This is from an essay by Warwick Sabin:
“It used to be that keeping a few free-range chickens, tending some grain-fed hogs, and raising a small vegetable garden was how people simply survived. Now these are often vanity projects for young hipsters and retired hedge-fund executives who have discovered the forgotten pleasures of “heirloom” tomatoes and artisanal sausage. Incredibly, we’ve reached a point in our society where things that humans have done for thousands of years—grow a vegetable, smoke or cure a piece of meat—now provide the grounds for smug satisfaction. (Think of Marie Antoinette at Versailles, playing shepherdess and milking the cows.)”
Read more here.
Todd Kliman interview in that edition echoed the same sentiments. He talks about the unfeasibility of localvorism for many and delegates it to the bourgeoisie. Now, if some of the stimulus money could go for teaching people how to start and maintain a backyard garden (or patio tomato patch)…….but, I don’t think the grocery stores would like that.
We are, right now, one of the least healthy nations on earth at the same time as we’ve refined factory farming to produce enormous quantities of low-cost, fat-laden, highly processed edible food-like substances. Think there is a connection between “pre-sliced, individually wrapped pasturized, processed cheese food product” – at your local grocery now – and the astonishing levels if obesity plaguing modern society? Is that being vain or elitist?