Food for Thought – Changing the World One Bite at a Time
Vanessa Kimball
One bite at a time, says Vanessa. We can change the world one bite at a time. A bit idealistic? Heard it all before? I mean, hey, what can any one person really do? The thing is…. we’ve been at the changing business for some time. As I was starting to write this, an email popped up with a special offer just for me: ‘All-you-can-eat-chicken-wings with a beer’ for £15. That’s the way we’re doing it—-one bite, one wing at a time. Billions of us, every day. Screwing our own lives, the planet, and our children’s future.
What you’ve just bought/ picked up/ borrowed/ are thinking about buying is an inspiring book about the part you could play in slowing down our race to global misery.. And pulling that off without being worthy and irritating is not easy.. No-one likes being told what to do. I once asked for salt on my bean sprout and avocado sandwich in a new-agey cafe in California.The waitress looked confused, my sister horrified. My first impulse was to head to the nearest bar for a double bourbon and a cigarette—& I don’t even smoke.
Vanessa Kimball won’t drive you to drink—though the rum and angelica cocktail on p 182 sounds good. What she does in this book, through her honesty and curiosity, is take you with her on her own voyage of understanding that the way we grow, shop, cook and eat shapes our world. With recipes. Recipes that make you want to cook. The world is not short of recipes, we’re drowning in them, but these recipes are an addition to anyone’s collection. They’re simple, they fill you with confidence, they make your mouth water and they work. And by the time you’ve made Climate Change Shellfish and Lime Paella, Support Your Local Miller Sourdough Paparadelle or While There’s Still Time Coffee Frappe you’ve had a tasty education in just how food shapes our lives.
A lot of us who care about food get dismissed as ‘foodies’. Though some people wear the label as a badge of honour. It’s not. Caring about good food, where it came from, who produced it, how it’s grown and what that process did to the soil, the insects, the plants, the birds, the mammals, and the people who worked the land is not “foodie-ism”—-it’s being aware of the most basic thing about us and this revolving rock we live on. It’s also the most rooted way of understanding power in the world— who has it, who doesn’t, who eats well, who can’t. Issues for grown-ups, not for people who think being able to buy a farmhouse cheese is the Saturday morning equivalent of buying a Prada bag.
Vanessa is not a “foodie”. She’s an enthusiast, a delighter in life’s most civilized pleasure, and a grown-up who’s retained a child-like wonder at the mysteries and glories of the world. It gives me great pleasure to be able to introduce her and her book to you.