Author: Steve Sando

I promise that tomorrow we’ll be back to food, but today was an eventful day. I have some major national papers calling me about all this and unfortunately, the question of Alice Waters comes up. Waters is in an uncomfortable position of being on both boards, CUESA and Slow Food. I cut her a hell of a lot of slack because her intentions are always clear and whatever you may think of her, you know she’s trying to do the right thing. As a Bay Area native, being on the opposite side of a food fight with Alice Waters is not something you enjoy. Dread is a better word. So I called.

We talked for a good while, mostly about things we agree upon. She insists Carlo’s intentions are good and I kept bringing it around to why would he write such things, especially if they weren’t true. Waters talked about her history with the market and how defensive she is of it but the food movement was a bigger issue. The more she talked, the more I had the sinking feeling this was going to go nowhere.
Finally I said, "Would you feel it’s fair to say that you support Petrini 100% and the goals of Slow Food, but in this one case, he got the market wrong?"
There was a pause, and then she said, "Absolutely."
"So even though you support him, he didn’t ‘get’ the market."
"Absolutely. He got this one wrong. But I support his right to express himself, 100%"
As far as I’m concerned, she’s my new hero. This one small acknowledgment changed everything. I would love it if Slow Food could come out and say something similar but that’s for another day or someone else.
We continued talking about farmers we knew mutually, price, perception and the struggle to get real food to the table. I had the feeling a two week headache had ended.

One of the things that had upset her was my saying that she didn’t shop the market. She tells me this just isn’t true, so I apologize.

In related news, my fellow Terra Madre delegate and madder than hell farmer friend, Nigel Walker of Eatwell Farms told me this morning he’s still madder than ever but plans to renew his membership to Slow Food and hopefully make some changes from within. Good for him! If you still have a connection to Slow Food,  I’d encourage you to do the same. For me, it’s not my group anymore and I think I prefer to continue with my favorite seed saving organizations but one path isn’t any less valid or mighty than the next, obviously.

Whether Ferry Plazas prices are as outrageous as claimed are true or not, it doesn’t matter, because there’s the perception that they are. I hope this opens up a whole new dialog between the farmers and CUESA and the public. I don’t find the market all that expensive for vegetables but maybe I’m nuts. We’ll find out. I also hope Slow Food takes a look at themselves as well. Whether it’s true or not, the perception among many is that they’re arrogant and elitist. Again, if that’s the perception, I hope they can address it because it might as well be true.

Now, shut up and eat!

"The farmers need to develop a sense of humor!"
This is what was going around as a quote from one of the organizers of Slow Food Nation on Saturday at the farmers market.
What an interesting grasp of the problem! But to prove whoever said this right, I want to share a graphic made by one of my customers. You can click it to see it enlarged:

Slow Food still hasn’t really apologized and because of this, the story keeps building steam. Unfortunately, because of their stubbornness, their event is forever going to be tainted with this episode. I doubt many stories about Slow Food Nation will escape the details of Petrini’s conflict with local growers.

I’m going to repeat what I wrote in the Comments section of the last entry. My goal is to get people to eat real food. You can
imagine how hard it is to get an average person to understand what goes
into growing a tomato or a zucchini. Can you imagine how difficult it
is to get them to cook dried beans? And then to pay for them on top of
that? There’s a large portion of the population that is dipping their
toes into these waters and to have someone like Petrini come along and
confirm their suspicions that they may be getting ripped off, while
also making fun of them, is beyond irresponsible.

Slow Food’s responses have been obtuse, at best. If pressed, I’m going to continue to ask the same questions. Why did you make up the farmers? Why didn’t you go to the market on your own? If the problem really is language, what was the point you were trying to make about the farmer’s and the customer’s personal lives? If because of prices, the market is really for the wealthy and the very wealthy, at $60 a year for a membership fee and events often costing over $100, who is Slow Food for? The wealthy and the very wealthy?

At this point, fearing that I may be over examing things, I now declare: Oh, shut up and eat!

There’s a wonderful singer in Italy named Mina. She’s known
as the girl with an orchestra in her throat. At one point, Frank Sinatra wanted
to take her on tour and show her off to America. She ultimately declined,
partly out of a fear of flying and I’m not making this up, partly out of a fear
of American food. I mention this to illustrate how serious food is to many
Italians. I suspect Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food, feels the same as the great
singer about saying ciao to Italian food, even for a short period of time. And food should be taken seriously, but Petrini won’t rest easy until
the US has a food culture similar to Italy’s and that’s not going to happen. As
a smarter friend told me, Italy’s is slowly eroding while America’s was wiped
out and now has to try and rebuild itself. It’s a different problem and Petrini
doesn’t understand it.

Slow Food benefit, under the redwoods at Rancho Gordo (2004)

As I wrote earlier, Petrini’s book has caused quite a stir
among the vendors and management at my farmers market. Clue Number One that there is a big problem should
have been that Petrini expected to come to this same market and sell his book
on Saturday, May 12! CUESA, the producers of the market, wisely declined giving
him the platform and instead a meeting was called. I attended, along with three
other growers, all of whom attended one or both Terra Madre conferences. CUESA
management was there as were Carlo Petrini, Slow Food USA president Erica
Lesser (who was oddly only introduced as his translator) and a fellow who
worked on the book. I should add this was 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning, my
busiest time of the day. This meeting was costing me to attend. We all
introduced ourselves. Petrini’s face visibly lit up when he saw the bean
samples I brought.

After some basic concerns were laid out, Petrini touched the
fingers of his two hands together and leaned back in his chair as if he were a
philosopher who had been asked the meaning of the universe. “I apologize that
you are offended by what I wrote in the book. I see many contradictions in the sustainable
food movement. Even contradictions with myself. I am exploring these.”

“But the examples you give are not true,” I said. “These
people don’t exist.”

A fire entered Petrini’s eye. “I have shown this to many
people and they all agree with my impression of this market!”

“But it’s still not true. You’re perpetuating a myth. I
would even say you came here with preconceived ideas and ….”

He didn’t wait for Lesser to translate my words.

“No! It’s you that have the preconceived ideas about me!” He
was quite mad at this point.

Now here is where I have to laugh. I had no idea that to be
in Slow Food was to be in the Cult of Carlo. My local Napa Slow Food group is a
fun, tight-knit community that likes to get together and support each other and
eat well. At Terra Madre, Petrini seemed to be just one of many boring speakers. I
have never read his books before. In other words, I had no preconceived ideas
about him except for the very words he had written.

Petrini continued: “And this entire book is about all the
wonderful farmers markets of America.”

I didn’t wait for Lesser and pushed on in my bad, but
passionate, Italian.

“Show me in your book where you say anything positive about
this market!”

“The whole book is about your wonderful markets!”

“But this one. San Francisco. You wrote about one visit and
it was through the eyes of Alice Waters and she doesn’t even shop here!”

At this point I was losing my cool and knew I would never
regain it. Petrini was yelling and pointing fingers and I understood he had no
idea what he had done. And probably never would. He struck me as a George Bush
or Michael Jackson type that was surrounded only by people of a similar belief
system that would never challenge or cross him. His words (and Lesser’s) faded
away as I watched this angry, twisted face yelling at me. It was bizarre. He had accused me of pre-judging him yet this was my only real introduction to him. His fuse is rather short.

As is the norm on a Saturday,
I’d been up since 4:30 a.m. to get to San Francisco and set up and be ready for
my customers at 8:00 a.m. I’ve been concerned about finances, getting my fields
ready, weeds, seed stock, who was going to get booted off American Idol next, my family, getting enough water after a dry winter,
etc. I looked at Petrini’s red face and flaying arms next to the dead
expression on Lesser’s as she translated his vitriol, and thought, I think I’ll go get some coffee and then return to my stall.

I got up in the middle of his sentence and said, “I have to
go to work so I can go surf.”
I heard laughter, but I assume not from Petrini.

I saw none of his noted charisma this morning.

One of the chefs preparing food for the Slow Food benefit at Rancho Gordo in Napa (2004)

To his credit, he didn’t play the language card. He knew
exactly what he was saying. I’d heard from Slow Food people that his meaning
was lost in translation, but as TV’s Judge Judy says, “Don’t pee on my leg and
tell me it’s raining.” Now I’m hearing it is partly a language issue. This is hard for me to believe after meeting Petrini and learning that his manuscript, in English, has been floating around the Slow Food US offices and among its executives for months and they all signed off on it.

I wonder if some of his disdain for the market and ferry plaza has something to do with the fact the neither Petrini nor Slow Food had anything to do with its success. The building is a justifiable source of civic pride for San Franciscans and the Bay Area as a whole but it grew organically, long before Slow Food’s manifesto hit our shores. Slow Food is planning a big event called Slow Food Nation to regionally show off food producers but I’m trying to think what this event can offer that a Saturday at the ferry plaza can’t. I was invited to participate in Slow Food Nation and my uncanny intuition tells me this invitation will get lost in the mail.

with Kristie Knoll of Knoll Farms at a Terra Madre event in Italy. 2004

My impression is that Petrini has a certain amount of
disdain for America, justified or not. His disdain is based on impressions, not
facts. He’s only interested in his own output, not in taking in anything beyond the cliches he’s already learned. He needs us to be greedy, foolish, over the top or stupid so Poppa
Petrini can come in and save us. He won’t be happy until we follow his model to
the letter. And the funny thing is, there are lots of problems with this market, and a lot of other farmers markets as well, but they’re not the problems Petrini describes. Language and cultural bias are going to keep him from understanding what they are and what we should do about them.

I’ll be honest. I’m feeling a little sorry for myself. I have had one day off in the last seven weeks and that day was spent with a tiller and chicken poop. I’m dog tired and I have to wonder why Carlo Petrini is picking on me and small guys like me. Hasn’t he heard of Monsanto or ADM, the self-described supermarket to the world? If he doesn’t feel like helping us, please ask him to leave us alone.

I would, however, thank him sincerely for showing us where the dead bodies
are, but we’ll clean up our own mess in our own way, thanks. It’s the only way any of us are going to learn.

Be sure and click on the Comments link below to add to the discussion or hear how others are feeling.

Normally this space is dedicated to
posts about soaking beans or pruning cactus. Unfortunately, a recent book by
someone supposedly fighting the good fight for pure, good, local food has
caused such a stir that I felt the need to comment and present the point of
view of a grower who previously was cheering Slow Food and selling at the San
Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market.

[This is my friend Annabelle, who also grows beans. The photo was taken by my 8 year old son, Robbie.]

Carlo Petrini is the head of Slow
Food, an international organization that mostly raises awarness about the
deplorable state of modern food production. They’ve done a lot of good and
opened many eyes. I’ve made some good friends and learned quite a lot, so I
don’t want to discount the whole organization. Petrini has written a new book,
Slow Food Nation, and the bulk of one short chapter is spent describing his
trip to Ferry Plaza with his friend, restauranteur and local food icon, Alice
Waters.

I’d like to share the passage with
you:

Morning. The cool morning began quite early: if you are going to the
market it is best to be ready by seven o’clock at the latest. The sun was not
yet warm enough when, in the company of my chef friend Alice Waters, I entered
an elegantly refurbished area of the docks; pretty little coffee shops were
serving warm mugs of excellent organic fair-trade coffee; sumptuous bakeries
were putting out all sorts of good things, spreading the fragrant aroma of some
wonderful kinds of bread. Oil and wine producers were offering samples in
marquees, while hundreds of open-air stalls were selling excellent products:
fruit and vegetables, fish, meat, sausages, and even flowers. Fresh,
healthy-looking food, all carefully marked organic.

One could have easily spent a fortune
there. The prices were astronomical, twice or even three times as high as those
of “conventional” products. But how hard it is to produce things so well, and
what costs are involved in obtaining certification! I am convinced that the
farmers’ intelligent productive efforts deserve to be paid for generously, so I
was not too scandalized by the prices, even though they were those of a
boutique. Yes, a boutique: for I soon realized I was in an extremely exclusive
place (bear in mind that this is one of the oldest and most important farmers’
markets in town, la crème de la crème).
The amiable ex-hippies and young dropouts-turned-farmers greeted their
customers with a smile and offered generous samples of their products to a
clientele whose social status was pretty clear: either wealthy or very wealthy.

Alice Waters introduced me to dozens of
farmers: they were all well-to-do college graduates, former employees of
Silicon Valley, many of them young. Meanwhile their customers, most of whom
seemed to be actresses, went home clutching their peppers, marrows and apples,
showing them off like jewels, status symbols.

Two of the producers in particular struck
me: a young man with a long beard and a man who was selling oil. The former,
with long hair and a plaid flannel shirt, held his lovely little blond-haired
daughter in his arms and told me, in a conspiratorial tone, that he had to
drive two hundred miles to come and sell in that market: he charged incredibly
high prices for his squash, it was “a cinch,” in just two monthly visits he
could earn more than enough to maintain his family and spend hours surfing on
the beach.

The latter, who wore a tie, extolled the
beauties of his farm: it consisted of hundreds of hectares of olive trees,
stretching as far as the eye could see, and nothing else. While I was tasting
his excellent organic oil on a slice of bread which reminded me of Tuscan
bread—absolutely delicious—I was thinking of what he must have uprooted and
cleared away in order to grow all those plants, each one of them impeccably organic.

-from Slow Food Nation by Carlo Petrini. ©2007 Rizzoli Ex Libris

There are a number of disturbing suggestions
and some flat-out lies. The easiest finger to point is at price. Yes, the price
of food at Ferry Plaza, both in the shops and at the farmers market can be
high. You can spend over $3 for a single peach. You can also find bunches of
spring onions for 39 cents, juicy oranges for 99 cents a pound and lettuce mix
for less than five dollars a pound, all comprable to an average grocery store.
Petrini full well knows that “regular” prices are artificially low and I would
say it’s downright irresponsible to bring up price without mentioning what it
takes to bring a 69 cent head of romaine to a grocery store. For the small
independent grower, expenses add up quickly. There’s gas, business permits,
labor, ag department fees, farmers market fees, organic certificatrion, water
and even seed stock just to start. But as long as we’re talking about price,
did you know your Slow Food membership starts at $60? For this you get a little
pin of a snail, probably made in China and not by “artisan” labor, and a quarterly magazine that is always late
and rarely of interest. And you get the chance to got to events like meeting
Petrini and eating a hamburger for $100. I don’t believe Mr. Petrini is in a position
to discuss value.

Petrini mentions that most of the
customers seemed to be actresses. In my mind, this conjures up images of women
in furs with big Breakfast at Tiffany’s sunglasses strolling with their
snow leopards on a platinum leash. Or at least unusually gorgeous and well-turned out
women. I apologize to my customers, whom I love dearly, but San Francisico’s
fashion motto could easily be “Dare to be dowdy!”, especially on a foggy
Saturday morning. Try Beverly Hills or even nearby Walnut Creek if you want to
see “actress types”. I mentioned this to a friend and he said, “There is a
sense of glamor to the place. Maybe that’s what he’s picking up on.” I doubt
it.

I think it’s great that Alice
Waters introduced him to “dozens” of farmers but to see the farmers market
through her eyes is not to see the market. She doesn’t even shop there! She
probably knows her regular suppliers and thought she was doing them a favor by
introducing them to Petrini. I sincerely doubt that all of the farmers
introduced by Waters were all Silicon Valley dropouts and college grads but if
they were, how wonderful! To turn away from a cubicle and work the land and
show off the fruits of your labor should be something to induce pride. In an  interesting article, A Plea for Culinary Modernism (Gastronomica, Fall 205), writer Rachel Lauden accuses Petrini and Slow Food
of being “culinary luddites” and I suspect they are “ag luddities” as well.
What’s even more offensive is that these two farmers who left such an
impression on Petrini simply don’t exist. He made them up as a way to
illustrate his points but since he doesn’t really understand the California
farmers market system, the Bay Area food scene and the dynamics of suburban
sprawl, he’s caught off guard. He writes about the olive oil grower who wears a
suit and tie (why is this relevant at all? Oh! A big bad business man!), “I was
thinking of what he must have uprooted and cleared away in order to grow all
those plants, each one of them impeccably organic.”
Since this farmer and this grove of olives don’t exist, it is hard to say what
was uprooted, but if it’s in Northern California, there’s a better chance that
this olive grove prevented more suburban sprawl rather than destroy native
habitat.

[With Joe Schirmer. I’m the really cute one.. Photo: Tana Butler]

The surfer example is the worst, in
my book. The subtext here is that the farmer, the one Petrini chose to write
about, is gouging the customer in order to go surfing. There is one rather
famous surfing farmer and it’s Joe Schirmer of Dirty Girl Produce. Yes, he
surfs, sometimes for extended periods, in Baja. But he’s an innovative farmer,
works like a dog and sleeps in a tent on the beaches of Mexico. Joe and I
exchange seeds from Baja, always looking for the elusive wild beans (frijol
silvestre) of Baja and saving wild tomatillo seeds and studying legumes. But so
what if all Joe did was surf on his well-earned vacations? Is this any of
Petrini’s business or even mine?

The subtext is that it’s not enough
that we grow food as Petrini has suggested in the past . Now we need to sell to
a particular customer, charge a particular price, wear certain clothes and
spend our leisure time according to his vision. I think he’s irresponsible and
Slow Food should be ashamed for giving him an unrestricted platform, despite
all the good things he may have done in the past.

Next: Rancho Gordo Meets Carlo
Petrini in person!

Be sure and click on the Comments link below to add to the discussion or hear how others are feeling.

 

It seems every deadline I could imagine came up at once, including the manuscript to my book on Heirloom Beans. We’ve been having a heat wave and I was starting to get grumpy when a call came from the post office that my mail order of chickens had arrived.

There can be no bad moods with the sound of 26 chicks peeping within earshot. It’s amazing that 26 chicks could manage the trip across the country and a hot post office for a weekend during a heatwave, but we didn’t suffer a single loss. The Murray McMurray hatchery knows what it’s doing and now I have more eggs than I’ll know what to do with in my future.