BREAD, WINE, CHOCOLATE
The Slow Loss of Foods We Love
Simran Sethi
Harper One
350 pages; Rs 749
In 1949, Redcliffe N Salaman, a British botanist, wrote what has become one of the most definitive histories based on such a study, The history and social influence of the potato.
Salaman's book located the birth of the industrial West in the introduction of the potato, among other crops, in Europe from the New World. These crops, according to Salaman, grew faster and throughout the year, challenging the organisation of society, affording Europeans more leisure and hence the ability to industrialise.
Simran Sethi's Bread, Wine, Chocolate similarly tells a tale of the effects of globalisation and industrialisation of agriculture on our diets. Of the introduction of practices that have cumulatively been called the Green Revolution, and the effect monocropping has had in reducing the diversity of seeds.
In this attempt, Ms Sethi has travelled extensively to meet growers in such diverse places as Ethiopia, Ecuador, Italy and Punjab in India. The choice of foods (wine, chocolate, coffee, beer, bread and octopus) in the book is intended to appeal to a global, urban audience that has access to such foods.
Refreshingly, the author attempts to critique the "global standard diet", and the hegemony of fast food chains like McDonald's. She locates this critique within the context of the globalised, industrialised world in which we live.
The attempt throughout the book is to understand the way crops used in making these foods are grown - the methods used, the remuneration farmers get. The author also documents efforts being made to save local varieties of crops, whose yield might not be suited to industrial production.
Where the book falls short is in its inability to see the author's observations to their logical conclusion. Ms Sethi talks about the alienation farmers feel towards the crops they grow and cannot afford. The alienation of urban consumers who are far removed from agricultural fields and farmers. The conclusions the book draws from these observations are myopic and fail to connect the analysis of the ills of globalisation with global strategies that can overcome these conditions.
In the chapter on chocolate - one of the two good chapters in the book, along with the one on coffee - the author says the global chocolate confectionary market is worth $80 billion, but growers in West Africa get "3.4 to 6.5 per cent" of the final value. And then, "Chocolate is currently dominated by a small group of multinational companies…They buy most of the world's cacao and, as a result, dictate what's grown…"
From this standpoint the author goes on to say the solution lies in spending more on specialty chocolate so that growers receive compensation commensurate with the labour they put in. It is unclear how in a system that exploits small growers, consumers can ensure that the balance of power shifts radically towards growers by just paying more.
In the chapter on bread, the author says she yelled at a wheat grower in Punjab for having "poisoned" the crop by using chemical fertilisers and pesticides. However, farmers exist in a world where they are paid for their crops by the tonne. Clearly, they cannot be blamed for trying to safeguard their livelihood by trying to increase the yield of their crops.
In the absence of a global solution, the book becomes a celebration of some individuals making localised changes and an appeal to people's good intentions. The other solution is the author's repeated exhortation that we take the time to enjoy the food we eat. Herein lies its other weakness. It assumes the amount of leisure time and access to diverse foods is similar across different sections of society throughout the world.
There are problems too with the celebration of pre-industrial agricultural practices. As Ms Sethi traces her origin to India, she must be aware of the forms of subjugation, especially caste and gender-based subjugation, which continue to persist in India, where the organisation of society is premised on the pre-industrial division of labourers centred on agriculture, despite changes in methods of agricultural production.
This is a book that confounds consistently in its transition from laments about the pillage of nature inherent in the industrialisation of agriculture to sections on how to "taste" the foods documented.
The Slow Loss of Foods We Love
Simran Sethi
Harper One
350 pages; Rs 749
More From This Section
The French Annales school of history viewed diet as the best form of longue duree history because what we eat is closely related to agricultural practices, and changes in diet must be influenced by changes in agriculture, which would be a reflection of changes in society.
In 1949, Redcliffe N Salaman, a British botanist, wrote what has become one of the most definitive histories based on such a study, The history and social influence of the potato.
Salaman's book located the birth of the industrial West in the introduction of the potato, among other crops, in Europe from the New World. These crops, according to Salaman, grew faster and throughout the year, challenging the organisation of society, affording Europeans more leisure and hence the ability to industrialise.
Simran Sethi's Bread, Wine, Chocolate similarly tells a tale of the effects of globalisation and industrialisation of agriculture on our diets. Of the introduction of practices that have cumulatively been called the Green Revolution, and the effect monocropping has had in reducing the diversity of seeds.
In this attempt, Ms Sethi has travelled extensively to meet growers in such diverse places as Ethiopia, Ecuador, Italy and Punjab in India. The choice of foods (wine, chocolate, coffee, beer, bread and octopus) in the book is intended to appeal to a global, urban audience that has access to such foods.
Refreshingly, the author attempts to critique the "global standard diet", and the hegemony of fast food chains like McDonald's. She locates this critique within the context of the globalised, industrialised world in which we live.
The attempt throughout the book is to understand the way crops used in making these foods are grown - the methods used, the remuneration farmers get. The author also documents efforts being made to save local varieties of crops, whose yield might not be suited to industrial production.
Where the book falls short is in its inability to see the author's observations to their logical conclusion. Ms Sethi talks about the alienation farmers feel towards the crops they grow and cannot afford. The alienation of urban consumers who are far removed from agricultural fields and farmers. The conclusions the book draws from these observations are myopic and fail to connect the analysis of the ills of globalisation with global strategies that can overcome these conditions.
In the chapter on chocolate - one of the two good chapters in the book, along with the one on coffee - the author says the global chocolate confectionary market is worth $80 billion, but growers in West Africa get "3.4 to 6.5 per cent" of the final value. And then, "Chocolate is currently dominated by a small group of multinational companies…They buy most of the world's cacao and, as a result, dictate what's grown…"
From this standpoint the author goes on to say the solution lies in spending more on specialty chocolate so that growers receive compensation commensurate with the labour they put in. It is unclear how in a system that exploits small growers, consumers can ensure that the balance of power shifts radically towards growers by just paying more.
In the chapter on bread, the author says she yelled at a wheat grower in Punjab for having "poisoned" the crop by using chemical fertilisers and pesticides. However, farmers exist in a world where they are paid for their crops by the tonne. Clearly, they cannot be blamed for trying to safeguard their livelihood by trying to increase the yield of their crops.
In the absence of a global solution, the book becomes a celebration of some individuals making localised changes and an appeal to people's good intentions. The other solution is the author's repeated exhortation that we take the time to enjoy the food we eat. Herein lies its other weakness. It assumes the amount of leisure time and access to diverse foods is similar across different sections of society throughout the world.
There are problems too with the celebration of pre-industrial agricultural practices. As Ms Sethi traces her origin to India, she must be aware of the forms of subjugation, especially caste and gender-based subjugation, which continue to persist in India, where the organisation of society is premised on the pre-industrial division of labourers centred on agriculture, despite changes in methods of agricultural production.
This is a book that confounds consistently in its transition from laments about the pillage of nature inherent in the industrialisation of agriculture to sections on how to "taste" the foods documented.