Revisiting the broken/not-broken food system question, urban ag edition

Issue 189: Farmer Karen Washington weighs in. Plus, why we need more well-paid food *reporters* and not just writers.

Hello! Welcome to Nosh Box, a lunchtime-ish food newsletter.

Read yesterday’s dispatch: Burger King "solves" climate change with new fartless beef Whoppers

Last week in this newsletter, I grappled with the saying “The food system is broken.” Is it broken? Or are WE broken? Are the inequalities in the food system not a result of something accidentally going off the rails but rather the way the food system has been shaped by those in power? You can read my compilation of a few different perspectives on that topic here.

I once again was thinking about this question this morning as I read an op-ed by Karen Washington, the farmer behind Rise and Root Farm in New York; she’s probably one of the most renowned Black urban farmers in the country. In the essay, she, too, argues that the food system is not broken:

The food system is not broken; it’s working exactly the way it’s supposed to as a caste system based on demographics, economics, and race. If we’re going to transform this food system, we have to look at power and who has power. The current food system is controlled by a handful of people who are predominantly white men.

The point of the essay is to ask the interesting question of whether urban agriculture can be the tool that allows communities to rebuild locally controlled food economies. Her answer is essentially “yes, and…”

She writes:

I hear the promise of urban agriculture, but it’s not going to be fulfilled unless the people in those communities have ownership of land, have the right to grow, and have ownership of an economy that is a base for building from the ground up.

Marginalized communities are surrounded by a charity-based, subsidized, food system. In addition, on every block there’s a fast food restaurant. From Monday to Saturday you can go to a soup kitchen or food pantry. I’m not saying that those things are not important, but they don’t encourage local ownership. In order to change the structure of a charity-based, subsidized food system, people have to understand the language of financial literacy, economic development, and entrepreneurship so that the money that we make in our community stays in our community. That’s number one. Starting a farmers market in communities of color is an opportunity to make money and take ownership.

We have been waiting for support from the USDA for a long time. We have been waiting for the government to solve our economic dilemma, but the only way we’re going to move forward is by building social capital and wealth within communities of color in place of the capitalist system that extracts wealth and resources.

Read her full essay at Bioneers here. Highly recommend it.

Photo of Karen Washington courtesy Bioneers.

And on the subject of needing more well-paid food reporters…

New York chef Kate Telfeyan published an interesting article in The New Republic yesterday in which she called out food media at large for seeming to uncritically lionize chefs while turning a blind eye to their treatment of staff. She describes a symbiotic relationship between “celebrity-hungry chefs and click-hungry writers” and alleges that food journalists rarely talk to line cooks, dishwashers, and servers.

Much like people who rail against the supposed biases of “the media” as if it were a monolithic institution, I do think Telfeyan paints “food media” with a pretty broad brush — though I agree with theses like this one:

We need fewer food writers and more food reporters—more journalists willing to approach the food beat with the determination and skepticism of a good political or crime reporter. This isn’t simply a question of covering abuse and manipulation in kitchens, or mistreatment of employees. It’s about questioning the whole concept of kitchen creativity—asking smart questions about originality, credit, and the act of culinary creation, which is far more collaborative than readers might understand.

(Telfeyan didn’t explicitly mention this, but I think this dichotomy applies to criticism, too. I would argue we should value (and pay) cultural critics who approach food with a political, evaluative, systemic eye just as we do food/restaurant critics. Food needs to claw its way out of the relegated “lifestyle” section.)

And a necessary question: If we accept the thesis that we need more food reporters, who will they be? Will power change hands in any meaningful ways?

And re: talking to restaurant staff, several food writers point out that fear of professional or legal retribution make that proposition easier said than done:

Chris Crowley @chrisecrowley

one of my questions for writers asking "why don't writers talk to regular restaurant workers more?" is have you ever tried to talk to restaurant workers? people are afraid to go on the record about the most benign shit. and they don't necessarily have the time or want to.

Chris Crowley @chrisecrowley

so many of these people are marginalized, working class, or undocumented. they're weighing concerns about speaking out and their possibly precarious livelihoods. let's not even talk about whether or not they trust you. do they trust the media? should they?

Terrence Doyle @TerrenceDoyle

Doing so is difficult for a host of reasons. Workers may be afraid of retribution, and what that could mean for their ability to secure future work. There could be language barriers (good reporters work around this, tbf). Precarious immigration status could be a factor.

But Food and Wine editor Layla Schlack has an idea I can get behind:

Layla Schlack @laylaschlack

The thing is, consumers and media would be OVERJOYED if menus said things like "This salad was developed by our garde manger Jeremy, who gets a portion of the proceeds when someone orders it" or "Sous chef Kai came up with this pasta, check out her cooking blog!"

And finally, Katherine Spiers, a podcast host and former L.A. Weekly food editor, gives us a reading list of writers and articles that actually put in the work. And I think she diagnoses what I view as the real problem, which is not individual writers but rather the editorial structure that undervalues food reporting and outsources it to freelancers rather than full-time writers. This means people writing about food don’t necessarily have the same institutional support and financial resources as staff reporters digging into crime or politics or what-have-you.

From her newsletter, Smart Mouth:

These non-hype pieces that commentators are clamoring for actually do exist. Nicole Taylor on food and African-American history on Martha’s Vineyard, and Juneteenth and Black-owned restaurants. Nneka M. Okona on Cognac, and Savannah’s butchery history. Hannah Selinger’s articles. Cynthia Greenlee’s and Hanna Raskin’s work as both writers and editors. Southern Grit magazine. Here is what the LA Times food section, which has an enviably large full-time staff, featured yesterday. (Amazing what you can do with eight full-time-with-benefits-writers.) Frankly, I sometimes wonder if the people complaining that food media is sheer fluff are clicking on anything besides listicles. There’s such good stuff out there.

Food media does need to change. But that should not be the responsibility of the writers. It’s the institutions that must burn themselves down and start again. If journalists are paid an actual living wage, they can write more of the stories we really want to read.

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Have a great weekend! See you Monday.