Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Nigella Lawson on local grown food

Part of a long interview with Nigella Lawson:
In New York, there is an explicit morality associated with locavorism.

Now I get that. I understand it entirely but I don't buy into it. In the Victorian age the peasants just ate local and in season and the aristocracy spent fortunes building greenhouses and growing pineapples. It was a class issue. It was about the elite. Now suddenly because of supermarkets and air travel, the masses — if you want to talk in class terms — can get out of season produce. So what do the elite do? They say If it is not seasonal, if it is not local, it isn't good. So although there is probably in and of its self there is moral value in it, I distrust elitist attitudes in food.