a culture shock, but come Wednesday morning we had shaken off bus-lag and were back in our places (with bright shiny faces) at the University of Gastronomic Sciences. Everything was pretty shiny, in fact, as it was raining – bucketing down – and Torrente Parma was looking like a torrent of latte, not the sparse trickle we’d left behind only ten days earlier.

We met our new instructor of the week, Carole Counihan, who has us paddling swiftly down the byways of foodways, gender and the anthropology of food. We’re talking about the preservation of food cultures through anthropological methods, like interviews and observations. We’ll be trying an observation of our own in the next week.

The other instructor this week was economist Serge Latouche, who came from Paris to tell us about décroissance, which argues that civilization can no longer be founded on infinite economic growth. He picked up the thread where An Inconvenient Truth left off.

Referring often to the ideas of Romanian economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, he spoke at some length about the implications of unchecked growth on every aspect of our lives. Where food is concerned, a growth economy means the food industry is encouraged to force consumers to consume (or at least buy) more than they need so that profits can continue to grow, which of course requires industrialised food production and massive waste. You could take that to mean that if we buy into this pattern, we’re complicit in building populations of spiritual and physical obesity. And their harvests of waste, illness and pollution.

He spoke of three evils of the growth economy: advertising; programmed obsolescence; and credit.

Advertising’s crime is creating desire for products that are not needed; its job is to generate additional growth by nurturing a chronic sense of discontent and inadequacy in the target audience. A successful campaign will create cycles of insatiable demand and overproduction. The victims are vulnerable people who can be brainwashed into feeling inadequate, and the most vulnerable of those are children, already subject to excesses of advertising through television, but also through corporate sponsorship within their schools. He also singled out the mailshots that he says create up to 50kg of unwanted paper per household in Italy, with attendant issues of deforestation and pollution.

Programmed obsolescence forces consumers to replace items rather than repairing them. The lifespan of a computer is two years or so, and after that it simply stops working (or one year and one month in the case of my dead Acer laptop); the corporate solution – and the one that we consumers have implicitly consented to – is to dump these dead machines on foreign shores, all toxic chemicals and non-biodegradeable parts. Gone are the days when you could be self-reliant in your own home with a few good wrenches and screwdrivers; nowadays you can’t even diagnose the problems with most of our appliances and cars unless you have computer diagnostics. We will persuade people – shame them, mock them – that wearable clothes can no longer be worn because they are no longer fashionable. And what was I reading recently, that talked about the loss of the verb “darn” – that the very idea of repairing a hole in a sock had become passé in a culture that simply threw old clothes away because they were cheaper to replace?

Credit, he said, attacks consumers by encouraging them to consume even when they are unemployed or unable to afford what they are manipulated into wanting. He cited some depressing figures: in France, 80% of the population is indebted to the amount they will earn this year and next; Americans owe what they will earn until 2010. And, unsurprisingly, it seems that Canadians, too, owe more than they earn. It got me wondering who pays for the debt of the one in 53 American households that declare bankruptcy (and presumably go on to assume more debt as soon as they’re legally able, since credit helps to fund bank profits growth), and what implications that will have for all of us down the line if the debts are ever called in.

There was of course much more said, and I look forward to the next installment this afternoon, and some time to digest it all.

We bless the smoking piano of Dijon

Can you really get anything you want? Alas, they were closed when we passed by, so we will never know.

I have to confess I have never been awed by French food, having had in my short lifetime eaten better in Spain, Italy and indeed Holland and Germany than in France, where I’ve had some spectacularly bad food. And I wasn’t converted on this trip. We had a lot more mediocre meals than good ones, and it reminded me of London in that way: it’s easy to find a poor meal; finding a good one is a matter of luck and/or money.

Then again, if I may delve into thoughts inspired by this year’s studies in the culture of food, there is an art and a skill and a cultural knowledge involved in reading a country’s menus that should give you fair warning about which places to avoid; that coupled with a heavy purse can keep you safe from most bad food.

All of that having been said, Dijon’s Le Piano Qui Fume was a great find, and we simply stumbled upon it, and took a second look simply because of its name (does anyone know if that is an allusion to something, by the way? We forgot to ask).

A former creperie, it has been operating for the past four years in a good central location of Dijon. We had the three course menu for a not unreasonable 27 euros per person (passed on the cheese course which I’m sure would have been stunning as well) which began with an amuse-bouche of vichyssoise. Our paths divided with the starters: the asparagus and smoked salmon salad was perfectly executed, but the cannelloni – which our generous dining companion shared – was even better, a tender family of escargot sleeping in a soft pasta bedroll. (So much more comfortable than a nasty old shell full of garlic butter.)

Then we all converged on the rabbit, which was exquisite; the diners around us who had the cod dish looked as happy as we.

Lapin: before…

And after…

And then desserts of beautiful fresh strawberries (a little waffle with bitter orange marmalade was a perfect companion) and my clever fellow diners had the even more celestiale chocolate mousse with a surprise hidden puddle of white mint creammmmmmm lurking in its depths.

Even the darling little cakes that came with coffee were charming and clever.

And oh, happy day, there was a mix-up in our group’s final dinner reservation on our last night in Dijon, so we were able to return and try all the things we missed the first time.

The sweet, tangy ratatouille that came with the cod gave me a shock: so that’s how it’s supposed to taste? And I had been reading MFK Fisher’s amusing recipe for it only the night before. The one change to the delivery was substitution of mint ice-cream for mint cream in the dessert, but it was altogether a delightful encore and a welcome finale to our visit.

Dijon continued: more wine, a few smoking barrels and a nice bit of cheese

On Friday, we visited the Château de Corton-André, to hear about the wines of Pierre André from Christian Ciamos. He told us first about the yellow tiled roof of the chateau, which had come from Bruges and which was one of few in the area, an emblem of nobility dating back to the power days of the dukes of Burgundy. The château itself had been built on Cistercian cellars: the Cistercian monks were the first vintners of the area and established most of the vineyards and techniques still in use in Burgundy wines.

In the fields, he talked about the moves to organic and biodynamic methods of cultivation that he and other winemakers are making. Basically, he said, it’s a question of respecting nature. Hence the roses still grown at the ends of many vineyards: they are prone to the same fungal attacks as vines and will show evidence before the vines do.

The vines of Pierre André are treated for disease, he said, not the risk of disease, otherwise you kill both the illness and the ecosystem. He and others we’d heard from during the week came back to their incontrovertable truth: that living things that are not routinely treated with chemicals (whether pesticides or antibiotics) are fundamentally more healthy and able to resist disease than those you make dependent on chemical cures. There is again no irrigation in use here: the vines are made healthier by having to sink their roots deep into the soil to find water.

We then retired to the cellar to have a tasting of wines from 2003 and 2004, and picked up an interesting snippet about wine tasting: there are three noses in wine – when it’s just poured in the glass; when it’s been swirled; and when the glass is empty.

A big excitement later that afternoon was the visit to François Frères Cooperage, where we watched barrels being made. The company makes most of its own staves from lumber purchased at auction, and trims the pieces to size in a small mill on its property. The staves are then aged for two years before being trimmed again and formed into barrels. The most dramatic moment was the toasting, where the half made barrels are placed over fires so that the heat relaxes the wood and flavours it to the specification of the buyer.

Before we knew it, Monday had arrived and it was our last day in France.

We visited Gaugry, a family-run cheese factory near Dijon, to learn about the making of Epoisses. This is one of the soft smelly French cheeses that I’ve never been wild about, but I enjoyed the tastings, and found my favourite of the three we tried was mild, creamy and firm – a much gentler taste than the aroma suggested. It was nice, though not enough to cause me to risk the aromatic integrity of my fridge in Parma by bringing some back with me, but I will look forward to tasting it again one day.

It’s a slow-coagulated, hand-salted cheese that is molded and dried before beginning a month or so of washings several times a week in marc de bourgogne (a wine solution) which gives it the orange colour we know it by.

We tried three different versions: two raw milk (one a farmer’s cheese and the other made at the Gaugry factory) and one pasteurised, for markets like the US where raw milk cheeses can’t be sold. A tip for the interested is that pasteurised versions are runnier than raw milk ones, so it’s easy to spot the outsider among these three:



We had a few hours in a very warm room at the top of the Burgundy school of business in Dijon, where Peter Dunn walked us through the massively confusing layers of names and quality marks for Burgundy wines. It was new information to me on the Bordeaux Classification of 1855 and some helpful review of AOC requirements for French wine. It was more on exposure, water, soil, limestone, marl and weather systems, and a bit on pruning and vinification.

But before that, we were subjected to what may be the worst meal ever served (and not, in most cases, eaten): the cafeteria of the business school in Dijon. Curiously, they were offering this abomination during a student recruitment drive. The first photo was an unidentifiable deep fried something that was described as having a ‘bolognese’ filling; it was served on a mystery grain.

The vegetables had been cooked into some kind of alternate chemical existence; it was as if they had gone beyond their roles as long dead plants into some new and appalling incarnation that could not properly be described as a life form.

It was puzzling to us: why had we been brought here? Was there a learning point in this mealtime? This was not slow food; but neither was it particularly fast, and it was fairly certainly not even food.

When we had completed our close observation and dissection of the substances, and drunk our cups of water, we were directed to a large bin in the corner where everything – the ‘food’, plastic cutlery, plastic plates, paper cups and napkins – were tipped into a plastic-lined void. A perfect finale: this school doesn’t trouble itself with either edible meals or recycling. I wonder what other lessons the business students take away from this place when they graduate.

Burgundy mustard, pork and beaucoup du vin

Wednesday was mustard day. We left Lyon and stopped for a couple of hours’ free ramble round Beaune, looking pretty in the sunshine. The wine museum beckoned a couple of us, and we learned many things, including the six different ways one can drive a vine stake into the ground. Who knew??

After lunch we all trooped into the Fallot mustard mill, which still makes its mustard in the traditional way, using stone grinding. We were surprised to hear that 98% of the mustard seed used in French mustard, including Dijon (which is not a geographical designation, so it can be made anywhere). The Fallot mill makes a Burgundy mustard which has nearly achieved its AOC designation, and which uses only locally grown mustard seed, some of that elusive 2%.

After a tour of the interactive museum and a small tasting, we headed off to Dijon, where we dined near the market at Au Bon Pantagruel on some duck in armagnac sauce that did not linger quite long enough in the pan for most, and had to be wrestled onto the fork, followed by a chocolate mousse that left us wanting, well, a better chocolate mousse.

It’s entirely possible one can have a much better meal there if there are not 25 of you with a block dinner order. Let us hope.

Thursday we went to Volnay, to visit the Chateau de Puligny, where Etienne de Montille took us out to the fields to show us the terroir. His fields are organic, without irrigation, and he looked rather pleased when he said he couldn’t show us any unhealthy plants because they were all doing so well.

We tasted a small and delightful selection before departing to la Ferme des Levees in Lusigny-sur-Ouche.

Born again pig farmer Jacques Volatier told us he’d given up life as an engineer and town planner in order to do something more socially useful, environmentally sound, and agricultural, serving a local market – in protest against the industrialization of food production and long-haul food transportation. So, he raises pigs year round, outside, without antibiotics, and produces pork products on the farm. He doesn’t breed the pigs himself because that would require conformity with EU hygiene regulations which are so strict (like making the farm a war zone, he remarked) they would make it impossible for him to do what he needs to do, which is to show the people who buy his pork where it comes from.

It’s a small scale enterprise, in which he slaughters about three pigs a week, and sells the meat and products at markets and from the farm shop.

We sampled some jambon persille, jambon a la moutarde, pates en croute, gratons, salad and some home made elderflower cordial (he planted the elderflower as shade for the pigs, and began turning it into a saleable product as a sideline), followed by fromage blanc, a bit like cream cheese, from a farmer up the road, served with thick spooning cream and sugar or salt. Kind of like a do it yourself cheesecake, someone remarked.

And off we went to another vineyard, this time the Domaine Dujac, where as we dodged spitting rain and thunder, Jeremy Seysses told us about his vines and wines.

We had a spin round the cave and then he gave us a horizontal tasting of 2001 wines, chardonnay and pinot noir, followed by a special and delectable glass of 1976 pinot.

Thursday night was another free meal, and after a drizzly walk seeing the sights of Dijon, we ended up nearly back at the hotel with our noses pressed to the menu board of Allo Nem, an Asian restaurant – when, like magic, our Taiwanese food guru Andy popped his head out the door and said the magic words: “it’s good!” And he was right.

Beef and chicken à la française

So here we are in France. We arrived on Sunday morning, in Lyon, and I for one am rejoicing in the cooler temperatures – Parma was a steamy 35 degrees when we left. We’ve had our customary stage weather – chilly and drizzly with a bit of sun thrown in.

We had a free night in Lyon and headed for Le Nord, one of the Bocuse brasseries, on the expert recommendation of a local (thanks Jeremy). An excellent salad of green beans, artichoke hearts and a silky slab of foie gras de canard, followed by a wholesome waffle with sides of applesauce, warm chocolate and cream. Pas mal, and a good entree to France.

Monday we were up with the birds and off to Bourg-en-Bresse where we met our new friends Philippe Marchenay and Laurence Bérard, researchers in food and bio-ethnology, who talked to us about geographical designations and biodiversity in French food products.

Our first example was Charolais beef, plodding towards AOC/PDO designtion and so widely known already that they have their own museum at la Maison du Charolais, where we had a talk and a tasting.

Then onto the bus and off at a Charolais farm.

Dominique Gateau, the owner, talked to us about his breeding practices, which involve 24 hour video surveillance during calving, which lasts from January till June. We met a few of the newcomers and were shown some of the qualities that make good beef cattle.

Afterwards, he set up a little wine and cheese party on some hay bales, featuring of his own goat and cow cheese.

And then back to le Maison du Charolais where they also have a restaurant, and we had a Charolais steak before heading off into the night.

Tuesday morning we ambled across the street to Lyon’s excellent food market, les Halles de Lyon, where Philippe and Laurence guided us through the stalls.

We fetched up at a great cheese stand and bought plenty for lunch which we enjoyed in Philippe and Laurence’s comfortable house in the country.

Lots of cheese, wonderful bread, salumi, apple juice, Philippe’s cornichons, a bowl of fresh strawberries, and their neighbour’s wine.

Then to the Bresse Chicken farm owned by Christophe Vuillot, who, at 37, thanks to skills at poultry farming learned from his grandfathers, has a happy life raising his happy chickens who fill the fields around his house, with a small flock of guinea fowl and a grey border collie keeping an eye on them. The birds are long maturing, fed on a mixture of special poultry feed and what they forage in the grasses, and they are given a helping of whey in their feed which works as a natural preventative against worms and parasites. They are also, of course, healthy enough that they don’t need the chronic antibiotics that battery farmed chickens do.

We were given a demonstration of the dressing of these very special and very expensive chickens, which are slaughtered on the farm, their head and neck feathers left on (for aesthetic purposes, the farmer explained) and then sewn into a linen casing that expels air and acts as a secure protection for up to a week. The chickens are prepared this way for competitions and feast day – 150 of them are hand sewn each Christmas at this farm alone.


And for supper, we had… chicken.

Industrial pasta, arab influences and the spoken word

Phew, a week seems to have got away from me. Wandering round Parma on Sunday the 13th, I came upon a big party right around the corner, on strada Farini, which had been closed to traffic and lined with street vendors, with nearby gardens and galleries open to viewing. All good street parties in Parma seem to involve strategic use of turf, and this one was no exception, going a step further, adding a fountain:

If the week before was visual, last week was, well, audio-visual. We divided most of our time between Barbara Santich, visiting from Adelaide to tell us about Medieval food history, and Simon Parkes, from the BBC Food Programme, visiting from London to talk about food radio.

We kicked off the week with an all-day tour of the Barilla Pasta factory near Parma on Monday. Oh no, we thought, a dreary day of PowerPoint presentations followed by endless trailing around to see more large shiny machines… but happily there was more to it than that.

Though we did commence, as all 21st century students surely do, by sitting helplessly in a room for half an hour or so, watching a series of mildly concerned staff members take turns having a go trying to persuade the projector to talk to the laptop, and when that didn’t work, trying another laptop, another staff member, another cable, and so on. Enough time had fallen off the clock to convince the plucky marketing chap to plunge in, armed only with a box of spaghetti and a head full of company history. He did very well off the cuff, and by the time the technology was awake he’d covered a good chunk of time.

We had technical talks too, which luckily followed a not-too-distant class in pasta technology, so we were old hands at distinguishing common wheat from durum, and were already aware of the legislation requiring the use of durum wheat for Italian dried pasta; we knew about different gluten actions in each, and of course familiar with potential major flaws in dried pasta. We heard about the work of the research department to produce the perfect balance of protein, gluten and yield in its various strains of durum. We heard that Barilla buys a large percentage of Italy’s durum production, and some of the rest from the US, where it has both mill and pasta factory. And we did see some big machines that were churning out a lot of strands of spaghetti, and were treated to a large lunch of pasta.

Back to the halls of learning on Tuesday, in Barbara Santich’s classes we enjoyed a walk through Medieval foods: heard about some of the foods that were prepared for feasts and how banquets began; and reviewed the astonishing number of days set aside each year for fasting and religious observance that affected foods. We looked at some recipes that had made their way down the years from early cooks such as Apicius, and talked about some of the spices that have pretty much disappeared from Italian food, like dill, cumin, mint, coriander and asafoetida; heard about the influence on cuisine from Arab traders who introduced such foods as citrus fruits, buckwheat, cane sugar, spinach, eggplant and lots of spices to the Mediterranean.

Next, Simon Parkes had us work on a six minute radio piece, which was a challenge to complete in two days. One night, really. It involved the use of some sound editing software which worked better for some of us than others but we had fun with it and enjoyed listening to the final products on Thursday afternoon.

And at that point I flew away to London for the weekend.