Gangs, Grains, and Grimness!
By Leo K. Moncel
Before we get going, I’d just like to point out that this is in fact a continuation of the column that began as, “Taste Test: A New Beginning”. There was some confusion between myself and our devoted, young section editor over the name of my column. So, let me explain what’s going on with “Red Food.” It is a reference to Timothy Taylor’s Stanley Park, a novel that I have not yet read, but have heard discussed on CBC Radio’s Canada Reads. Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy synopsized a section of the book in which two different kinds of foodies are arbitrarily designated gang titles. The first group, “Crips” are people who are interested in innovation. “Bloods” are those who are attracted to tradition. Though I think it’s impossible to be a pure innovator or a pure traditionalist, I do tend to favour the “red” end of the spectrum when I do serious cooking or plan to eat out. Hence, red food. I could easily go on, as food traditions and street gangs are two topics of great interest to me, but there is something more urgent on my mind: The Food Crisis.
If you still don’t have a clear picture of what’s going on, I can’t say that I blame you. Even from legitimate news sources, coverage seems to break down to about 80 percent hysteria and 20 percent explanation. For a clean, brief synopsis, ignore the idiotic title and read Paul Krugman’s article.
Krugman points out that grain prices are increasing substantially, and that meat and the appetite for it are part of the problem; his final sentence ominously speculates that, “Cheap food, like cheap oil, may be a thing of the past.” And yet, if you were in any city in Ontario or Quebec (combined, about 60 percent of the country) last Sunday, you could have walked into any Harvey’s location and picked up a free hamburger. A product primarily of wheat and beef was being given away by the thousands at each location! So, is it any wonder that we in Canada at some level can’t understand this food crisis? If there was a food crisis, it stands to reason that people wouldn’t be giving away burgers. Cheap food is evidently not a thing of the past yet. Not in Canada at least. I have heard one explanation: that Canada has a very strong dollar at the moment and since we import a great deal of our food, our prices are going to be fine for now. This is sounds like good news, but it may be cause for concern in the longer run.
In A Short History of Progress, the transcribed Massey Lectures of Ronald Wright, Wright tackles the problem of civilization. In line with Thomas Malthus, Wright argues that in any civilization, “the population grows until it hits the bounds of the food supply.” When the population vastly outstrips what the earth can supply, ruin is imminent. Unfettered use of agricultural technology is a danger because as we produce more food, we immediately produce more humans to eat the food. Once the overworked earth offers no more, the surplus humans die. Based on playing through this pattern, in each case of a civilization’s fall, as the society’s elite see collapse looming, they are never wise about solving it. Wright describes the ancient Mayan rulers, whose civilization’s downfall was brought on by agricultural mishandling: “As the crisis gathered, the response of the rulers was not to seek a new course, to cut back… No, they dug in their heels and carried on doing what they had always done, only more so.”
Back to our free burgers: is this then one last hurrah before an age of darkness? Will we give away our meat, exacerbating its scarcity and eventually precipitating a scenario where meat is so expensive that the average Canadian cannot afford to eat it? This appears to be the course we’re on. So, let me ask another question — would you turn down a free Harvey’s burger? If you are the sort of person who never eats at Harvey’s (perhaps you find it too unhealthy, you dislike chains, or you genuinely don’t like the taste) then you won’t pick the burger up, and it’s not the price that is stopping you. But if, like me, you would ever buy one, it makes no sense not to take a free one. And so it is in the rest of Canada, with our comparatively low food prices. We resemble the Mayan rulers, digging our heels in, sating our worry with excess, and stuffing our stomachs while the city burns. There’s a sale on in the meat aisle, ending any minute now.
But, just so I can’t be taken as apathetic and completely defeatist, let me point out that I do think we can stop our race to food collapse. It just means painful adjustment – and the greater part of us becoming the sort of people who would never eat a Harvey’s burger. The only consolation, I guess, is that adjustments made now will help us avoid the even harsher adjustments necessary if we ignore what’s on the horizon.
What about beans? You can get a tin of beans for like 69 cents (sexy!) One tin is usually enough for two meals, but I don’t eat much.