THE GLOBALIZATION OF PLENTY

267 CHAPTER 24 THE GLOBALIZATION OF PLENTY The world of food requires unobtrusive erudition. It is well known that curiosity is the basic thrust toward knowledge, which in turn is the necessary precondition for pleasure. Giovanni Rebora 1 AS WE JUST SAW, American anguish about weight and well-being has prompted scientifi c probes into obscure food-related alleyways. It also did much to advance food globalization in America. During the 1950s, Americans with a hankering for the foreign had pizza parlors for eating out and canned chow mein and chop suey for eating in, but most were still meat and potatoes people. It was a time when nobody used garlic and only winos drank wine. But this stolid unimaginative image was chipped away at beginning with the refi ned tastes of highly visible Jacqueline Kennedy and her fondness for French, Italian, and even British foods. Moreover, Americans took a good look at their waistlines, had their hearts checked, worried about their fat consumption, and began in earnest to adopt foreign foods increasingly thought to be healthy. A stick prodding the public in this direction was the controversial 1977 document entitled Dietary Goals for the United States, published by the Senate Select Committee headed by George McGovern. Its 1978 bombshell edition alleged that the nation was under siege from an epi- demic of “killer diseases” – heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes, and obesity brought on by changes in the American diet during the preceding 268 A Movable Feast half-century. The document called for a more “natural” diet, as well as more nutritional research to counter the epidemic. 2 The carrot came with an 1980 publication by Ancel Keys and col- leagues on the virtues of the Mediterranean diet. These investigators added more than two decades of their own research to earlier explo- rations of the Mediterranean diet, which, when contrasted with most “Western” diets, revealed a clear relationship between the intake of satu- rated fats and cholesterol and the incidence of heart disease, diabetes, and certain forms of cancer. 3 The Mediterranean diet, although based on some consumption of fi sh, was pretty close to vegetarian – rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, tomatoes, and grains, with olive oil, a monounsaturated oil, providing most of the fat. 4 It also famously featured alcohol in the form of wine as a regular part of the Mediterranean regimen. 5 It did not take long for scientifi c research as well as popular writing about the Mediterranean diet to turn into industries, particularly after it became apparent that the diet had a special appeal for those interested in guilt-free alcohol consumption. 6 Indeed, a glass or two (or more) of wine became a dietary imperative for many in the 1990s after the beverage was promoted to the rank of a heart-disease preventive, because some studies showed that it elevates blood levels of high density lipoprotein, the “good” artery cleansing cholesterol. Appreciation of wine as a miracle worker soared even higher as details of the so-called “French Paradox” began appearing in the media and were featured on the TV series 60 Minutes. Those details credited red wine drinking among the French with their relatively low rate of heart attacks. 7 Especially impressive was the much lower than expected rate of coronary artery disease among the foie gras–gobbling ( but wine drinking) people of Gascony who were also heavy smokers and whose diet incorporated many more cholesterol-laden foods than just goose liver. All of this led to a panel of nutrition authorities from Harvard University and the World Health Organization, which unveiled in 1994 a “Mediterranean Diet Pyramid.” This gave olive oil a prominent place, along with cheese, yogurt, and, of course, red wine. 8 Wine achieving health-food status arrested falling sales of California wines, especially the reds. American tastes had leaned toward white wines as fi sh and chicken became trendy, but now veered back to red wines while an expanding population of wine drinkers discovered what Californians already knew. California wines had come a long way since the 1960s when The Globalization of Plenty 269 Orson Welles, as a television pitchman for Paul Masson Wines, intoned that “we sell no wine before its time.” 9 The transformation began at the University of California at Davis, where from the 1950s through the 1970s new technologies were applied to turn winemaking and vineyard management into sciences. California wines began to compete favorably with wines the world over and, during the 1990s, the number of wineries in that state jumped from 600 to more than 900. 10 The baby boomers were absolutely charmed by wine and bought plenty of foreign, as well as domestic, offerings. Those of France, Germany, Austria, and Italy began sharing shelf-space with the wines of Spain and Portugal, only to be jostled by New World bottles from Austra- lia, New Zealand, Argentina, and Chile (in 1993, U.S. consumers bought close to two million cases of Chilean wines). Americans began to speak knowledgeably of Viño Cohcha y Toro, a German Kabinett versus a Trock- enbeernauslese, and the “Super Tuscans” of Italy, while putting a few bottles of French Bordeaux down in their newly constructed wine cellars. 11 And, in 1999, a new French wine was released, the “Paradoxe Blanc.” Named for the “French Paradox,” it is a white wine made like a red wine to boost its antioxidant-rich tannins. But a new appreciation of wine was not limited to the West. In China, a growing health awareness has produced a market for dozens of foreign wines, mostly cheap ones from France, Spain, and nearby Australia. And although the custom of mixing wine with soft drinks like Coca-Cola or Sprite may cause Western connoisseurs to shudder, the Chinese are enjoying the benefi ts of wine by the pitcher. Olive oil was also credited with lowering the incidence of heart disease among Mediterranean peoples, and its use in America soared to the point where people became picky wanting more than just “extra-virgin.” For many it now had to be “cold-pressed extra virgin,” and arguments about the superiority of Greek, or Italian, or Spanish olive oils became as routine as the pesto made from them. 12 Per capita pasta consumption more than doubled between 1968 and 1982, the sale of spaghetti sauces skyrocketed, and America discovered risotto and balsamic vinagar. 13 The Food Guide Pyramid, which included pasta and rice at its base, pushed up the consumption of both, although Chinese foods were dealt a glancing blow by the 1994 revelation from the Center for Science in the Public Interest that popular Chinese restaurant dishes had high levels of fats, cholesterol, and sodium. 14 The Center also showed that foods served in 270 A Movable Feast Tex-Mex restaurants were ridiculously high in saturated fats. 15 But sushi in Japanese establishments was not and, improbably, after its introduction in the 1960s, Americans gingerly discovered that they could stomach raw fi sh, and sushi became something of a craze. Food critic Craig Claiborne enthused that sushi was “a great vehicle for maintaining a stable weight and is enormously gratifying to the appetite.” 16 Dim sum – Chinese appetizers – also became popular, as did the French foie gras. Yogurt, used in much of the world for ages, remained a novelty in the United States as late as the 1950s. Subsequently, however, it became aU.S. staple, available in myriad fl avors and textures from dozens of pro- ducers. Annual sales of kosher foods grew from 1.25 million dollars in the 1940s to almost $2 billion by 1993, even though less than a third of the consumers were Jewish. 17 Kosher foods were perceived by the public to be healthier than their non-kosher counterparts. And in 1994, Lean Cuisine varieties of frozen foods that could be microwaved in a few min- utes included Cheese Lasagna, Fettucini with Chicken in Alfredo Sauce, Mandarin Chicken, and Teriyaki Stir Fry. 18 Hawaii may have been the last state to enter the union but it has been fi rst in food globalization. A leading producer of pineapples (an American import), sugar from southeast Asia, and famous for its Kona coffee, which derived from Africa, Hawaii has few food plants of its own. The original Poly- nesian navigators who apparently arrived from Tahiti were sustained by those they carried with them such as taro, bananas, perhaps sweet potatoes, bread- fruit, kava, even coconut palms and, of course, dogs, pigs, and chickens. The vegetables are called “canoe plants,” an acknowledgment of their foreign origin. Had they stuck with this nomenclature such Hawaiian sta- ples as linguiça from Portugal and rice from China would have been called “ship food,” and Japanese fl avorings like dashi and furikake, “airplane food.” Such migrating ethnic ingredients, which traveled mostly with foreign- born whalers, explorers, and plantation workers from China, Japan, Korea, Portugal and the Philippines, have all been scrambled together to comprise Hawaii’s “Pacifi c Rim” cuisine. On the mainland, a wholesale acceptance of foreign foods was to some considerable extent also the result of immigration, or perhaps better, the result of a dramatic shift in the origins of immigrants who entered the country during the last half-century and especially after the 1965 Amend- ments to the Immigration Act. 19 Between 1950 and 1990, the percentage of new arrivals from Europe fell from over 50 to just 15 percent, whereas The Globalization of Plenty 271 those from Asia jumped from 6 to 30 percent, and Mexican arrivals more than doubled from 12 to 25 percent. By the 1990s, the giant food companies had concluded that American tastes had reached a point where “foreign” was perceived as better and they scoured the globe for exotic foods while also giving a foreign cachet to foods produced at home. “Haagen-Dazs,” for example, was a name dreamed up to convey the impression that European infl uences were behind the ice cream’s production. 20 It was in the late 1980s and the decade of the 1990s that so many food globalizing forces coalesced in America that people can now embark on an extensive journey of “culinary tourism” without leaving their hometown. 21 Posters in ethnic restaurants let diners know what is on the menu as mata- dors face bulls, the Taj Mahal looms, the Tower of Pisa leans, Far Eastern markets beckon, Thai temples glisten, and sleepy European villages lull. In the supermarkets, meat and seafood counters feature ostrich, squid, and escargot, items that few would have dreamed of putting in their mouths in the recent past, along with other foreign delicacies such as Black Forest ham, weisswurst, mortadella, pancheta, and prosciutto. In addition, many of these outlets now have Asian counters featuring sushi, seaweed wraps, wasabi, and soy products. Produce markets (and farmer’s markets) stock cilantro, chayote, jicama, avocados, chilli peppers, tomatillos, and nopales for Mexican dishes; arugula, fennel, fresh basil, radicchio, porcini mushrooms, celery root, and sun-dried tomatoes for Italian meals; leeks, for French and other European dishes; basmati rice, ginko nuts, litchis, shitiake mushrooms, tofu, taro root, and Thai lemon grass for Asian occasions; manioc, papayas, and plantains to be eaten Caribbean (or Brazilian) style. Pomelos, highly valued in South- east Asia (they are associated with the Chinese New Year), are now readily available in U.S markets. 22 Fish became globalized so that we regularly eat tilapia – an African fi sh few Americans ever heard of until a few years ago. Long farmed in Asia and Africa, tilapia is now farmed in the United States and Canada as well as in Central and South America. And Alaska pollock, made into surimi (faux crab, lobster, shrimp, and scallops) has radiated out from Japan to sweep the United States and is poised to engulf the world. Even salt, or rather salts, have gone global so that sea salt in various colors can be obtained from France, South Africa, and Bali, and exotic table salt is also mined in the Himalayas (it is pink), and the mountains of Bolivia. 272 A Movable Feast In 1995, a staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal surveying the hin- terland from New York reported, “Middle America isn’t eating the way it used to.” 23 From pot roast, baked potatoes, boiled vegetables, and bread and butter, America’s heartland had switched to “chicken burritos, pasta primavera, and grilled salmon” not to mention sautéed shark (in Appleton, Wisconsin), salads constructed with garbanzo and cannellini beans, cilan- tro, shitiake mushrooms, fresh basil, pinenuts, and the blue cheeses of Denmark, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy. 24 And Americans learned a whole new vocabulary as they became acquaint- ed with hummus; menudo; bouillabaisse; spaetzle; spaghetti amatriciana, puttanesca, and carbonara; kimchi; sauerbraten; wiener schnitzel; cassou- let; escabeche; tabouleh; tahina; teriyaki; seviche; feijoada; paella, polenta; stroganoff; gazpacho; chicken Kiev, mirepoix, beurre maniè; boquet garni; cotija; and a wide range of South and Southeast Asian curries. Much of this food education was dispensed in new kinds of upscale “foreign” chain restaurants such as General Mills’ Olive Garden – the only national Italian restaurant chain – established in 1982 in a brilliantly successful attempt to piggyback on pizza’s thriving prosperity. Here, diners learned about veal marsala and picatta, fettucine alfredo, and cannoli. They also learned more about Mexican cuisine than Taco Bell could teach them in (now fl oundering) Chi-Chi’s, founded (after tacos were well established) in 1976 with its menu vaguely northern Mexico and certainly Tex-Mex. Les- sons on Japanese food took place in the Benihana of Tokyo chain with its “teppanyaki” style of cooking – the customers seated around a large grill to watch chefs twirl knives while chopping and slicing vegetables and meats. 25 While all of this was going on, American foods became further homog- enized with “soul” food available in cans. Since the “Jazz Age,” New York- er’s had gone uptown to Harlem for grits, greens, ribs, and fi eld peas, and southern black people had their own restaurants for chitterlings, hog jowls, and cornbread. But it took the Civil Rights movement to introduce Afri- can American foods to a larger, white audience and longer still (1992) for Glory Foods to begin canning seventeen soul food items such as black-eyed peas, fi eld peas, and collard, mustard and turnip greens. In 1993, Sylvia’s, a famous Harlem restaurant since 1962, began expanding into other cities and came out with its own line of soul food products. 26 Other southern foods such as grits (Bette Midler told a South Caro- lina audience that grits resembled buttered kitty litter) were elevated to haute status after the election of Jimmy Carter, and recipes for cheese and The Globalization of Plenty 273 grits and, especially, shrimp and grits became de rigueur in food magazines and cookbooks. Hush puppies crossed the Mason-Dixon line and breakfast menus across the nation offered country ham, grits, and red-eye gravy. Capitalizing on this growing food savvy of Americans are boutique food enterprises focused on quality that have sprung up in every cor- ner of the country. Their upscale markets, artisan breads, coffee blends, organically grown vegetables, free-range chickens, imported cheeses, even special sugars, salts, peppers, and beers, all present a fascinating counter- balance to fast foods. 27 At the same time another kind of “fast food” has become a priority of people who cook at home. Instant coffee, minute rice, aerosol cheese, microwaveable oatmeal, macaroni and cheese, and hundreds of frozen meals are all designed for people who want to eat at home in a hurry. “Sal- ads in a bag” often with a package of salad dressing included serve the same purpose, and they obviate the problem of lettuce and other salad materials going bad in the refrigerator. Ditto with bite-sized fresh fruit – melons, grapes, berries, and the like – ready to go in any supermarket. And, fi nally, cashing in on the food-related health jitters are companies like Kellogg and Campbell Soups who are marrying pharmaceuticals with food into so-called “nutraceuticals” or “functional” foods. These take low- calorie or “vitamin-fortifi ed” claims to a new high (or low) with promises to lower blood pressure, reduce cholesterol levels, and stimulate immune systems. 28 Just one example: although North American beer makers have shown few qualms in claiming health benefi ts for their beverages (espe- cially in Canada), they have to be scrambling to match those of a new beer developed in Sweden with the alleged ability to lower blood cholesterol. 29 . extent also the result of immigration, or perhaps better, the result of a dramatic shift in the origins of immigrants who entered the country during the last. 267 CHAPTER 24 THE GLOBALIZATION OF PLENTY The world of food requires unobtrusive erudition. It is well known that curiosity is the basic thrust toward