P i s t a c h i o

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Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. — Groucho Marx

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Happy  Thanksgiving, Americanos.

via EatMeDaily

Photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt

It’s too early to be cynical about the World Food Summit, which opens today. But it’s worth noting that Jacques Diouf, head of the UN’s Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization, staged a 24-hour strike to bring attention to ” the world’s 1 billion chronically malnourished people … and put pressure on world leaders to do something about it,” reports Associated Press.

For a bit of irreverence, it’s also worth noting that AP reports Mr Diouf wore a trench over his pajamas [isn't streetwear the officially uniform of hunger strikes, because you're in public and no one looks dignified in pajamas?].

Here at home, an excellent piece in the Star this morning about the shift in hunger relief from international aid to long-term development, focused on the small farmer.

Writes Star columnist Olivia Ward :

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization said Sunday it had reached a deal with the Islamic Development Bank for $1 billion in funding to help develop agriculture in poor countries that belong to both organizations.

“This agreement comes at a critical moment, when the international community recognizes it has neglected agriculture for many years,” the Rome-based agency said. “Today, sustained investment in agriculture – especially smallholder agriculture – is acknowledged as the key to food security.”

Read full article here.

Photo: A vendor sprays water on vegetables to keep them fresh at a market in the eastern Indian city of Siliguri Oct. 22, 2009. RUPAK DE CHOWDHURI/REUTERS FILE PHOTO

God is in the details

– Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

This Swiss building is called the Cocoon, and it took my breath away the minute I came across it today. I’ve been working from home for nearly five years and really love it, but I’d get professionally suited-up and ride public transit during rush hour [both of which I hate] if I could work here.

Based on the visceral and emotional buzz I got just looking at pictures of it, I’m convinced that I’d be more creative and productive in this space, that my abilities would soar, that my mood would be mostly positive and that my general health would improve.

See more photos of this building here and be moved, too.

Despite the atrocities of our culture’s animal husbandry, I’ll never give up meat.

More and more, I’m satisfied with very little of it. Also, frankly, I can’t always afford to buy organic or naturally raised. Better food remains the domain of fuller wallets than mine. But that’s another issue for another day.

Forget organic and naturally raised, says author Jonathan Safran Foer [Everything Is Illuminated], whose new book Eating Animals was released this week.

In this Q&A by Sarah Boesveld, he says:

Even if you want to be an ethical omnivore or a selective omnivore, just given the realities of farming, it means you’re going to eat vegetarian almost all the time.

I’m having trouble thinking of myself as unethical, but I’ll own up to thinking that the best efforts of the local food movement, microfarming and CSAs are still a drop in the bucket and not really impacting factory farming in any real way.

Which is not to say microfarming and all the related efforts around it are for naught. Quite the opposite. It’s just that, when I hear complaints about factory farming followed by one form or other of boycotting, I think, “There’s got to be a better way.”

When Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle [1906], his exposé of the Chicago meat industry, it led to historic reform. His book was responsible for the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act, including better working conditions for workers.

I want to hear more about reform for large scale operations. Is Canada as bound to nepotistic relationships among government agencies to protect corporate profits as is the case in the U.S. [See Food, Inc.], or are we more likely to succeed in changing food production on a grand scale?

Image via Tiny Evil Hog | via Burstoid

Eric Reguly’s latest column,  The Future of the Supermarket,  is about his recent find in Turin, a retail application of “eco-gastronomy” called Eataly.

“It is an unlikely blend of food bazaar, farm stand, educational centre, museum, eclectic dining experience and political and environmental movement – though one anchored firmly in the world of commerce,” writes Reguly, which is exactly how we’d like to see eco-gastronomy: the Whole Foods model with value added.

The chain is expanding briskly in Italy and then heading into Japan and Manhattan.

It may take a while, but having had Whole Foods trod a sturdy, dependable path for its growing market, we’re going to Eataly here, too.

Image via ffffound through mint.

via Swiss-Miss.com