Meat, Indoors and Outdoors in Forth Worth

The Kimball Art Museum portrays a side of the meat business not seen by many visitors to Forth Worth, Texas. If you only toured the Stockyards outside the Museum, you’d miss the preceding centuries of carnivorous history. In the late 1580s, Annibale Carracci, painted two canvases that give us an idea of how meat fit into urban landscapes during Italy’s colorful Renaissance. By the late 16th century, Renaissance art entered the period of Mannerist painting leading to the Baroque period, when Read more [...]

Ernesto’s Choripán Stand

Pedro Molina’s white teeth reflect the Argentinian sun making a steady gaze into his eyes almost unbearable. For some reason, his smile reveals only his lower teeth, gleaming and even. Sitting in Buenos Aires under one of the umbrellas that shade the tables surrounding his stand, Pedro speaks with a low, soft voice as he describes his life as a vendor of choripán, a combination of chorizo and pane (bread), the two main ingredients of the classic Argentinian sandwich. Pedro flashes his bright smile Read more [...]

Relationships

Trust matters. As we study what makes our food system work, we find that enduring human relationships are the sinews that flex when the system is disrupted. Social media may be our new tool for building relationships, but speed may not replace our old, slow method of building trust. Transactions based on trust make the food world go 'round. Food producers, processors, and distributors depend upon relationships built over time that result in trusted transactions and confidence in credit, quality, Read more [...]

Make Way for Food Markets?

At a recent gathering in downtown Austin, the breakfast fare said it all. Organic yogurt, locally produced honey, fresh breakfast tacos broke from the usual offerings of croissants and Danish pastries. This crowd was invested in their food, mostly emotionally, some economically, as farmers, chefs, city planners, food activists, non-profits, and individuals gathered to learn about the possibility of a public food market in Austin. Austin has farmers markets but no public market, yet. And even the Read more [...]

Graham Kerr. The Galloping Gourmet. The man and his brand are inseparable for most of us who got a taste of food programs on TV during the 1960s.   Mr. Kerr first appeared on what was known as “experimental TV” on April 16, 1960, before the acclaimed Julia Child made her debut as The French Chef in 1963.  But even before the two appeared on TV, Marcel Boulestin, a French chef living in England,  appeared on the experimental television programs produced by the BBC during the 1930s.  In January Read more [...]

Confessions of a Pig Replicator

Some things are best left unsaid, and my experience as a pig cloner comes up in conversations only to cause nervous twitching on the part of my listeners. “How”, they wonder, “could someone dedicated to conservation and the environment wander off into the black art of biotechnology?” During the years when I was raising heritage breeds of livestock in Maine, I found that one of our precious swine bloodlines was drying up. The farm, founded for the purpose of conserving rare breeds of livestock, Read more [...]

Our Global Kitchen

I recently visited the new exhibit at The American Museum of Natural History in New York called Our Global Kitchen, Food, Nature, Culture. As more and more Americans learn about their food, they can now feast on a museum exhibit that attempts to tell the whole story. To tackle food as a broad subject is to launch upon a vast ocean in a small barque amidst thousands of hidden reefs. Topics such as genetic modification of foods lurk beneath the surface of most conversations about food. But this Read more [...]

Horse Sense about Our Food System

The daily revelations emerging from the discovery of horsemeat in lasagna purchased in Ireland reveal the complexities of our food system. When EU health commissioners tracked down the source of the horsemeat, they found a trail that passed through multiple countries, processors, dealers, brokers, Romania, England, Cyprus, Poland, the Netherlands, and in some cases, through illegal hands. Since much of our meat is processed, ground up, blended with flavorings, shaped into meatballs and stuffed into Read more [...]

What I Should Have Said at TED

Many of us wish for an opportunity to share our latest projects, especially if we’re crazy-passionate about it. Speaking at a TED conference is one of those opportunities. Recently, I had the privilege of speaking at the TEDx Austin event.  As a speaker, I was witness to the miracle of a TEDx event, a day-long immersion into the inspiring and motivating lives of the speakers and attendees. My talk came at the end of the day, and although I prepared for this talk more than I had ever prepared Read more [...]

Early Californians lusted after gold

In November’s Meatpaper: Issue 19, you’ll find this essay, a short piece inspired by a trip I took with my dear friend, Linda.   Early Californians lusted after gold, traveling up and over the chiseled granite Sierra Nevada on their way to the Gold Country. Two summers ago, a dear friend and I had high prospects of climbing Mt. Whitney, repeating the trek we had previously taken over thirty years ago. We hove up and over the majestic peak before returning to our encampment at the base Read more [...]