Food Security and Table Manners
May. 17th, 2009 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleI think a lot about food security in this country. Looking at the effects of major disruptions in other countries, such as war or earthquakes, it seems generally true that food production and distribution continues in some form in all but the very worst situations. Hunger is very motivating, so people get creative quickly. While things might get really tight, most disasters in Western industrialized countries do not result in an overall nutritional crisis in the sense that there are too few total calories available to sustain the population.
However, I'm thinking that the US has a special liability in this area because there has been so little experience with hunger within living memory. One thing that my gastronomic studies have highlighted is that many of the complications of table manners come from having to negotiate stressful situations when you're hungry. This is outside the consciousness of most American diners, but would have been very much in mind for most people a hundred years ago.
Being mentally and emotionally functional while hungry - and I don't just mean "missed your afternoon snack" hungry but rather "haven't eaten in three days" hungry - is a learned skill. The politics of food distribution in times of scarcity is also a learned skill. Most people who experience food crises today have had at least some experience with them in the past, and retain the habits ("table manners") that got them through - or were taught these things by their parents.
Table manners - and by that I mean the whole ritual of sitting down together, serving, and eating - often seem pointless, and many of them are being lost because they serve no immediate purpose. We still have ritual, whether it's home or Hometown Buffet, but I would say that at least half of our ancestor's values and customs in eating have been shed over the past hundred years. Particularly those that involve denial or fasting. What is not recognized, unfortunately, is the survival value of these manners. In their absence, we run the risk of a minor food crisis turning into a big ugly riot for no good reason, just because the mechanisms for cooperation have been lost.
This pragmatic view of table manners contrasts sharply with that of, say, Leon Kass, who seems to think they have transcendental meaning. Of those that lack obvious hygienic value, I think they're actually pretty straightforward political acts that have evolved into high ritual because of their extreme age and importance. If only everyone could understand what they're about, they'd be endlessly interesting.
Isn't it odd that we eat together but crap in private? To be a little vulgar, considering the politics of hunger also sheds a lot of light on the obsessive desire to conceal one's bodily functions, as well as the deliberate violation of that taboo in places like the communal toilets of army barracks. A fart is evidence of what you've eaten, which in turn reveals your secret political connections. Imagine the significance it could have when everyone's paranoid and on edge because there's nothing to eat. It could get a guy killed. Surely there's been some natural selection going on there.
[On a tangentially related note, it surprises me that there isn't broader interest in personal stockpiling. Whole grain wheat is a long-lasting food that can be stored in really small spaces. About five hundred pounds could keep you going for a year if you could supplement it with something fresh and green and a bit of protein. Properly packed, it can be stacked in the corner of a closet, or fit under a desk, and last the rest of your life. Considering the cost of acquiring it, the risk of needing it, and the benefit of having it, the overall value proposition is, IMHO, considerably better than homeowner's insurance. So why is stockpiling wheat, which would do wonders for US national security, considered some sort of wingnut activity, while buying homeowners' insurance is not? I don't have our stockpile put together yet, but it is "on the list" (unfortunately with so many other things) because it is literally the only thing we would lack in a crisis, and it seems silly to be without it. If I found a "turnkey" solution where all I had to do was buy it, I'd order it today, but as it stands the amount of research and scrambling necessary to make it happen in a useful way is a real chore.]
However, I'm thinking that the US has a special liability in this area because there has been so little experience with hunger within living memory. One thing that my gastronomic studies have highlighted is that many of the complications of table manners come from having to negotiate stressful situations when you're hungry. This is outside the consciousness of most American diners, but would have been very much in mind for most people a hundred years ago.
Being mentally and emotionally functional while hungry - and I don't just mean "missed your afternoon snack" hungry but rather "haven't eaten in three days" hungry - is a learned skill. The politics of food distribution in times of scarcity is also a learned skill. Most people who experience food crises today have had at least some experience with them in the past, and retain the habits ("table manners") that got them through - or were taught these things by their parents.
Table manners - and by that I mean the whole ritual of sitting down together, serving, and eating - often seem pointless, and many of them are being lost because they serve no immediate purpose. We still have ritual, whether it's home or Hometown Buffet, but I would say that at least half of our ancestor's values and customs in eating have been shed over the past hundred years. Particularly those that involve denial or fasting. What is not recognized, unfortunately, is the survival value of these manners. In their absence, we run the risk of a minor food crisis turning into a big ugly riot for no good reason, just because the mechanisms for cooperation have been lost.
This pragmatic view of table manners contrasts sharply with that of, say, Leon Kass, who seems to think they have transcendental meaning. Of those that lack obvious hygienic value, I think they're actually pretty straightforward political acts that have evolved into high ritual because of their extreme age and importance. If only everyone could understand what they're about, they'd be endlessly interesting.
Isn't it odd that we eat together but crap in private? To be a little vulgar, considering the politics of hunger also sheds a lot of light on the obsessive desire to conceal one's bodily functions, as well as the deliberate violation of that taboo in places like the communal toilets of army barracks. A fart is evidence of what you've eaten, which in turn reveals your secret political connections. Imagine the significance it could have when everyone's paranoid and on edge because there's nothing to eat. It could get a guy killed. Surely there's been some natural selection going on there.
[On a tangentially related note, it surprises me that there isn't broader interest in personal stockpiling. Whole grain wheat is a long-lasting food that can be stored in really small spaces. About five hundred pounds could keep you going for a year if you could supplement it with something fresh and green and a bit of protein. Properly packed, it can be stacked in the corner of a closet, or fit under a desk, and last the rest of your life. Considering the cost of acquiring it, the risk of needing it, and the benefit of having it, the overall value proposition is, IMHO, considerably better than homeowner's insurance. So why is stockpiling wheat, which would do wonders for US national security, considered some sort of wingnut activity, while buying homeowners' insurance is not? I don't have our stockpile put together yet, but it is "on the list" (unfortunately with so many other things) because it is literally the only thing we would lack in a crisis, and it seems silly to be without it. If I found a "turnkey" solution where all I had to do was buy it, I'd order it today, but as it stands the amount of research and scrambling necessary to make it happen in a useful way is a real chore.]
