10/18/09
Food Galore!
Arriving in the USA in 1955, from war ravished Europe felt like being in the promised land, the land of milk and honey. At that time Europe was one generation behind the US. A couple of years before that year the Eisenhower administration signet, the highway act. Modern interstate highways were built crossing the nation from east to west and north to south and yearly more and more highways were added to the network. Returning veterans from the war were helped to get a college education and to build entry level houses. The sleeping suburbs were catching up with the cities and new buildings and factories were popping up all over the country. Thousands of jobs were created and everybody had high expectations. It is easy to get used to a good life and what everybody wanted was more of it. As glamorized by Hollywood films the American dream required more than just houses. It required modern appliances and flashy cars in the driveways.
One bread winner did not suffice. To achieve all that in a great hurry, more and more housewives left the kitchen to find outside work The traditional life styles of the past generations looked completely outdated. The capitalistic market economy triumphed here and started spreading all over the world. It lead eventually to the collapse of communism in Europe and a new world order was established.
As a naturalized citizen, I was more than happy to live with my family in this dream world but eventually I felt that a price had to be paid for all the cornucopia . To keep the shelves of the spreading supermarkets filled, eighteen-wheelers were rolling day and night. New franchised food stores popped up like mushrooms after a warm summer rain. People were always in a hurry and impatient to wait for anything. Instant gratification was the order of the day. The new generations were nourished or malnourished on greasy burgers, hot dogs and salty French fries, potato chips and washed down with soda pops.
The daughters could not learn cooking from the mothers because the mothers were reared on junk food already. When nobody was watching , the art of cooking became a faded memory not only in homes but in restaurants as well. The restaurants had to compete with the fast food outlets and the menus had to be simplified reflecting the trends in the fast food chains. Qualified help was hard to find and truthfully a well qualified cook in the kitchen was no more required. What greasy spoon restaurant could afford to pay the salary of a culinary institute graduate. Most of the foods were precooked at far away places in gigantic food factories and delivered by the ever rolling eighteen-wheelers.
As a retired design engineer I was always fascinated to watch on TV those highly automated food factories. A never ending convoy of trucks loaded with potatoes arrive at one end of the factory and emerge out the other end. Thus another convoy of trucks enter loaded with refrigerated boxes of French fries, driving in a hurry to fill the orders of thousands of fast food establishments all over the country.
And what about the burgers? That’s another sad story.
To satisfy the American’s insatiable hunger for hamburgers, big feeding lots in a couple of states were fattening up cattle with a scientifically concocted formula of feed containing a great deal of grain among other things, not a natural food source for cattle. The formula made it sure that the animals reached their desired weight in the shortest possible time. Seeing the success of the American feed lots, a number of south American countries were eager to embark on the same gravy train. To create pastures for cattle they cut and burned virgin forests in complete disregard to the natural order of things. We can follow the cattle from the feeding lots to the slaughter houses but refrain from going any further. Enough to say, that the animals end up as slabs of beef traveling on hooks to further processing. The final products are thousands of pounds of frozen beef patties packaged in boxes . From there the familiar eighteen-wheelers deliver them to their final destinations.
All other mass produced food items followed the same routes. I found it fascinating to watch on TV, the engineering marvels of automation, the rapidly moving conveyor belts loaded with perfectly aligned cookies, breads and other bakery products, stopping from time to time so the mechanical devices could reach them, turn them or manipulate them in many ways. When everything is boxed and properly labeled, our reliable eighteen-wheelers step in to distribute the products all over the country. The Federal Food and Drug Administration has inspectors at every step to insure that the products are safe for public consumption. What a triumph for automation and mass production. It certainly looks like a win win situation. However, on closer examination we find a fly in the ointment.
Mass production of food is a leveler The end product is bland and one without high or low points. The high points were previously produced in the kitchens and in the restaurants where experts delivered excellent products using skills passed down to them from generation to generation. The only advantage of today’s mass produced food is that it is plentiful, safe and accessible to everybody. You can forget about taste and quality.
Another sad story is the production and distribution of fruits and vegetables. The harvesting of fruits and vegetables previously was expensive and work intensive. It was a very uncertain business relying mainly on migrant workers. Then enter the American engineer. Engineers and agricultural scientists were called to try to solve the problem. The scientists determined that most fruits and vegetables, even before they reach full ripeness can be easily bruised and damaged during harvesting and transportation. The ideal situation would be to offer the customers in the market place a fully ripened product. However, that is impossible.. The scientists offered the following solutions. Harvest the produce long before ripening or genetically engineer them to be tougher. It was concluded that it has to be one or the other before the engineers could be called to attack the problem.. As expected the engineers came up with automatic or semi- automatic machines which could harvest the product rapidly and safely for a reasonable price.
That’s what we find today in the supermarkets. Mountains of beautifully displayed apples, pears polished in rainbow colors a fiesta to the eyes, but practically inedible.
Today nobody has the skills or time for cooking. None-the-less, all kitchens are equipped with pots and pans galore and with most up to date appliances. At meal times all the restaurants are jammed. You have to wait for a table and to add insult to injury,
have to pay an exorbitant price for a forgettable meal. Is there a solution for this problem? No, there is no solution. Just grin and bear it.