Читать книгу The Nature of College - James J. Farrell - Страница 44

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Food for Thought

The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.

Paul Cezanne

Grass is the original solar technology.

Michael Pollan, from “Michael Pollan on What’s Wrong with Environmentalism” at e360.yale.edu

Look at those cows and remember that the greatest scientists in the world have never discovered how to make grass into milk.

Michael Pupin

How we eat determines how the earth is used.

Wendell Berry, “The Pleasures of Eating”

After getting up and getting dressed, Joe and Jo College head for the cafeteria, a place they usually visit three times a day. At breakfast, Jo eats a bowl of cereal with a banana. Joe goes for eggs, toast, bacon, and a glass of milk. Coffee and juice complement many of these morning meals. At lunch, Joe picks up a burger and fries, while his roommate piles up a lunch-meat sandwich. Jo looks over the soup and salad bar, and a couple of hot entrées. Coffee is still a staple, but the juices are often replaced by soft drinks. And there’s definitely dessert.

Dinner is the main meal of the day. Most nights, there are numerous entrées: meat and potatoes, hamburgers (again), a pasta dish, pizza perhaps, along with a soup and salad bar—and dessert. There’s a lot to choose from, but in many college cafeterias a student doesn’t have to select just one. Some respond by overeating, perhaps also in part to save money on between-meal snacks. They can take anything that looks good to them because it’s no big deal if they don’t finish. For most students the cafeteria is an everyday occurrence, but for billions of people, past and present, it’s an unimaginable feast.

Even though there’s lots of food in the cafeteria, students also eat elsewhere. In fact, there’s hardly anyplace they don’t eat. On campus, as in America at large, eating is no longer restricted in space and time. The library is sometimes off-limits, but that’s about it. Many colleges operate snack bars or a convenience store, and larger universities often feature fast food outlets in student unions. Virtually all colleges also have lucrative vending machine contracts, so there are snacks and soft drinks available at all hours. At night, after studying, Joe and his friends might order a pizza or go barhopping, with salty snacks as a complement and catalyst to the beer. The easy availability of food on campus often contributes to the phenomenon known colloquially as “the freshman fifteen.”

Eating occurs almost everywhere, but food isn’t always the focus of attention. Sometimes meals are just a break from the boredom of the day. Students almost always approach the cafeteria with a crowd of friends, with teammates, or with a boyfriend or a girlfriend. There are stories to tell, and ideas to share. Someone needs to bitch about Professor Pointless or ask about a reading assignment. And of course, everyone is there to scope out potential dates, catch a glimpse of a “caf crush,” or see who’s sitting with whom. We consume food in the cafeteria, but we also produce community.

When the eating is over, trays disappear through a window to the dish room. There, the dishes and silverware are washed, and the food scraps and napkins become trash. By the end of each week, the average student produces a pound or two of garbage.¹

Most of us don’t think much about eating, and we seldom pause to really savor the food. Students rarely analyze the cafeteria, but it’s amazing if you think about it. It’s one of the few places on campus where all of the senses are stimulated. The food comes in a cornucopia of shapes, colors, and textures, while meats, sauces, and french fries emanate mouthwatering scents. The clink of silverware, the buzz of conversation, the sizzle of the grill, the slurp of coffee and pop machines, the occasional crack of dropped dishes combine to create a din of white noise. Students don’t always touch their food, but they experience what food technologists call “mouthfeel” every time they eat it. These tactile sensations complement their sense of taste, including the familiar flavors of favorite foods or the spicy novelty of a new ethnic entrée. All of these stimuli make the cafeteria a center of sensuality, but most miss this amazing appeal to our sensual human nature.

What does all this cooking and eating mean? On one level, it’s pretty simple: Students need food. College students who don’t eat generally don’t graduate. The cafeteria, then, is a place where they come into contact with their animal nature, the basic need for sustenance. Eating is one part of a process of making nature into human nature, as our digestive system transforms plants and animals into us—our body tissues as well as the energy we need to function. Like other animals, college students are solar-powered organisms because all food is stored sunshine. When they eat Cheerios in the morning, they’re eating the fruits of living oats. When they order eggs, they’re looking forward to eating the reproductive cells of chickens. When they ask for a side of bacon, they’re requesting a portion of a pig that’s no longer breathing and snorting. Food is the nature we define as edible, one important part of our social construction of nature.

If we are what we eat, what are we?

Glibly, I am Bon Appétit’s daily chore (today, I am an omelet, mushrooms, onions, etc.). But what are these things that I am eating? I am the sun’s energy slowed down, I am the water of countless rivers, I am diesel fuel and deadly toxins, I am a GMO. As I look closer, I see that I am carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, oxygen, and hydrogen arranged in a spectacular array. Like Joseph’s technicolor coat, I am constantly shimmering with the movement of my cells, their enzymes, and the constant shivering of their constituent atoms. What am I? I am stardust. In my body are atoms that have been in existence for billions of years, moving in and out of new arrangements with those around them. I am the soil of many countries around the world. My oxygen atoms have been breathed in and out, fallen with water, and have been individually expressed in snowflakes. I am magical. I am chemical. I am what I eat.

Sam Dunn, St. Olaf Student

On another level, the alimentary world is pretty complicated because, whether it tastes good or not, the planet’s on the plate. When students eat in the cafeteria—as in most homes and restaurants in America—they say, in effect, “I’d like my meal. But I’d also like an entrée of family farm with a gravy of global warming. Give me a side of topsoil with a pinch of pesticide, a spray of fertilizer, and a smidgen of genetic modification. Pour me 50 gallons of water and a cup of petroleum. And for dessert, I’d like a slice of yellowcake, topped off with dollop of delusion.” Though they often don’t realize it, students’ forks, knives, and spoons are all agricultural implements. Consuming cafeteria fare, they help to produce a food system with environmental effects that change the world. So even though Joe and Jo College only eat when they’re not in class, the cafeteria is another classroom, and it can teach a lot about the common sense we all consume with our food.