Sameness is Lameness

When Earth was born, there was no oxygen, thus, no life as we now know it. A lot of crazy gases spewed around, a lot of heat, and a lot of acid. The first cells of life that arose out of that, which were essentially ancient bacteria (ancient to the nth degree), were suited to Earth’s “volatile” trappings. These beings moved and reproduced, ate each other, made each other sick, and changed their environment. In turn, they had to change as well, because the altered environment required different defenses and adaptations. For example, cells that metabolized one gas may have produced oxygen as a waste product. Their release of oxygen then began to slowly but vastly change the atmosphere. Many organisms accustomed to living in the oxygen-devoid Earth started to suffocate, as oxygen became a dominant gas. Thus, many individuals died, and their descendants had to develop cooperative relationships, or parasitize other organisms in order to survive in the new order. With the ability of bacteria to reproduce rapidly, minute changes from individual to individual translated into adaptations that informed entire populations, in a matter of a few generations. Here you have a much-simplified story of evolution. Amplify it, drag it out over time, and you have the basic justification for your own individual life. Your ability to breathe in and out, or go out into the sunshine and survive, and many other seemingly simple things have been made possible by an epic journey of cause and effect, and by change.

I think about this story daily, probably. I think about my own cells being descendants of these industrious ancient organisms. I say industrious as though their evolution was conscious, but all signs point to the fact that it wasn’t. Evolution is all about variation: tiny, random changes, expressed over the course of generations. I have a picture in my head of everything all pink and gluey, and a tiny bubble hacking its way through the mire, and some other tiny thing burrowing into its sick little membrane. For a moment, it is unconscious, silent, microscopic struggle. But then, something happens. Something changes. They begin to live together. One can breath, and one can reproduce. Perfect. What a happy variation, and then life goes on.

Oxygen’s role in life and death aside (although that is a fascinating story for another time), imagine all the insane tweaks that had to occur in that pre-world in order to create huge, lumbering, and slow-growing humans. Or pigs. Beings that, compared to our ancient ancestors, take forever to do anything, but require such a fine balance of resources in order to survive. Lots of water, but not too much. Sunlight, but not too much. Oxygen, but not too much. Sulfur…but not too much. Take it as far as you like. That’s right. It’s mind blowing. The fact that we are even breathing is the result of infinitesimal, minute changes in nature that were and continue to be random, but necessary, so that life persists. These changes pulse constantly within our bodies, and outside of our bodies, in the water, air, and soil. We, and our brethren: animals and plants, respond to these changes via growth and change, too. And so it goes. It’s all connected.

Why does this story matter so much to me? Well, because we eat nature. And we are nature. We mess around with it to make food, and then we eat it. And whatever we eat changes over time as we grow it, or depending on how we pick it, and on and on. And then we mess around with nature some more to make the food better, or different, or whatever we want. And in general, we see ourselves as outside of the random changing that is going on in tiny ticks all around us. But we are changelings, too. We are walking experiments in persistence, and we are in turn experimenting with and responding to our surroundings.

By the way, this isn’t going to turn out to be a gigantic environmental rant about human impact on the environment. I just want to talk about food. I want to talk about the way food looks, and the way it tastes, and the way we grow it, and how we cook it, and the expectations that we have about controlling variation in our food.

I’ve worked for food and farming non-profits for 10 years, writing grants, talking to growers, linking buyers, training eaters. I was a grower myself, constantly trying to have some control over a wild and changing environment. I needed to grow food that was delicious, familiar, and abundant. And in pursuit of this, I can’t even tell you how many times I used the word “consistency” to discuss business goals.

….due to these limitations in the regulatory environment, farmers are unable to profitably produce a consistent product….

or, in a panel discussion I took part in recently, someone said,

farmers I know have chosen corporate breeding programs because they are after a consistent end product.

or in a book I was reading,

this culinary methodology went out of practice, in part because it would not result in a consistent product...

As I write, and work, and cook, I have come to loathe this word as it is being used. I think we all mostly imagine that in the world of food business, from farms to delis to fine dining restaurants, the highest meaning of the word consistency is simply guaranteed quality. Food that is good every time. But what I have noticed, in our culture of mass-produced megafood, is that the meaning of consistency has been changed almost without our noticing. And certainly without our permission. Nowadays, we talk about consistency, and without even realizing it, it has come to mean sameness. And this is a problem.

Besides the fact that variation itself is the reason we came to be, and the reason we eat corn instead of teosinte, and the reason we appreciate Himalayan sea salt, there lies also the fact that variation is inevitable. Variation is the language of nature. I believe we ought to more often have this in our consciousness. That our food comes from life, and that to be alive, one must change. Constantly. With this in sight, we can begin to embrace variation as beautiful, and inspiring. It's charming, after all, when scones are lumpy, and a boule is not perfectly round, and homemade pasta is goofy. As long as it is good. I made a sausage for a friend recently, which I had made before, and he said to me,

This tastes different from the last time you made it. Not better or worse. Just different.

To which I said,

Well it was a different pig.

He rolled his eyes, but nodded, taking big bites, and I continued thinking about this. That not only was the pig different, (they all are. It’s even noticeable, every time, if you’re an astute butcher) but the spices came from different plants, in different soils, and the wind was blowing differently that day, and I may have varied the grind, and the minerals in the salt were not carbon copies of all minerals in all salts in the world. And this is the joy of cooking. The brilliance of creating good food is working with the ingredients in an organic way. Intuition, nuance, and respect. After all, many delicacies and cuisines have come from a reverence of food as a product of nature, as opposed to a worship of predictable, controlled, manmade food products.

Take huitlacoche. This Aztec delicacy abounds in Mexico, and is derived from a fungus that grows on corn. “Corn smut”, Ustilago maydis, absolutely kills corn as we know it, inserting its fungal hyphae in between and in place of the plant’s ovaries, feeding on the sweet, immature seeds (the kernels), and producing large galls on the corncob. These galls eventually fill with spores of the corn smut fungus, and are the means for the disease to spread its own seed and persist. But some Aztec pioneer, either desperately hungry, desperately curious, or desperate to produce any kind of sustenance from her failed corn crop, decided to harvest the immature galls of U. maydis, simmer them, and eat them on a tortilla. Thus, huitlacoche was born, from a disease. A mutation. A variation of nature. (Thanks to the hardworking folks at Pine Trough Farm for the photo. Credit: Hillary Wilson.)

My friend Eliza MacLean of Cane Creek Farm, a woman who possesses more porcine knowledge that almost anyone I know, illustrated another beautiful celebration of variation. We were working with a group of women in the meat industry to seam out a small ham from a pig’s leg for a group of food bloggers. One group member asked if we were working on the leg of an Ossabaw pig, a breed which Eliza is famous for raising and championing. Eliza very simply explained that she her farm’s famous Ossabaw pigs tend to show differentiation in the muscles of their legs much later in life than do some of the other breeds. Therefore, she had not selected a young Ossabaw’s leg for this particular demo, but rather from another breed whose leg muscles could be more easily seamed out individually, producing more well-defined, portioned hams for brining and smoking. The emphasis within the Ossabaw's genetics on building fat instead of muscle in the early stages of its life represent a an adaptation born of variation. These variations are also what makes Ossabaw an extremely respected pig in the culinary world.

Genetic variation, evolution and the adaptation of populations are extremely important to the food we have grown accustomed to. But then there is also variation between individuals. Look back at those carrots at the top of the page. They're looking pretty uniform, but perhaps they would be scoffed at by a large buyer, or refused at the dock of a huge retail food outlet. But I love them. Roots, as they form, must adapt to the environment around them. All living things do this. Indeed, it is one of the markers of a thing being alive in the first place. If my carrot is twisted, it likely is so because that carrot had to deftly and slowly grow around an obstruction. Perhaps it was a rock. Perhaps it hugged the rock, and twisted around it, and pulled in some extra minerals. Perhaps not. Either way, the fact that the carrot pulled off this amazing feat of response and variation gives me the feeling that the carrot is more alive. And the more alive it is, the healthier it is for me. And the more the carrot expresses a character distinct to its environment, the more special the carrot must be. This is not inconsistency. This is terroir. {End of ode-to-crooked-carrot.}

I don’t have a problem with the word “consistent.” It is quite a useful word. I have a problem with the word consistent, when it is applied to food, and used to mean sameness, and in a way that sameness means better. Food is nature. Nature is diverse, and gorgeous, and quirky, and varied. Sameness is lameness.

As a former buyer and retailer, farmer, and commercial cook, I know that we need a measure of uniformity to inform profit. And we want our products to be recognizable, and of course we want them always to be good. But if we can preach acceptance, understanding, and, actually, celebration of variation-- a seeking out and working with real nature within all levels of the food system, we would waste less, and taste more, and make more vital connections, moving the needle ever closer to real food.

What I got in this week's box:

sweet peppers
new potatoes
celery
beets
2 large squash/zucchini
pint of okra
pint of shishito peppers
1 bunch onion
1 bunch carrots
2 medium eggplants

What I had leftover from last week:
some carrots
one beet
some onion greens

What I bought or grew to supplement:

1 whole spanish mackerel

1 lb. shrimp

mushrooms

honey

swiss chard (from garden)

cherry tomatoes (from garden)

panko or breadcrumbs

eggs (I trade for these)

grapefruit

orange