We Are What We Eat by Alice Waters
January’s book of the month is Alice Water’s We are What we Eat, a manifesto for her philosophy on food. Waters is one of the forerunners of the slow food movement, inspiring professional and at home chefs alike to eat local, beautiful and quality meals. Since I started my business, I have followed the work of Debra Prinzing, leader of the slow flowers initiative for floral designers. Similar to Waters, she encourages florists to source American grown flowers, supporting local farmers and using sustainable mechanics.
Prior to these movements both with food and flowers, “slow” has assumed negative connotations. However, when we examine the ways access and the instantaneous nature of our food systems have served to deplete the natural world, the contrasting adjective, “quick” and “fast” are revealed for what they truly are. The cost of speed is paid for by the health of the earth and its creatures. Our choices can either further honor the earth or weaken it.
Food and flowers are often enjoyed in the same company. The way a meal is prepared and a table is adorned matters more than many of us may realize. When a person is proposing to their partner, unless acting in irony, McDonalds is not the first choice to pop the big question. While I am not here to criminalize fast food, I do think cooking a meal offers something so much more meaningful and intentional. Proposals are done, birthdays are celebrated and lives remembered in spaces where the beauty and details suggest care and connectedness.
Years ago when I was running youth art programs in government housing developments, I noticed that the quality of programming was not the only thing that brought dignity to the children. It was the intentionality and beautification of the space where we were inviting them to spend time. The bright and colourful walls and sparkly clean floors communicated to participants that they were worthy of beauty. When a space is dimly lit or sterile feeling that too communicates value to those present.
Both the environment Waters has created through her Edible School Yard program and the ways she has designed her restaurant, Chez Panisse, provide a simple and beautiful experience for participants. In cultivating warm and inviting meals and spaces, she re-affirms the notion that grand measures of expense and displays of wealth are unnecessary for encountering beauty. Rather, enjoying the way light enters a room, cooking food grown from one’s own garden or picking wild flowers to ornament a table requires little expense.
Reading Water’s manifesto of food is so similar to my manifesto on flowers that I felt like I was reading back to myself early journal entries for my vision of Flower Clvb. Particularly, her emphasis of stewardship and connectivity resonate with my own mission for a business that does not take from the earth but rather, nourishes it. Just as Waters considers where food is grown, how farmers are treated and the ways her kitchen staff experience their work, I also aim to consider the many processes that go into bringing a flower from seed to table.
There is so much that goes into the life of a flower both before and after it graces a wedding. Considering the entire cycle and the different people it encounters along the process is important to me. If flowers are still blooming well after a wedding, I will take them to a hospice. If not, I will compost them. Alice Waters writes of her care for the people who wash the dishes as well as the people who pick up the trash from her restaurant as all being important members of the process.
I hope that after reading this book, you too will be inspired to care for all creatures, slow down and intentionally take the time to consider where the things we consume come from and how we can better take care of the world through the ways we interact with it.