"The American Way of Eating"

“What’s a foodie?” was the start of a conversation related to Tracie McMillan by one of her neighbors, Martina, one of many examples of acquaintances whose ways of eating she profiles in her book The American Way of Eating.

“It’s someone who’s really, really into food, and grows their own, and then does things like make preserves and pickles and cans their food,” was the answer from the man Martina was describing. She answered him: “'Oh, like my mom, she does that,' but now she’s old. But, when I was a kid, she used to grow all these herbs and tomatoes and chiles and everything, just like back on the rancho in Mexico."

"That used to be all food. And it was a pain, man, to help with that. But it was real good, too. ... Right. That’s totally the same thing! Right! ...

"And so this guy, he says, 'Oh no, not like that.' and I can’t get him to tell me what the difference is, he just keeps saying, 'It’s just, like, you really, really like your food,' and I keep saying 'Like. My. Mom.' And we go back and forth like this, and finally I just told him, straight up, 'That’s classist, you just don’t get it.' And all he could say was, 'Foodies really care about what they eat.'" (p. 141)

It's kind of a cliche that many Americans have little choice in what they eat even though they in fact might prefer to eat more fresh produce and fewer meals of soft drinks or beer and a bag of chips -- and elitists don't get it. Many working people lack the time, access, and money to choose what they most wish for. This is the American way of eating that Tracie McMillan explores.

Though much of the statistical and general social information in the book has often appeared elsewhere, the development of relationships with fellow workers, landladies, or roommates, even in the short spans of time she worked each job, was one of the most interesting elements of the book -- like her relationship with Martina, whose mother loved food but didn't qualify for an elite definition of "foodie."

In order to learn about American food, McMillan decided that picking peaches and digging up garlic in the California fields, stocking the produce counters or the baking-supply aisles at Walmart, and working in the kitchen at Applebee's would help her to understand how poor and lower-middle-class Americans eat. While doing so, she had few financial or other resources to distinguish her from her fellow workers. They accepted her as a peer and a friend, and she also felt the same way about them.

McMillan herself grew up in a family that didn't always cook, though her grandmother taught her a bit. Both her background and her education led her to expect poorer people not to value cooking, good food, and fresh produce as much as wealthier Americans do. She clearly shows how very much these peers did love fresh food and home cooking.

One of McMillan's Walmart jobs was in Detroit, where she described her fellow workers and some of their food habits thus:

"Patti and Marvin reminded me how much people care about their meals. There were signs of it all around me in Detroit. There was Chris and her ceviche, for instance. The woman largely subsisted, so far as I could tell, on high-fiber breakfast bars, quesadillas, and Michelob Ultras, but she would also spend an hour cutting through five pounds of raw fish so that we could eat it all week. ...  

"Really, though, all I would have needed to do was look out my bedroom window. In the balm of springtime evenings, I’d watch my neighbors work in the community garden, crouching low to yank out weeds or ambling up the sidewalk behind a creaking wheelbarrow in the long shadows of twilight. Our garden wasn’t that big, maybe half a lot, but there were hundreds of them throughout the city .... Since the early 2000s, Detroit’s limited supermarkets and an overabundance of vacant land have inspired city residents to start growing their own food, in gardens ranging from tiny corner lots with collards and tomatoes to a four-acre expanse complete with a mushroom patch. They’ve churned out such an abundance of greens, herbs, and tomatoes that the most prodigious among them have formed a cooperative, Grown in Detroit, to sell their excess at farmers’ markets and restaurants around town. (p. 171)

Where does your food come from? Not a simple question. The process of bringing fresh vegetables and fruits from the fields in California or Mexico to the produce department at Walmart or to the kitchen of a fast-casual restaurant is complicated and adds most of the cost of these products. The author's experiences at Walmart were especially discouraging, as the produce there was very badly managed and poorly conserved, and she points out that Walmart supplies far more people with produce than any other source.

In today's New York Times a very closely related article, "Closing the Broccoli Gap" by Tina Rosenberg discusses the exact problems that are laid out in McMillan's book. It describes a program called Health Bucks, which enables people using food stamps (the SNAP program) to purchase considerably more produce for the same amount of money and credits. The program attempts to overcome two problems: poor people's access to markets where good produce is sold, and their inability to afford it.

The emphasis in the article is on an advocacy organization titled Fair Food, headquartered in Ann Arbor and their efforts in southeastern Michigan, right where I live:

"In 2013, the group worked with three independent grocery stores in Detroit to run a Double Up Food Bucks program from July through October. A SNAP customer who spent $10 on fruit and vegetables received a $10 gift card to spend on Michigan-grown produce. The next year, four new Detroit stores started the program, along with two groceries in Western Michigan."

McMillan makes a highly political point about social responsibility in her book. Perhaps the efforts described in today's article are making a tiny bit of headway in dealing with the issues of better and more nutritious food for all socio-economic classes in our society.