The cow that was never meant to eat corn

Michael Pollan says that in the Mexican tradition, to allow corn to lay on the ground is considered sacrilegious--talk about having respect for the food you eat. Mexico is just one example of a country deeply rooted in traditions surrounding food and eating. He argues that in a country like the U.S. with such an unstable food culture, we’re susceptible to believing what we read in diet books instead of making the effort to visit the gym, and we treat on-the-go foods like protein bars as meal substitutes. How much do we respect the food we eat? Better yet, how much we respect our bodies? I fall victim to the temptation of fast food chicken nuggets and Burger King whoppers every now and then, but I have enough respect for my body that I wouldn’t eat like that all the time.

This notion of stability is important; if we had a more stable food culture, would we still feed our children fast food or obsessively count calories? I agree with Pollan that the answer is no, we would be a much healthier population if we had this stability in our daily routine. There are many things missing from the American Dining Experience, as Bourdain argues in A Cook's Tour, like the element of family and of community. While I looked forward the rare occasions in grade school when my mom decided to take me to White Castle instead of making me a turkey sandwich and sliced apples for lunch, now that I’m older, I appreciate the process of cooking (or rather, watching my mom cooking) a healthy meal and sitting down to eat it with the family.

This whole idea of stability for me is more about assessing our values as it is about having one food or one set of foods to define our country by. Part of the appeal of traveling to cities within the U.S. with large, diverse populations is visiting a number of neighborhoods and having different food experiences within that one city. In Chicago, you’ll find neighborhoods like Chinatown, Little Italy, Ukranian Village, Greektown, Lithuanian Plaza, and the Polish Village, each food tradition hoping to claim the prize for Chicago’s soul food. Pilsen, with its beloved restaurants like El Milagro, is no exception. With so much food, it’s hard to single out just one as representing Chicago’s dining scene. In the United States, we call ourselves the Melting Pot because we all come from different cultures and customs around the world. With this much diversity comes the difficult task of unifying our nation in terms of food. Is it possible? Maybe not in the near future, but is it even necessary? Most of me says no.

I often got lost in Pollan’s complex and technical descriptions of food’s journey from the cow that was never meant to eat corn to our processed-food-happy bodies. But he’s introduced me to a number of concepts that I’ve heard others speak passionately about but have never been proactive enough to research on my own. This seems to be at least one of the audiences he’s writing for. Like he says, this book isn’t for people who prefer to eat in ignorance.